by Celso Co
The
triumvirate of Academe, Industry and Government must be viewed from an economic
perspective. An analogy is a
triumvirate of supply, demand and distribution. We must strengthen all three.
To
contribute to our national advancement, we need the development of world class
laboratories both for research and instruction. However, laboratories cannot be
solely dependent on tuition fees, donations and subsidies. To insure the financial viability of academe
laboratories, industry demand should be served. Hence, world class laboratories should be geared for research,
tutorial AND services. Industry problems will be part of the sustaining
lifeline of the laboratories. Currently, most academe labs confines their
services to the domain of exploration which yields new knowledge. Aside from the current search for new
knowledge, start up service companies should be encouraged through business
incubation. These will be enabled by government support and good policies on
standards and professional practices.
Industry use of academe
laboratories must be based on the game theory of cooperation and
competition.
The
development of academe service laboratories will also be used by future
graduates who eventually startup their own companies, existing technology
SME’s, etc. The motivation to expand
the market is the driver for the cooperative spirit. Competition will be limited on the arena of market share. The
industry should see clearly the substance of the game theory working concepts
on cooperation and competition, where we cooperate in some areas but still
compete in others. For instance, a well known semiconductor firm is financing
the fab runs for the silicon design of the UP Microelectronics lab to the tune
of several thousand dollars for four fab runs per semester. Let us say that 30
companies, whether small, medium or large, agree to participate in the fab run
program the costs will be spread out.
If
there are 30 students who will graduate, each company might compete for the
number of graduates to hire. At least
in this hypothetical case, each company might get a student. Can this continue forever ? Or must it stop
at some point. It can continue in
perpetuity if industry provides case studies of silicon design for the students
and professors to work on. However, due to secrecy of intellectual property,
the sponsoring company will be obliged to shoulder the expense. But it may not need to if a more liberal
view of exploration is considered. At
the very early stages of exploration, the risk level is so high, and therefore
it will be reasonable to share exploration efforts with complementors or even
with competitors. The key is to find
the right time to start inhibiting information and to engage in competition.
The critical role of the government is to set the atmosphere to incubate
cooperation preparatory to the race and to impose fair regulation such that
competition is sustained over time when the race begins.