The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks did more than wound a nation and launch a war on terrorism it also spawned a new focus on technology, one that Lawrence-area researchers, entrepreneurs and companies should be sure to build upon, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts said Thursday.
The attacks have raised interest in medicine, food safety and aviation, and that should open plenty of opportunities for winning research grants and their resulting commercial applications, said Roberts, R-Kan.
"These kinds of crossroads don't come along too often," he told 75 people attending the annual meeting of the Lawrence Technology Assn. "You ought to seize the moment."
Investing in technology makes economic sense, he said, noting that the average high-tech salary is more than $47,000, while the average private-sector employee earns only $26,000.
Such numbers, he said, make the best case for government support of research efforts at universities.
"If we can't talk about it in those terms we'll be just fine," he said. "Then you won't have some members of the (Kansas) Legislature saying it's a waste of time and money which is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous."
Charles Decedue, executive director of the Higuchi Biosciences Center at Kansas University, said that university research already was paying dividends.
Communications technology developed at KU, for example, eventually could help monitor germ-warfare attacks on wheat, corn and other crops.
And that's only the beginning.
"There are lots of pie-in-the-sky stuff we could do," Decedue said. "It's just a matter of money."
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