Opportunities for international technology transfer in the Pacific Rim in digital technologies

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and other U.S. Government laboratories are placing substantially increased emphasis on moving technology into their facilities. This reflects the reality that considerable state-of-the-art research done in private sector laboratories is increasingly relevant to a variety of government missions, both defense and civilian. ARL has recently initiated a long term program to develop increased technology interchange in the broad area of digital technologies with individuals and institutions in Pacific Rim countries. Much of the ARL effort in the near term will be focused on increasing technical interchange in a number of settings (e.g. conferences, workshops personnel exchanges) with a longer term goal of developing specific cooperative efforts. Such technology interchange can also be leveraged by developing a research network on the World Wide Web with supporting databases-a “Pacific Rim Research Net” leveraging international research efforts in selected areas. Electronically assisted networks using a combination of workshops and electronic collaboration technology (e.g. Web servers) facilitated in the U.S. are being used successfully by several international research communities. We believe that such a network, initially focusing on digital technologies, could have a strongly catalyzing effect on non-proprietary/unclassified research conducted by government, industry and academia in the U.S. and other Pacific Rim countries. Along with a description of our current approach on international technology transfer this paper presents some of our exploratory ideas for developing longer term structures for communication and cooperation-including a Pacific Rim Research Net