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http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/business/article/0,1426,MCA_440_1950865,00.html
By Mark Watson
[email protected]
May 10, 2003
Advances in nanotechnology will cause as many changes in people's lives during the next 25 years as the changes that have occurred during the past 100 years.
That's what Steve Jurvetson, managing director of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture capital firm, said Friday at the Center for Managing Emerging Technology's last Visions seminar for the 2002-03 academic year.
Friday's event was held at the university's Rose Theater.
"Over time, I think nanotechnology will have an impact on almost every industry you can think of," Jurvetson said.
Nanotechnology involves using materials at extremely small scales such as the nanometer, which equals one-billionth of a meter.
CMET, which is part of the University of Memphis's FedEx Technology Institute, was originally known as the Institute for Managing Emerging Technology. It was designed to bring cutting-edge technology to local business leaders and to involve local business leaders in the university.
Jurvetson told the CMET crowd about the various nanotechnologies in which his company has invested during the past few years.
He has backed successes such as Hotmail, Interwoven and Kana.
"What we're focusing on are young companies that are trying to change the world," Jurvetson said.
Business 2.0 magazine named Jurvetson Silicon Valley's top venture capitalist, and San Francisco newspapers have tapped him as one of 10 people who will have the greatest impact on Silicon Valley in the 21st Century.
Jurvetson said people - even visionary science fiction writers - tend to view the future as a more-or-less straight, linear continuation of the past, but technological innovation moves exponentially, not in a straight line.
That means that if you might expect a particular technology to show a doubling in efficiency over the next five years, for example, it will instead undergo a tenfold improvement in efficiency.
Nanotechnology will be a big part of that change because matter has properties at that scale that make it more useful for various purposes, Jurvetson said.
This creates a "commonality between fields that normally don't have that interaction," he said. In particular, physicists, life scientists and electrical engineers can perform some functions at nanoscale that they can't at larger scales, he said.
To make devices at this scale, companies are approaching from the "top down" and from the "bottom up," he said. From the "top down," companies are carving gears, wheels and levers that measure 20 nanometers thick, of which Jurvetson showed photos.
From the "bottom up," companies are assembling groups of atoms or molecules that grow or duplicate themselves into something useful. One company is using bacteria extracted from geysers to make nanoscale data storage.
One person in the audience asked how this technology affects and is affected by the environment.
Jurvetson said most nanotech nology is contained within a layer of some sort of protective material, and he expects government will solve the possible threat of environmental problems from nanotechnology as it deals with the more imminent threat of bioterrorism.
"We are going to see more changes that will benefit the human condition than any technology we've seen in the past, all the way from biomedical devices to devices that will help FedEx move packages better," said Jim Thannum, FedEx Services corporate director of Internet engineering.
Before Jurvetson's presentation, Dr. Brian Janz announced that he is stepping down as CMET director and returning his attention to the FedEx Center for Supply Chain Management. Eric Cromwell, FTI assistant director, will now direct CMET.
FTI director Jim Phillips described Jurvetson, who earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in less than three years, as the type of brilliant speaker he hopes to see more of at CMET in the coming year.
Rick Pride, chief information officer at Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics, said, "I think this program does a wonderful job at challenging us to think above and beyond where we are."
- Mark Watson: 529-5874
By Mark Watson
[email protected]
May 10, 2003
Advances in nanotechnology will cause as many changes in people's lives during the next 25 years as the changes that have occurred during the past 100 years.
That's what Steve Jurvetson, managing director of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture capital firm, said Friday at the Center for Managing Emerging Technology's last Visions seminar for the 2002-03 academic year.
Friday's event was held at the university's Rose Theater.
"Over time, I think nanotechnology will have an impact on almost every industry you can think of," Jurvetson said.
Nanotechnology involves using materials at extremely small scales such as the nanometer, which equals one-billionth of a meter.
CMET, which is part of the University of Memphis's FedEx Technology Institute, was originally known as the Institute for Managing Emerging Technology. It was designed to bring cutting-edge technology to local business leaders and to involve local business leaders in the university.
Jurvetson told the CMET crowd about the various nanotechnologies in which his company has invested during the past few years.
He has backed successes such as Hotmail, Interwoven and Kana.
"What we're focusing on are young companies that are trying to change the world," Jurvetson said.
Business 2.0 magazine named Jurvetson Silicon Valley's top venture capitalist, and San Francisco newspapers have tapped him as one of 10 people who will have the greatest impact on Silicon Valley in the 21st Century.
Jurvetson said people - even visionary science fiction writers - tend to view the future as a more-or-less straight, linear continuation of the past, but technological innovation moves exponentially, not in a straight line.
That means that if you might expect a particular technology to show a doubling in efficiency over the next five years, for example, it will instead undergo a tenfold improvement in efficiency.
Nanotechnology will be a big part of that change because matter has properties at that scale that make it more useful for various purposes, Jurvetson said.
This creates a "commonality between fields that normally don't have that interaction," he said. In particular, physicists, life scientists and electrical engineers can perform some functions at nanoscale that they can't at larger scales, he said.
To make devices at this scale, companies are approaching from the "top down" and from the "bottom up," he said. From the "top down," companies are carving gears, wheels and levers that measure 20 nanometers thick, of which Jurvetson showed photos.
From the "bottom up," companies are assembling groups of atoms or molecules that grow or duplicate themselves into something useful. One company is using bacteria extracted from geysers to make nanoscale data storage.
One person in the audience asked how this technology affects and is affected by the environment.
Jurvetson said most nanotech nology is contained within a layer of some sort of protective material, and he expects government will solve the possible threat of environmental problems from nanotechnology as it deals with the more imminent threat of bioterrorism.
"We are going to see more changes that will benefit the human condition than any technology we've seen in the past, all the way from biomedical devices to devices that will help FedEx move packages better," said Jim Thannum, FedEx Services corporate director of Internet engineering.
Before Jurvetson's presentation, Dr. Brian Janz announced that he is stepping down as CMET director and returning his attention to the FedEx Center for Supply Chain Management. Eric Cromwell, FTI assistant director, will now direct CMET.
FTI director Jim Phillips described Jurvetson, who earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in less than three years, as the type of brilliant speaker he hopes to see more of at CMET in the coming year.
Rick Pride, chief information officer at Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics, said, "I think this program does a wonderful job at challenging us to think above and beyond where we are."
- Mark Watson: 529-5874
