In sum: there is much work – both scientific and diplomatic – to be done. I hope I have succeeded in giving you a small glimpse of the opportunities available to scientists to serve be science diplomats, both in and out of the State Department. I am optimistic that in the coming years, we will build further bridges directly between academics in developed and developing countries.

To that end, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, together with USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore, are convening a global University Presidents’ Summit on the 29^th and 30^th of April this year to explore innovative ways of connecting the educational institutions of more and less developed countries, with the objective of improving education and research, as well as stimulating innovative approaches to knowledge-driven economic development in the less-developed countries.

The G8 countries have promised billions of dollars to rebuild African universities and establish research centers of excellence, although only a tiny fraction of it has materialized so far. David Skorton, President of Cornell University, has suggested that we need a plan on the scale of the Marshall plan enacted after the WWII, but focused on university capacity building in less developed countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. We need all of that – and much more.

I have not spoken here of the need to increase soil productivity, improve access to primary and secondary education, and health care, as well as improve transportation and telecommunications infrastructure – all of these are pressing needs and there is an increasing awareness that they must be tackled simultaneously, as, for example, the Millenium Villages Project seeks to do.

My focus here has been on what science and scientists can do. And even here, I think it will be necessary for universities and research centers in the developed world to go far beyond just helping the universities of the less developed world to deliver education. It will be equally necessary to help them embark on the difficult process of converting research findings into economic drivers, into businesses.

I think that our research universities and institutes, working together with the business sector and using contemporary electronic resources, have a unique opportunity to accelerate the “flattening” of the world, to call on Tom Friedman’s metaphor once again. Can it be done? Yes. For example, Cisco Systems has started literally thousands of Cisco Academies, training centers for IT support specialists, around the world. Art Reilly, a Cisco Systems Senior Director, told me recently that a startling 12% of Cisco Academy graduates in the developing world start their own businesses. Now while network support is good, knowledge generation is limitless.

There is little doubt that American universities are eager to go global. But, according to a recent New York Times article, the most visible and successful outposts have been created in response to invitations from wealthy countries, particular those of the United Arab Emirates, and appear to have the primary objectives of widening the home institution’s income pool and its foreign student base (“U. S. Universities Rush to Set Up Outposts Abroad,” NYT 10 Feb. 2008).

The task of assisting much less-wealthy countries to bolster the instructional, organizational, research and technology transfer capabilities of their own institutions is a vastly different proposition. Most academic scientists look to foreign institutions for top-notch graduate students and post-docs to populate their laboratories. The notion of taking time out from a busy and competitive career to teach and develop research collaborations in the least advanced countries most in need of help is just not on the academic radar screen.

And yet science is our best global common language, able to bridge the deepest of political and religiousdivides. (It’ll get us across the digital divide, as well, no doubt.) There is a growing recognition in every country that it is science and technology that drive – and will increasingly drive – the successful economies of the 21^st century. Our scientists and engineers are still welcome. Input of US science and technology is sought by developing countries on issues ranging from the solution of acute problems of food, water, and health to the longer-term problems of higher education, environment, global climate disruption, and economic development through innovation.

Perhaps we need to recognize, concretely within the reward structure of the academic world, that scientists and engineers have not just a critical, but a crucial, role to play in creating a future in which the citizens of all countries have the educational and economic opportunities that we have. Only when we have equalized food productivity, access to health care, educational opportunities, and economic development among the nations of the world will we have truly flattened the world. I thank you for your attention.

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