Pittsburgh, G20 and Eric Schmidt
author: John Huffman
This year the G20 has come to Pittsburgh which has come as an unexpected surprise to those of us who live in Pittsburgh. I spent the morning at the Pittsburgh Technology Council Pre-G20 event featuring Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.
It was an interesting forum split in to two sessions In the first session for council members, Andre Russo had a “fireside chat” with Eric Schmidt about Pittsburgh’s history of innovation and how today’s entrepreneurs are continuing this legacy.
Session 1: Fireside Chat with Audrey Russo
When outsiders think of Pittsburgh, they still think of us as an industrial city. They think of Andrew Carnegie’s Steel mills and George Westinghouse’s air brakes. The Pittsburghers of years gone by that drove America’s industrial revolution. The Heinz History Center has a great video about this, 250 Years of Pittsburgh Innovation.
What they often miss, is that the legacy of innovation, entrepreneurship, and work ethic is still alive in Pittsburgh today. However, today’s version is one of information technology, robotics, life science, advanced manufacturing, health care, green technology and a myriad of other innovations that will continue to transform the world.
This legacy of innovation, and Pittsburgh long history as an inventor of computer science itself, is what led Google to establish a Pittsburgh office in 1996 on Carnegie Mellon’s campus. Now with over 100 employees in the local office Google is continuing to expand it’s presences with the recent acquisition of Recaptcha to this week, and to continue to invest in the region.
It was also interesting to hear his opinion on the Pittsburgh Technology Council which he said was the best in the country. It is nice to here what others have to see about what we often take for granted.
Part 2: Technology, Innovation, and The Global Economy
In the second session, Eric Schmidt gave a presentation on the democratization of information and the ability for computers to process it, and the overall impact on the global economy.
It is this irrevocable change in access to information on a global scale that is transforming the way the world works. Information is no longer narrowly controlled by the media and governments, but the people themselves. We now have access to everyone’s views, not just the official version. Issues are now really shades of gray since all viewpoints are now accessible giving us an increasing transparent view of the world.
Small companies, like StepOne Systems, are now able to be a micro-multinational, 10 person companies with a global customer base. Not only does the Internet allow access to these customers through email, web sites, and file transfer, but the entire sales, marketing, distribution, and data center requirements can be done on the Internet. The only true capital expense a company needs to be a global player is some laptops for the employees and a link to the Internet.
It is this disruptive technology that is breaking down barriers and creating a global marketplace. Increasingly providing more information to empower the consumer and making the world more interconnected.
Pittsburgh’s G-20 story: Take an expressway from town and disappear into desolate ‘hoods and encounter the civilization of menace. Pittsburgh, a dual city! The glass wonder of PPG Place and/or the G-20 Summit is a faded memory. Here in the ‘hood lives lie abandoned as far as the eye can see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEukcWW5dM0
That is: For the most part, African-American Pittsburgh seems to be invisible, not only to the public relations hucksters who tout Pittsburgh’s successes, but we are equally invisible to the protesters.
Certainly, black Pittsburgh is as proud as anybody is that the black President we worked so hard to elect has selected Pittsburgh as the host of the G-20 Summit. We even enjoy the re-invention of Pittsburgh from a dirty, smoky steel-churning history to the bright, clean, green financial success that the business leaders and politicians boast about so loudly. Nobody is more proud of the Super Bowl winning African-American coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin. But none of that feel-good stuff erases the pain of the stubbornly high unemployment among African American young adults and the staggering dropout rate for young black males from the public school system.
Has Pittsburgh received any money yet for the damages done around town? or for paying extra cops? Last I heard we haven’t gotten any federal aid, reason I maintain we must use local business and keep our hard earn money in our local governments.
Pittsburgh Contractor Mark Bechler