turning broadband into economic impact: we need to help the average person become an innovator chris...
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TURNING BROADBANDINTO ECONOMIC IMPACT:
WE NEED TO HELP THE AVERAGE PERSON BECOME AN INNOVATOR
CHRIS SCAFFIDI
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCEOREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
POSITIVE ECONOMIC IMPACTSOF BROADBAND ADOPTION
• Research has compared demographically similar counties (prior to broadband availability) that had different levels of broadband adoption and economic impacts
• The research found that broadband adoption improved:• Median household income
• Unemployment rate
• Total employment
• Numbers of companies
• Largely consistent with results from other studies
Whitacre et al, 2013, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239876
SO WHAT ARE ADOPTERS DOING WITH BROADBANDTHAT ACCOUNTS FOR ECONOMIC IMPACTS?
Application Proportion of internet traffic
Netflix 28.88%
YouTube 15.43%
HTTP 10.66%
BitTorrent 9.23%
SSL 2.39%
MPEG 2.30%
Hulu 2.16%
iTunes 1.71%
Flash Video 1.53%
Other (remainder)Sandvine, 2013, http://www.sandvine.com/
Top 10 Peak Period Applications - North America, Fixed Access
Reasonable conclusion:Watching
movies makes you rich?
http://www.repugnant-conclusion.com/matrix-podgrown.jpg
A SELECTION OF MORE PLAUSIBLE PARTIAL EXPLANATIONS
• “the economic impact of broadband is higher when promotion of the technology is combined with stimulus of innovative businesses that are tied to new applications”
• English translation: Broadband adoption helps your economy if local businesses do something innovative with it
• “broadband has a stronger productivity impact in sectors with high transaction costs, such as financial services, or high labour intensity, such as tourism and lodging”
• English translation: Broadband adoption helps your economy if it helps people find and buy your products and services
• BUT “broadband enables the adoption of more efficient business processes and leads to capital-labour substitution and, therefore loss of jobs”
• English translation: Broadband adoption can reduce local employment while raising business efficiency and profitsIntl. Telecommunications Union, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/treg/broadband/ITU-BB-Reports_Impact-of-Broadband-on-the-Economy.pdf
A WORKING DEFINITION OF INNOVATOR
COMMUNITIES AS USERS AND PRODUCERS
“Most entrepreneurial activity starts in the home, in the garage or the spare bedroom.”
- Craig Settles (this morning)
“32% of households work from home or have a home-based business”
- Michael Curri (this afternoon)
HOW TO HELP PEOPLE TO BECOME INNOVATORS?
• Scenario (“The Average American”):• High-school diploma
• Full-time worker (not an owner)
• Married with kids
• Owns a home & car
• Lives in native state
• Some discretionary income
• How to help this person to become an innovator?
O'Keefe, "The Average American", 2005, http://www.amazon.com/The-Average-American-Extraordinary-Ordinary/dp/B00AK3U7PA
SHORT ANSWER: I DON’T KNOW
• I work with students in college, not with average people.• School of Electrical Engineering, Oregon State University
• But • If I tell you what I’m doing
• And if you tell me what you’re doing
• Then maybe we can find an answer together
EXAMPLES OF WHAT EECS@OSU IS DOING TO HELP STUDENTS BECOME INNOVATORS
Curricular Extracurricular
Other-directed Senior capstoneIntel Learning Lab
CollaboratoryOpen Source Lab
Student-directedSoftware Engineering I
Web developmentMobile/cloud development
App clubApp Hackathon/Challenge
UPTIC
EXAMPLES OF OTHER-DIRECTED, CURRICULAR PROJECTS
• Every senior in CS and ECE must complete a senior project• Most projects are proposed by local companies or OSU colleges
• Small fee for the company; in exchange, 2-4 students @ 4 hrs/week ea.
• Projects span senior year, with big Expo at the end
• Example projects (from the 2013-2014 cohort):• Campus Shuttle Tracking (for OSU Transportation and Parking)
• Immersive 3D Visualization System (for OSU Geomatics)
• Monitoring system for distributed manufacturing (for HP)
• Video Game Dynamic Scene Builder (for Jubal Games)
• Smart Navigation for Aviation (for Garmin)
EXAMPLES OF OTHER-DIRECTED, EXTRACURRICULAR PROJECTS
• Multiple programs for getting involved• Intel Learning Lab (freshmen-specific), Open Source Lab (OSS-focused),
Collaboratory (commercially-oriented)
• Sponsored by Intel, Tektronix, Google, Schooner, TDS Telecom, and others
• Example student projects:• AI agents that play video games
• App that turns an iPad into a very convenient oscilloscope
• Infrastructure for hosting open source projects
• Tools to validate processors
• Tools for managing security configuration on laptops
EXAMPLES OF STUDENT-LED CURRICULAR PROJECTS
• Coursework where students must imagine their own projects, from scratch, with minimal external direction• Software Engineering I, Web development, Mobile/cloud development
• Examples of projects:• New system to alert residents of local disease outbreaks
• New system to crowdsource technical support issues (for a fee)
• New system that evaluates your nutrition based on your grocery bill
• New system for you & friends to track and rate wines
• New system for finding local deals
• New system to place order at local business & pick it up later
EXAMPLES OF STUDENT-LED EXTRACURRICULAR PROJECTS
• Different programs, for different levels of commitment• App club (periodic gatherings), App Hackathon/Challenge (3-month project
commitment), UPTIC (Undergraduates Partnering Toward Innovation Commercialization, i.e., start a company)
• Local companies provide mentors, prizes, and judges
• Examples of projects:• New games (including word games, reaction-time games, & puzzle games)
• New app for teaching about the moon (1M+ downloads)
• New app for assessing ripeness of fruit (“Just Ripe”)
• New system for measuring user emotional engagement in games
• New system to shop many sites at once, with rewards for shoppers
SCREENSHOTS OF SOME STUDENT-LED PROJECTS
Order coffee for pickupJustin Ortowski
SCREENSHOTS OF SOME STUDENT-LED PROJECTS
3D terrain rendering in appPadraic McGraw
SCREENSHOTS OF SOME STUDENT-LED PROJECTS
Find local deals and buy localNicole Phelps
SCREENSHOTS OF SOME STUDENT-LED PROJECTS
Rewards users for shopping many sites at one timeDarren Marshall, Lyndsay Toll
http://www.buybott.com
SCREENSHOTS OF SOME STUDENT-LED PROJECTS
In realtime, one playerdesigns a game thatanother player seesIslam Almusaly
REFLECTIONS ONSTUDENT-DIRECTED PROJECTS(VERSUS OTHER-DIRECTED)
• Strengths:• Great for giving students experience with generating ideas
• Necessary for producing leaders (vs just another bunch of followers)
• Weaknesses:• Very difficult to get finished projects out into practice
• Can be hard to obtain funding if commercial benefits are unclear
REFLECTIONS ONEXTRACURRICULAR PROJECTS(VERSUS CURRICULAR)
• Strengths:• Topics and technologies unconstrained by course learning outcomes
• Flexible commitment level is acceptable
• Weaknesses:• Extracurricular can mean low-priority for students => low-impact
• Challenging to find mentors for the students when payoff is unclear
REFLECTIONS ON WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
• Ideally…• Give learners experience with generating ideas
• Achieve high motivation for learners, mentors, and sponsors
• Allow flexible level of commitment and use of technologies
• Put finished projects out into practice
• … in a way that also works well for the Average Oregonian.
SO HOW TO HELP “AVERAGE OREGONIAN”BECOME AN INNOVATOR? A FEW IDEAS…
• Option 1: Send Average Oregonian back to school• Counsel Average Oregonian to use some discretionary income to take
innovation-centric community college or eCampus courses?
• That might work for people who can afford it, if we can find ways of providing them with adequate mentors + sponsors.
SO HOW TO HELP “AVERAGE OREGONIAN”BECOME AN INNOVATOR? A FEW IDEAS…
• Option 2: Help Average Oregonian to attend school vicariously• Give businesspeople, residents, employees, or other people the
experience of innovating while remotely working with students?
• Not just to critique and to advise, but to do.
• That might work for people who have the interest + time to make it a priority, if we can assure students do the same.
SO HOW TO HELP “AVERAGE OREGONIAN”BECOME AN INNOVATOR? A FEW IDEAS…
• Option 3: Create school-like experiences outside of school• Start a wave of “Maker-Spaces” using pooled funds contributed by
businesses, schools, local governments, and entrepreneurs?
• Maybe a kind of “Maker Space” focused on “how to use broadband innovatively in your business”?
• That might work for a very broad range of our population, if our institutions (above) are willing to part with money + time.
SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
• Turning broadband into economic impact requires helping Average Oregonians to become innovators
• This is not a solved problem
• Can we find a solution by working together?
Contact: Chris Scaffidi, [email protected]
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University
BUT THAT WAS BROADBAND ADOPTION,NOT AVAILABILITY
• Increasing broadband availability, by itself, did not impact many economic measures
• In fact, for some population categories, increased availability DECREASED some economic measures• The researchers hypothesized that broadband availability enabled
residents to consume products / services offered by non-local businesses instead of those from local businesses that had not yet adopted broadband-based business practices.