2016 Issue

minor process improvements (such as typi- cal in quality programs) or enhancements of existing products or services (in tech- nology products, known as product spin). Incremental innovation results in reduced product price over time, driving products into commodities. The great body of what is referred to as innovation is, in fact, incre- mental innovation. Architectural innovation is rearrangement of parts to reconfigure a product. Companies build product brands based upon this type of innovation. Radi- cal innovation creates a revolutionary new product class. All three types of innovation bring large economic benefits [29], but radi- cal innovations can quite literally change the world. PLATO was a radical innovation. LIMITS With development of the Internet and low cost-high performance computing through the 1990s married to public policies promot- ing reduced funding for education, online learning received renewed attention and conventional television broadcast of mate- rial moved to the Internet. The current Presi- dent of Stanford University is an electrical engineer. He was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2012 “for pioneering the RISC processor architecture and for leadership in computer engineering and higher educa- tion.” His leadership experience with online learning has led him to believe that online education is inevitable in some form [21]. As technology reduces online content de- livery cost, the remaining question is what missing pedagogical elements impede further adoption of online education. If these missing elements are human inter- action such as psychological support for young students or the Socratic Method for older students [26], then perhaps advances in artificial intelligence (AI) present the pacing technological limit for ubiquitous online learning. CONCLUSION Some say that we live in an era of techni- cal stagnation [19] in which revolutionary innovations are more rare than during the period in which the transistor, the integrat- ed circuit and PLATO were invented (the Golden Age). Ongoing reductions in fund- ing for research universities and reduced R&D investment (except in dot coms [28]) and our national anti-intellectual malaise should worry everyone. Nevertheless, past federal technical leadership initiatives that created PLATO and DARPA’s Grand Chal- lenge launched technologies that continue to evolve today. Google currently has a small fleet of fully autonomous automo- biles driving around Silicon Valley [20]. The University of Illinois Coordinated Sciences Lab continues the tradition of computing innovation to nanoscale beyond-CMOS device fabrics, working to redefine comput- ing. This effort uses today’s contemporary collaboration environment by teaming with UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan, Princeton, Stanford, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara [37]. Illinois also currently houses the fastest supercomputer at any university (peak performance of more than 13 quadrillion calculations per second, 1.5 petabytesmemory, 25 petabytes disk space) [38]. Although there are serious budget issues facing modern research universities and concerns about innovation capabilities within corporations, exciting research work does continue. Here, the University of Utah’s Marriott Library has sponsored today’s sym- posium to promote advances in education. If Plato were alive today, he would approve of the J. WillardMarriott Library’s on-going ef- forts to continue his philosophical tradition, in Plato’s words, for our state [to] behold the light of day [30]. References 1. Jowett,B.(1972),TheRepublicandOtherWorks (101) (B. Jowett, translator). New York: Anchor Books. (Original work published circa 380 BC) 2. Kuhn, T. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 3. Mintzberg, H. (1979). The Structure of Orga- nizations: A Synthesis of Research (p 293). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 4. Pressman, D. (1988), Patent It Yourself, 2nd Ed (5/9). Berkeley, CA: Nolo Press. 5. University of Maryland University College. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http:// bit.ly/24UmmS5. 6. John von Neumann (June 30, 1945). First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, Contract No. W-670-ORD-4926 Between the and the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering University of Penn- sylvania. 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