Duane Blackburn, deputy director of MITRE’s Center for Data-Driven Policy discussed with MeriTalk the upcoming purpose and benefits of the AFCEA TechNet Emergence Conference.
As described by MeriTalk, “the TechNet Emergence conference is focusing on the emerging technologies of our time—very much aligned with the White House’s list of critical and emerging technologies. Think supply chain, data integrity, IoT cybersecurity, and quantum computing—and how the use of those technologies will evolve over the next three years across the nation for the federal government and private sector.
But second, the conference delves into the categories of 'horizon' technologies that will take center stage over the next three to eight years—things like AI, biotech, semiconductors and microelectronics, and next-gen telecom.
It’s hard enough to grasp the complexities of just one or two of these, and the promise of the TechNet Emergence conference is to provide the ground-level truth on the status and promise of each, the connections and interdependencies across them, and where the nation is looking to go with them.”
“We’re at a crossroads because there’s a handful of emerging technologies that have huge potential. We’ve run across these types of major innovations multiple times throughout the years—we had the transistor, computers, internet, wireless, etc." Blackburn explains. "But now, there are several world-changing technologies all happening at the same time. We need to collectively understand that what we do now with these technologies will drive national security and economic prosperity for the next several decades as these technologies combine.”