President Obama has recently been talking about his plan to “Win the Future.” Whether it’s taking steps to reform our education system, rebuilding our infrastructure, or encouraging breakthroughs in technology, the phrase is about marshaling the country’s best and brightest to solve today’s problems. As the President put it, “To win the future, we have to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world, tapping the creativity and imagination of our people.”
The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit that kicks off today just outside of Washington, D.C. highlights the amazing ingenuity of our citizens and businesses. This annual summit showcases the most advanced and revolutionary breakthroughs in energy technology today. These aren’t base hits. They’re the potential home runs – the breakthroughs in clean energy innovation that could make it affordable to put solar panels on every house in America, put millions of electric vehicles on the road or even harness wind energy that’s miles and miles above the ground a lot sooner than you might think is possible. We’re talking about truly changing the world – and making the U.S. the global leader in clean energy technologies.
Over the next three days, key players from academia, business and government are converging to discuss exactly how we can bring about the next Industrial Revolution in clean energy technologies. With keynote remarks from Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Bank of America Chairman Charles Holliday, and Senators Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, and Mark Udall – the program itself promises to be a real treat. (full program)
Stay tuned to the Energy Blog over the next few days to see exclusive video interviews, inside looks from the Technology Showcase and in-depth profiles of featured projects.
Also be sure to follow along on Twitter, as we will be live-tweeting the events tomorrow with hash tag #ARPAE.
Article by Dr. Arun Majumdar, Director of the Advanced Research Programs Agency – Energy.
