I think Google could be a big winner from Obama’s election to the US Presidency. He unveiled his innovation agenda at Google in November 2007. In his victory speech he specifically said that “the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest in our lifetime…there’s energy to harness …”
Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google specifically endorsed Barack because of his support for net neutrality and his decision to use the internet from the outset of his campaign showing that Obama will be a tech friendly president. Obama sat down with Schmidt among others when he swung through the Sunshine State in October for what he called an economic summit at Palm Beach Community College to call for a power grid overhaul.
“As Obama explained, the tangle of electrical lines connecting power plants to homes and businesses across this country is leaking like a bad plumbing system. The Google chief wanted to make sure all the talk of infrastructure spending included some attention to this problem. And being the wizard of the Internet, he talked up some space-age concepts, like being able to capture electricity generated by the brakes on advanced, hybrid cars and sell it back to the electric companies. It’s quite a concept, but he’s leapfrogging over Obama’s simpler call for more fuel efficiency and more solar panels. Still, it was Schmidt’s star turn on the political stage and he was making the most of it.“
Google has huge plans for the energy sector and according to Daniel M. Kammen, a professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California, Berkeley, and an adviser on energy to the Obama campaign. “Google is in the lead in terms of human resources as well as money.”
In addition a Google backed plan to open up unused television airwaves called white spaces to be accessed by unlicensed devices for free wireless internet has beaten off powerful lobby interests and won. Google co-founder Larry Page has likened the white spaces to “Wi-Fi on steroids.”
This development could open up the web in a massive way across the US in ways the rest of the world can only dream about at the moment as they “say the plan would expand Americans’ Internet access, especially in rural areas. White- space devices will tap into free, wireless Web access.” Free wireless web access while rockclimbing in the backcountry … count me in!!
Google is known for stealth. The search engine company kept its advertising ambitions under wraps for years, a strategy that helped it become the dominant tech company in Silicon Valley.
Watch this space … Google is going to play a very powerful role in the Obama administration.
