Technology challenges.

• Position: READERS'FORUM - Letter to the editor

* The November 2009 issue of National Defense included a call for technology in the cover story, "Today's Fights Expose Technological Weak Spots." It also featured editorials calling for management of the industrial base and to cut waste by stopping additional reforms and short articles about acquisition reform, the Army's need for a few good geeks, shortcomings in communication interoperability, and a discussion about whether the Pentagon should pick winners and losers.

All of these issues are linked and deal with policies on how the government acquires technology. If we look at the great inventors in history as well as the Fortune 100 companies, an overlooked similarity should become readily apparent. The vast majority of these technology leaders did not originate in government labs, universities, or existing mega-companies.

Indeed, many of the truly innovative and game changing technologies were the product of people without gold-plated backgrounds and advanced degrees. Here, we should think of Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and other garage inventors who set out to build their dreams. The question to be answered in order to overcome all of the challenges outlined in your articles should be "where are these innovators and how can they be focused on the technical challenges at hand?"

I don't know where the innovators are but they are most likely not found in universities or in the mega-companies. If they do happen to be in these places, they may not have the motivation or opportunity to focus on game-changing technologies. Innovators are most likely found in small businesses where patent issuance is nearly 10 times the rate of big business invention. A glance at any university's licensing budget should be sufficient evidence that academic research (though important) does not result in commercial or usable inventions--this in spite of greater access to money, resources, and cheap labor.

Ignoring these facts, the government makes small business participation in technology innovation near impossible. While a token commitment to SBIR grants does exist, the amounts available in these grants are not...