The Hoover Institution and Stanford University School of Engineering announced an innovative project and publication dedicated to exploring the breakthroughs and policy implications of cutting-edge technologies that are shaping our societies and economies.
In this video, the Review’s esteemed co-chairs, Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution, and Jennifer Widom, dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University, provide highlights of this unique collaboration. The partnership combines scientific expertise from leading Stanford researchers in ten emerging technology areas with policy insights provided by the Hoover fellowship.
Rice and Widom describe how the Review will conduct a comprehensive examination and analysis of the policy implications surrounding Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology, Space Technologies, and other critical areas. The video strongly emphasizes the imperative of using these technologies responsibly and sheds light on potential risks if autocracies and other malign actors gain undue advantages.
Further, the video underscores the pivotal role academia plays in nurturing scientific research and understanding. Rice and Widom illustrate how the Stanford Emerging Technology Review aims to initiate a vital conversation about navigating our rapidly evolving future. This dialogue, led by expert voices at the forefront of scientific research and public policy, emphasizes the necessity for responsible innovation and thoughtful consideration of the challenges that lie ahead.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. From January 2005 to January 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first black woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for national security affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.
Jennifer Widom is the Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the School of Engineering and the Fletcher Jones Professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She served as Computer Science Department chair from 2009-2014 and School of Engineering senior associate dean from 2014-2016. Widom received her Bachelor's degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 1982 and her Computer Science Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1987. She was a research staff member at the IBM Almaden Research Center before joining the Stanford faculty in 1993. Her research interests span many aspects of nontraditional data management. She is an ACM Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award in 2007, the ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award in 2015, and the EPFL-WISH Foundation Erna Hamburger Prize in 2018.
