December 14, 2010 –
Dooley unveils plaque denoting institutes’ new name honoring Gray Davis. (All photos: Paul Kennedy)
On Dec. 7, 2000, California Gov. Gray Davis and former University of California President Richard Atkinson announced the creation of four Institutes for Science & Innovation, including a joint award to UC Irvine and UC San Diego for the formation of CALIT2.
Exactly 10 years later, on Dec. 7, 2010, Davis and Atkinson were joined by a host of other founding fathers, directors and dignitaries, chancellors past and present, faculty, staff and other well-wishers as they paid tribute to CALIT2 on the 10th anniversary of its inception.
The celebration also served as a backdrop to the unveiling on both campuses of plaques rededicating the institutes as the Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation, in honor of Davis’ instrumental contribution to their establishment.
UCI Chancellor Michael Drake and UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox kicked off the program at their respective campuses, which were joined by high-speed, real-time HD videoconferencing. Together, the audiences watched video testimonials from Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli and Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs, both early supporters of the institute, as well as former UCSD engineering dean Harry Conn and current UC President Mark Yudof.
Former UC President Atkinson addresses both auditoriums.
A single photo includes both groups of dignitaries.
Daniel Dooley and Steven Beckwith, representing the UC Office of the President, were scheduled to unveil matching plaques at each campus. Beckwith, however, whose flight to San Diego was delayed by fog, addressed the audience later in the program.After the plaque was unveiled, dignitaries in both locations posed for photographs which, thanks to the technology,allowed everyone at both campuses to appear in a single frame.
Keynote speaker Davis paid tribute to the many leaders in business and academia whose contributions transformed the concept of multidisciplinary collaboration into thriving, productive research institutes. And he emphasized the collaborative effort that raised funds to support the institutes’ launch. There’s a lot of private sector investment here, which I really wanted,” he said. “I knew that if great companies and the federal government were investing, these institutes would survive for decades to serve humanity and make this a cleaner, greener, safer world.”
A host of research demonstrations included interactive media system “Active Space.”
A robotic wheelchair.
Gray also lauded the state of California itself, calling its progressive culture and wealth of research universities a key factor in the institutes’ successes. “In California … we dream big dreams and we’re willing to take big risks,” he said. “They can duplicate this [concept] in London and Tokyo and Beijing but they can’t recreate this culture that is very unique to California.”
Davis called the financing of the four science-and-innovation institutes a “down payment on California’s future and an investment in the next generation.” CALIT2 has taken that investment seriously, leveraging the original $100 million in funding from the state into $715 million in support from a wide range of corporate partners, federal grants, foundations and international institutions. Its collaborative approach and forward-thinking research agenda will ensure a bright future, Davis predicted. “All of the work done here and at the other institutes will push back the frontier of knowledge and serve generations to come,” he noted. “The future is unlimited.”
Bass player Dresser, in San Diego, and trombonist Dessen, in Irvine, perform telematically via CALIT2’s high-bandwidth network.
Others who took the podium to reflect on CALIT2’s first 10 years included Atkinson; CALIT2 Director Larry Smarr; former chancellors Ralph Cicerone (UCI) and Bob Dynes (UCSD), who were the proposal’s co-PIs; and Nick Alexopoulos, former UCI engineering dean.
In addition to lauding the past, the celebration also focused on CALIT2’s next 10 years, which Smarr said will fast-track the digitization of energy, the environment, healthcare and culture. “There are amazing challenges on a scale humanity hasn’t faced before, so it can’t be business as usual. We don’t have the time,” he said.
Guest speakers Dan Dooley in Irvine and Dr. Drew Senyei in San Diego touched on the ways these new technologies will impact current and future global dilemmas.
Dooley, a former water and environmental attorney whose responsibilities in the UC Office of the President include agriculture and natural resources, addressed the increasing worldwide demand for food production and decreasing water supplies. He said the state’s aging infrastructure, deteriorating ecosystems and fragmented institutional structure can benefit greatly from sensing technologies, data integration systems and advanced modeling capabilities. “Increasingly, it’s not about biological and life sciences, it’s about information management,” he said. “There are enormous challenges but every challenge creates enormous opportunities.”
Senyei, managing director of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, was trained as a physician. He called the current healthcare system “pretty fragmented,” citing ineffective drugs, disjointed care and spiraling costs. He predicted that advances in genomics will drive a healthcare revolution that will usher in improved predictive diagnostics, personalized drugs, regenerative medicine and better vaccines.
“These technologies converging today will deliver much healthier patients and generate lots of data, which is a two-edged sword,” he said. “I believe there is tremendous opportunity for academic and industrial partnerships in organizing and making healthcare much more effective.”
A telematic music performance spanning both campuses closed the morning program. Professors Michael Dessen, on the trombone at UCI, and Mark Dresser, playing the string bass at UCSD, performed in synch via CALIT2’s high-bandwidth network. The presentation, which drew on the performers’ shared history of exploration in jazz and contemporary music, utilized custom software that allowed for multichannel, CD-quality audio with minimal delay.
After a catered lunch on the CALIT2 Building patio, UCI visitors got up-close-and-personal with nearly 25 research projects underway in the institute’s labs. From nanoengineering, materials characterization and microscopy to interactive media, green IT, visualization and wireless technologies, guests viewed a series of demonstrations that underscore the progress has CALIT2 made in its first decade and its research goals for the future.
The underlying sentiment of the two-campus celebration was perhaps best summarized by Dan Dooley. “These institutes began as a dream, which over the last 10 years have achieved successes far beyond, perhaps, what even those involved at the time thought to be possible,” he said.
“Today, we celebrate our success and recommit ourselves to invigorating and continuing this model to address future challenges for California and the world.”
— Anna Lynn Spitzer
