Pearl Chin, Foresight Institute Research Fellow and former President, is now blogging at BestThinking and in a recent post discusses the future of nanotechnology. From “Nanotechnology Needs PR“:
I was invited to a select salon at Science House with Hybrid Reality Institute to discuss the future of nanotechnology a few weeks ago. It turned out to be a lot of fun meeting interesting people and speaking about what I love but it did dawn on me that during that dinner that people thought nanotechnology was no longer happening. …
Now I have not written about nanotechnology for a couple of years now and most of the hype done by others in this sector which I did not care for has died down much in the last several years. This does not by any means nanotechnology has stalled. You just have not heard about it so much because the PR machines stalled because those responsible left for greener nanotechnology pastures. …
James Jorasch, founder of the Science House, at that salon mentioned that perhaps nanotechnology needed a PR campaign again and I would have to agree. However, it may need some new blood and energy injected into it.
Does Nanotechnology Need PR, and, if so, what kind of PR? Since its founding in 1986, Foresight has focused on advanced nanotechnology—high throughput atomically precise manufacturing—what it will be like, how we get there, the opportunities it offers, and the dangers we want to avoid. Our principal efforts have been the Feynman Prizes for progress toward Feynman’s vision of advanced nanotechnology, our Foresight Institute Molecular Nanotechnology Conferences, and the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems.
Meanwhile, there has been enormous progress in the broad area of nanoscale science and technology, supported in large part by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative and similar programs in other countries. Technologies developed from this research have already led to a large number of consumer products identified by their manufacturers as nanotechnology-based. As of early 2011, The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies has identified 1014 such consumer products. Looking ahead a few years, the Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges focused on the near-term and intermediate-term development of nanotechnologies (not necessarily atomically precise) that could address major challenges facing humanity.
Given that “nanotechnology” is an umbrella term covering a range of topics, is Pearl right that nanotechnology needs a PR campaign, and one with new energy? If so, what kinds of efforts would be most effective? Do we need to do a better job making the long-term goal of advanced nanotechnology more vivid? Plotting paths to get there from where we are now? Highlighting exciting laboratory progress and current applications? Identifying intermediate goals that might accelerate progress toward long-term goals? What efforts should Foresight prioritize?
