IMS Global: The Digital Promise Project is seeking to establish the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DO IT), the proceeds from which would be used to provide this type of research. How would the trust be funded? And how much money is needed to adequately support the type of R&D that is needed?
LG: There is no more publicly owned frontier land to help pay for this initiative, but today's equivalent is the publicly owned telecommunications spectrum, the radio and television frequencies that Congress has mandated be auctioned off for commercial uses such as cell telephones and digital transmissions. We said that eventually the interest earned on just 20 percent of the revenues received from those auctions of this publicly owned resource would amount to over a billion dollars a year. That trust fund money should be spent, at the direction of Congress, on critically needed R&D to help bring our schools and universities, our libraries and museums, our essential nonprofit civic and scientific organizations into the digital age. The trust fund would be overseen by a blue ribbon board of directors, recommended by those in the disciplines it serves, nominated by the President and confirmed by both houses of Congress. DO IT would be modeled on the National Science Foundation. We need that kind of decision-making authority so that the best ideas in education and learning can be funded, and partnerships can be established with the private sector, with states and local school districts, as well as with libraries and museums and similar public institutions. DO IT would start in a modest way, and build up its funding just as NSF has done since its launching in 1950.
IMS Global: Who would own this trust fund?
LG: The federal treasury would hold the auction revenues, which would be treated as an asset of the federal government. The interest from those revenues would be spent by DO IT under the direction of its independent board, with annual oversight by Congress.
IMS Global: What kind of support are you getting for this proposed legislation?
LG: We have strong bipartisan sponsorship of the bills in both the Senate and the House (The Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act, S 1023 and HR 2512). Of course, given what Congress is up against these days with the budget deficit and the war, our goal now is to get this proposal started and its operations tested in a modest way. Given the pace of technological change, and the essential need to transform the quality and modernize our systems of education, we want to see a modest fund established as soon as possible, the board of directors appointed, and the priorities set by the DO IT board.
