A Whiting-Turner Lecture: — November 4, 2010

Biography

From September 1998 until August 31, 2010, C. D. (Dan) Mote, Jr. served as president of the University of Maryland and Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering. He was recruited to lead the University of Maryland to national eminence under a mandate by the state. Since assuming the presidency, he has encouraged an environment of excellence across the university and given new impetus to the momentum generated by a talented faculty and student body. Under his leadership, academic programs flourished. In 2005, the University was ranked 18th among public research universities, up from 30th in 1998. President Mote has emphasized broad access to the university's model, enriched undergraduate curriculum programs and launched the Baltimore Incentive Awards Program to recruit and provide full support to high school students of outstanding potential who have overcome extraordinary adversity during their lives.

Prior to assuming the presidency at UM, Dr. Mote served on the University of California, Berkeley, faculty for 31 years. From 1991 to 1998, he was vice chancellor at Berkeley, held an endowed chair in mechanical systems and was president of the UC Berkeley Foundation. He led a comprehensive capital campaign for Berkeley that raised $1.4 billion. He earlier served as chair of Berkeley's Department of Mechanical Engineering and led the department to its number one ranking in the National Research Council review of graduate program effectiveness.

Dr. Mote received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has produced more than 300 publications, holds patents in the U.S., Norway, Finland and Sweden, and has mentored 56 Ph.D. students. Dr. Mote's research lies in dynamic systems and biomechanics. Dr. Mote is recognized for his research on the dynamics of gyroscopic systems and the biomechanics of snow skiing.

Abstract

Innovation is a change in thinking, products, ideas, processes, or organizations that leads to a better implementation. Successful implementation is innovation. The scale of innovative implementations range from tiny to enormous, and their substances span from conceptual to pragmatic.

Innovation occupies our attention because it has become the solution of almost every major, as well as minor problem today. How will we raise the quality of life for every citizen? How will we sustain a competitive national economy? How will we increase the safety of foods, develop alternative energy, combat global warming, ensure national security, fight poverty, reduce health care costs, fight pandemics, and so on? The answer is always the same—through innovation.

While much is known about particular innovators and innovative companies, less attention has been paid to the cultures that nurture innovation and how those cultures might position innovation to take on the great global problems that are apparently relying on it.

We will discuss nurturing innovation in a connected world that is experiencing accelerating scientific and engineering changes and expanding market demands. We will review the history that has led to the current state of innovation and the global connectivity that has expanded both the pace of innovative development and the scale of problems seeking innovative solutions. We will view innovation in societal layers that will help us see the issues to be tackled for innovation to ultimately fulfill its promise.