CTA Chief Shapiro Sees US Unity on Major Tech Issues
The U.S. “is finding unity on a number of major tech issues,” said CTA President Gary Shapiro. Democrats and Republicans agree with the American public “that we need high-speed broadband in our homes,” he told the first virtual CES this week. “We must accelerate 5G deployment and extend broadband to underserved urban and rural areas. Our use of digital health technology has skyrocketed during the pandemic. We must keep the momentum going by removing unneeded and outmoded rules.”
Government needs to set “national rules to promote investment and deployment of self-driving vehicles,” said Shapiro. “But like the internet itself, innovation has no boundaries. It’s bigger than one country or one political party, and it has the potential to lift everyone up.” With the new Biden administration and new Congress, “we hope to resume thoughtful, fact-based discussions about how tech is a force for good,” he said Tuesday. “Our industry needs reasonable guardrails, so tech companies know what is legal and what is not, and that allows them to innovate.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is “stunned” with the level of economic activity and productivity, “and even social connection, that we’ve been able to sustain,” despite all the “constraints” of COVID-19, he said. Nadella’s unannounced guest keynote let him plug the technologies Microsoft brings to this show as CTA's cloud technology contractor.
Maintaining connectivity through the pandemic is “thanks to the digital technology platforms and paradigm that we currently have,” said Nadella. “I even shudder to think what the world would have been if we didn’t have all of this.” Think about how “Xbox is changing” in its community reach, he said, or “even what Windows and Teams and PCs have been able to do for people who needed devices.” Even the smallest retailers were able to “build an app for curbside pickup," he said.
His company thinks “the future of work is going to require a lot more flexibility” in how people “collaborate” and learn, replied Nadella to a question from Karen Chupka, CTA executive vice president-CES. “How do we ensure their well-being so that we’re not defining narrow metrics of productivity?” Answering that question will entail “important considerations,” he said.
Nadella urged Chupka to “think about what you all at CES are doing in partnership with us in completely creating this new online way of delivering an event,” using a lot of “the cutting-edge technologies.” Those technologies are “all coming together ultimately to create a completely new medium around CES and your core mission,” he said. That “increases the scope and scale and impact of any institution or any organization going forward.”