Obama Launches Competition for Three New Manufacturing Innovation Institutes | Hacker News Reader

Obama Launches Competition for Three New Manufacturing Innovation Institutes

whitehouse.gov

29 pointson3dprinting12 comments

Canada has a ton of these types of public-private investments in technology. Attempting to mimic the productivity of market capital investment in technology; in order to bring some sort of meritocratic process to spending the money.

But even with that structure, it never seems to produce anything interesting.

It ends up with highly beurcractic money distribution institutions such as MaRS [1] (which is high criticized in our tech scene) where money primarily goes to lawyers and high paid ex-industry executives. Aka non-entrepreneurs.

There's a big lack of accountability and money still goes to those who have friends higher up in the semi-public institutions. Aka the friends of the ex-industry executives they hire.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaRS_Discovery_District

Like most government "partner" projects, this one will most likely end with the big corp sucking as much free money from the feds (i.e. us the taxpayers) as they can, then after the initial domestic project is built out, they'll dismantle everything in the States and ship it off to the part of the world that has the cheapest labor pool. The rich get richer, and the taxpayers get shafted once again.

"...a model based on approaches that that other countries have successfully deployed."

I think they're referring, mainly, to the Fraunhofer Society for the advancement of applied research, which started in Germany, but now has centers in other countries (including the US).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society

No one has ever satisfactorily explained to me how the government can "invest" in something.

The government gives money to some organisation, event, or person. That money is an enabler which allows the recipient to achieve more than they otherwise would have. The government gets a return which is (hopefully) greater than the initial outlay; this return may be in the form of money or it may in the form of more intangible benefits such as higher productivity.

What's not to get?

Is this like all of that "investment" that Obama did in green energy, that just happened to primarily go to his largest donors?

Don't ask me. I live in New Zealand, and my statements were general to all (liberal democratic) governments.

No, my understanding is that most investments are in the form of (1) grants, e.g. by the National Institutes of Health, to public or private entities that can perform research toward a particular published goal, and (2) loans, e.g. by the Department of Energy (DoE), also to either public or private entities toward a particular goal.

For example, in 2009, the U.S. DoE loaned Tesla USD465 million as part of the $8 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.

About the 'largest donors' part, I think that bit's quite overblown by the conservative media. For example, though I'm not sure if Tesla had any Obama connection, it was held up as an constant example of wasteful spending through the 2012 election and until it had its first profitable quarter this year and paid back its loans early.

The defense tech example mentioned in the article is compelling, but I think the most exciting thing that will come from 3D printing is the ability to print non-organic materials to build materials in space, where transportation logistics are a little more complicated than shipping stuff across the Pacific.

So how is that money actually spent. Is it going to go into corporation pockets and create new patents or are they going to help us build new printers by publishing the specs ?

It sounds like the 5 institutes mentioned at the top are able to put in proposals for projects that oriented towards the goal of each of the 3 individual institutes. Also there's this:

"Federal funds will be matched by industry co-investment, support from state and local governments, and other sources."

Also to answer your question, from what I understand DOD and DOE scientists generally publish whatever isn't deemed classified. But then there's this:

"Like the pilot institute, these Institutes are expected to become financially self-sustaining"

I can't imagine a research institute becoming financially self sustaining without licensing patents, unless they're going to start producing and selling devices themselves.

No real revolution in 3D printing will come from the US government. It is busy trying to chase down CAD files for 3DP guns. It will likewise try to chase down CAD files for medical devices and pharmaceuticals. It will fail, but it will waste a lot of money in the process.

Want to promote 3DP innovation? Rather than blow millions on manufacturing institutes, we should just tell Beth McCormick[1] in DDTC[2] to stand down and stop harassing[3] Defcad, the real innovators in 3D printing. Because heavy-handed enforcement of ITAR by USG will just drive 3DP overseas, just as it has driven satellite manufacturing overseas [4,5].

[1]: http://m.state.gov/md137729.htm

[2]: http://www.pmddtc.state.gov

[3]: http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/5050

[4]: http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/3837

[5]: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post...

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