September 22, 2003
Nanotech for all humanity

I was probably on campus with Mick the day this Stanford seminar was held. UC Berkeley professor Arun Majumdar made interesting points:

Majumdar stood back a bit and suggested that the nanotech industry is passing from its initial phase-creating instrumentation and building blocks-to its development phase of putting the blocks together into useful things. And he made a plea that we direct these efforts to grand challenges that will affect all humanity, not simply provide more toys for the wealthiest humans.

"Only about a hundred million people in the world have incomes over $20,000 per year," he observed. "But we direct all of our technology development at this minority, and assure ourselves that the benefit will trickle down to the majority at the bottom, earning less than $2,000 per year. It's time to look at the needs of that majority-with little to spend, but with huge needs and huge numbers."

Techweb - Power Grid Could Benefit From Nanotech, Stanford Symposium Says

Posted by Dave at September 22, 2003 04:13 PM