Rappaport Speaks at National Academies Offshoring Conference

On October 24, 2006, Prof. Ted Rappaport provided an invited presentation on U.S. telecommunications research and outsourcing as part of a 2 day conference held at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, DC. The conference included leaders from engineering, economics and trade organizations and included participants from industry and academia. The conference agenda can be found here, and included keynote speeches by Charles Vest, MIT President emeritus and Bob Galvin, Motorola Chairman emeritus.

Like many other presentations from different parts of engineering, Rappaport presented a study demonstrating the rapid falloff of research investment in the U.S. within the past few years. According to his research, of 57 major R&D investment activities by leading global telecom companies, only five projects have been initiated in the US, with the vast majority of research investments being made in Asia.

Rappaport also discussed the scarcity of U.S. citizens in graduate telecommunications research programs across the country and indicated that recently more and more foreign students are beginning to populate the undergraduate curriculum as well. He reported that unlike the early 1980's, when industry seemed to rally behind helping the U.S. build a culture of engineering among U.S. student and professor ranks, today's environment and public policy seems to have no incentives or interest in helping to prop up interest in engineering by U.S. citizens.

Rappaport stated that long term impact to U.S. competitiveness could be disastrous, especially in military or exporting capabilities.

Rappaport's presentation slides and research results may be viewed here.

A recent Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) study, entitled "Renewing US Telecommunications Research," documents concerns about today's US Telecommunications research environment. That book may be downloaded the National Academies Press website, found here.