FED Essay Contest
I would like to announce a new initiative being sponsored by the Foundation for Enterprise Development. It is the Creating Wealth by Sharing Wealth Nationwide Essay Contest, which is open to students at participating colleges and universities. The contest is designed to energize a national dialogue with students around their views on alternative corporate structures that can improve sustainability, performance, corporate culture, and alignment of incentives in companies of all kinds. The first contest will ask participants to write an essay of between 500 and 750 words on our book The SAIC Solution. There are currently more than 350 students participating at seven different universities, and I believe it will continue to grow. The FED is looking for additional supporters for this program. The idea is a good one, and I hope you will take a moment to look into it.
General Atomics
As many of you know, General Atomics is located here in San Diego. I worked there for 12 years, before I started SAIC. The current owners have created some very useful products. One such product that everyone is familiar with is their line of military and civilian drones, including the Predator. The Predator drone is being used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan for reconnaissance and attack. The company’s newest idea is a compact nuclear power reactor which will be powered by the heat from spent fuel rods from large reactors. According to GA, their process would be able to unlock a significant amount of the energy contained within these fuel rods. In the United States alone, this works out to the energy equivalent of 9 trillion barrels of oil. I will keep a close eye on the development of this new take on power generation and report my findings in this blog.
Other Items of Interest
Last Saturday, February 27th, the whole family drove to the Four Seasons Aviara Resort in Carlsbad. We attended the annual Heart of San Diego Gala for UCSD’s Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center. The UCSD Medical Center cardiovascular department is building new buildings, hiring new staff, and expanding its coverage to become the preeminent cardiovascular center in Southern California. This is an important program for the area, and I support it.
On Friday, the day before our drive to Carlsbad, we took the boat to Oceanside. This was primarily a pleasure trip. However, this upcoming Friday we will be doing ocean sampling for Craig Venter. We’re anxiously waiting to hear the results from our previous sampling efforts and from his around-the-world expedition on Sorcerer II. We’ll let you know.
— Bob