(From the New America Foundation): Science and technology in America have been guided by the same set of ideas for the past 60 years. In particular, more money, and more scientists, was always the prescription for getting S&T to deliver more benefits to society. In the face of the global economic downturn, political disarray at the national level, and protracted challenges to the nation’s public health, environmental quality, industrial base, and energy system, this simple formula no longer makes sense. These challenges demand new ways of thinking about science and technology, and the government’s role in advancing them. And it turns out that the problem isn’t money, or the number of scientists, but the way we do science.

This special event will feature the following topics and guest speakers (subject to change):

How we got here, and why it’s hard to change
Dan Sarewitz – Director, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University; Professor of Science and Society, Arizona State University

What do the failures look like, and what are the consequences?
Stephen Trachtenberg – President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service, George Washington University
George Poste – Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative, Arizona State University; Founder and former Director, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University
Andy Revkin – Senior Fellow, Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, Pace University; “Dot Earth” Writer, The New York Times

Moderator:
Deborah Blum - Author, The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York; Winner of 1992 Pulitzer Prize for “The Monkey Wars” series in the Sacramento Bee

What do we need from the R&D system?
Michael Lind – Policy Director, Economic Growth Program, New America Foundation

How can national labs bring the change we need to see?
Eric Isaacs – Director, Argonne National Laboratory

What will it take to get new jobs and industries from the R&D system?
Erica R.H. Fuchs – Assistant Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
Jon Gertner – Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine; Author, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Eric Isaacs – Director, Argonne National Laboratory

Moderator
Michael Lind – Policy Director, Economic Growth Program, New America Foundation

Biomedical research and the public’s health
Ron Deprez – Director, Center for Community and Public Health, University of New England
Ben Heywood – President and Director, Patients Like Me

Moderator
Sheri Fink – Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation; Winner of 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting on Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans

Sweden solved its nuclear waste problem, so why can’t we?
Daniel Metlay – Senior Staff Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board

Moderator
Lisa Margonelli – Director, Energy Policy Initiative, New America Foundation

Environment and energy: Innovating in the belly of the beast
Margaret Davidson – Director, Coastal Services Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Michael Holland – Senior Advisor and Staff Director, Office of the Undersecretary for Science, Department of Energy
Jeff Marqusee – Executive Director, Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, Department of Defense; Director, Environmental Security Technology Certification Program, Department of Defense

Moderator
Lisa Margonelli – Director, Energy Policy Initiative, New America Foundation

Redesigning the Cold War University
Michael Crow – President, Arizona State University; Author, End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation

Commencement is a special celebration, with tradition and symbolism that date back centuries in the history of higher education. This is the occasion when degrees are officially conferred upon graduates.

The 2012 commencement ceremony aired live from Sun Devil Stadium on March 3, 2012 on ASUtv. Our special guest was news correspondent and anchor Tom Brokaw, who delivered an inspiring commencement address.

You can now watch ASUtv’s special coverage of University Commencement for Undergraduate Students (bachelor degree candidates) from Frank Kush Field in Sun Devil Stadium anytime! ASU Spring 2012 Commencement

McDonough served as Dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture; he is also a Visiting Professor at the same university’s Darden School of Business and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University. He is a member of the board of trustees of ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability.

In this Wrigley Lecture, McDonough will discuss his co-authored book, Cradle to Cradle, which offers practical steps for innovating within today’s economic environment. Part social history, part green-business primer, part design manual, he argues that an industrial system that “takes, makes, and wastes” can become a creator of goods and services that generate ecological, social, and economic value.

This video is available anytime at the ASUtv Video Library: Cradle to Cradle Design

The White House Business Council in conjunction with the U.S. Small Business Administration presented this forum designed specifically to address the needs of urban entrepreneurs in the Phoenix area.

Highlighting the positive economic momentum occurring in urban centers across the country, this event featured the following:

• High level discussions between senior White House and Administration officials and successful entrepreneurs;
• Speed mentoring sessions with experienced entrepreneurs;
• Dedicated networking opportunities; and
• A resource expo designed to connect entrepreneurs with the public, non-profit and private sector resources to help them grow and hire.

The forum in Phoenix is part of a multi-city series designed to bridge the President’s economic vision with the needs of urban entrepreneurs by connecting them with the local and national resources and networks they need to grow their businesses and create jobs.

You can watch the forum, in three parts, anytime in the ASUtv Video Library:

White House Urban Economic Forum – Phoenix 2012, Part 1

White House Urban Economic Forum – Phoenix 2012, Part 2

White House Urban Economic Forum – Phoenix 2012, Part 3

(From the New America Foundation): When today’s toddlers are parents themselves, they will face an agricultural crisis. The world population will reach 9 billion. A growing global middle class will demand more food. And climate change will leave farmers holding seeds that won’t sprout. By 2050, will our global appetite outgrow our agricultural capacity?

Find out how everyone—growers, technologists, governments, business leaders, and carbon-conscious consumers—will be part of the solution.

The event’s speakers include Dr. Nina Fedoroff, Special Advisor on Science and Technology to the Secretary of State; Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and President of Stone Barnes Center; Debra Eschmeyer, Founder and Program Director of FoodCorps; Bill Hohenstein, Director of the USDA Global Change Program Office; and many more.

You can watch this event at the links listed below.

Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks – Part 1

Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks – Part 2

The ability to bounce back, to absorb shocks, to persevere, to retain functionality over time, to endure, to adapt, to succeed, to survive, to sustain… so many verbs are conjured up by the term “resilience.” Whether we’re talking about our bodies, our minds, our communities, our institutions or our natural environment, the R-word provides a conceptual framework for designing a better tomorrow. Please join us for a wide-ranging inquiry on what it means to be resilient and what a resilient future could look like.

ASU has established a collaboration with New America and Slate Magazine, as part of the Future Tense Initiative, to sponsor a series of events on the topic of emerging technologies and their transformative effects on society and public policy. Central to the partnership is a series of events in Washington, D.C., that take in-depth, provocative looks at issues that, while little understood today, will dramatically reshape the policy debates of the upcoming decade.

You can watch this event anytime in the ASUtv Video Library: Defining Resilience

“Well, maybe,” said Paul Davies, author of the popular best-seller “How to Build a Time Machine.”

Davies, a Regents’ Professor and internationally acclaimed cosmologist, astrobiologist and theoretical physicist at Arizona State University, discusses the concepts of time travel, causal loops and worm holes at the annual Sci-fi Meets Sci-fact lecture hosted by the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.

“I think everyone is captivated by the idea of time travel,” said Davies. “It’s been a great science fiction idea since H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’ but people always want to know ‘Can it really be done?’”

The purpose of the Sci-fi Meets Sci-fact lecture is to look at a popular idea in science fiction and see its basis in scientific fact, explained Davies, who directs the BEYOND Center, a cosmic think tank he established at ASU in 2007.

You can watch this engaging presentation anytime on the ASUtv Video Library: Time Travel: Can It Be Done?

Join ASUtv as Professor Sesno explores the deepening skepticism around climate science and the new roles that universities, media, and the concerned public must play if we are to move from stalemate to solutions.

A former anchor, White House correspondent, and interview host with CNN, Sesno is also a nationally renowned moderator, engaging some of the world’s leading personalities, from five American presidents, to Yasser Arafat, Margret Thatcher, and Walter Cronkite. He is also the host and creator of Planet Forward, an innovative web-television initiative as seen on PBS.

You can watch this presentation anytime on the ASUtv Video Library: Science is Not Enough

The authors also discuss their new books. Dawkins recently published “The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True“, an exploration of the magic of discovery embodied in the practice of science. Written for all age groups, the book moves forward from historical examples of supernatural explanations of natural phenomena to focus on the actual science behind how the world works.

Krauss’s latest book, “A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing“, explains the scientific advances that provide insight into how the universe formed. Krauss tackles the age-old assumption that something cannot arise from nothing by arguing that not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing.

Founded in 2008, the ASU Origins Project is a university-wide transdisciplinary initiative aimed at facilitating cutting edge research and inquiry about origins questions, enhancing public science literacy, and improving science education. Since its inception, the Origins Project has brought the world’s leading scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, to Tempe to explore origins questions. The Origins Project has hosted workshops and public events that have focused on questions as fundamental as the origin of the universe, how life began, the origins of human uniqueness, and the origins of morality.

Watch this interesting and thought-provoking discussion anytime in the ASUtv Video Library: Something from Nothing.