Bush appoints high-tech advisory council

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By Jennifer Disabatino

(IDG) -- Meeting for the first time Wednesday, the newly appointed President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) laid out its priorities, which included ways that IT can help in antiterrorism efforts.

The council will provide guidance on policy but won't make specific recommendations about what types of technology the government should use or support, council members said.

The 22 members will work under co-chairmen John H. Marburger III, President Bush's science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Floyd Kvamme, a partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

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Among those on the council are Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Computer Corp.; Robert Herbold, executive vice president of Microsoft Corp.; Gordon Moore, chairman emeritus of Intel Corp.; and Norman Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp.

At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Marburger and Kvamme discussed the priorities laid out at the meeting with Bush. The four general areas the council will focus on are: IT infrastructure and broadband access; technology transfer and investment in science programs; increasing energy efficiency; and the science and technology behind combating terrorism. The latter was a topic of much discussion, they said, given recent events, but it's unlikely that any of their efforts will have an effect on antiterrorism campaigns in the near future.

"The war at home and abroad is going to be a technological and technologically intensive war," Marburger said, "There's no question that the terrorism panel is different than the others...But we're really asking that panel to focus on medium- and long-term projects. I don't see that that is any higher a priority."

Marburger said the council had already discussed the problem of interoperability, or lack thereof, among databases at government agencies that track suspected terrorists and their activities.

Marburger and Kvamme said members haven't yet been assigned to specific areas.