Michael Wakelin,
Vice President,
Bechtel International, Inc. (USA)
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Madrid, Spain
Monday, 3 May 1999

Presentation Outline

1. Evolution of Dynamic Knowledge Networks in Super City Development
2. Accelerating Global Trends
3. Tacit Knowledge Acceleration
4. From the Bio Sphere to the Knowledge Sphere
5. Institute for the Future
6. Hierarchies and Networks
7. Knowledge for Development
8. Early Knowledge Networks
9. Japanese Vision for the 1980s: Technopolis
10. The Cambridge Phenomenon
11. Cambridge 2020
12. Silicon Valley Bay Region: 2010
13. USA: Critical Technologies
14. KNEXUS Goals
15. Big Emerging Markets: Accelerating Knowledge Development
16. KNEXUS Parallel Networks
17. Stanford University Knowledge Network
18. Silicon Valley - Bay Area Network
19. Global Fellows Network: Corporate Collaboratory
20. Emerging Networked Economy: Spheres of Collaboration
21. Dynamic Cognitive Community Network
22. KNEXUS Organization
23. The KNEXUS Opportunities
24. Global Cities in Strategic Regions

Abstract

THE EVOLUTION OF DYNAMIC KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUPER CITIES

Sir Peter Hall in this morning's Keynote presentation addressed some of the major themes of his recent book "Cities in Civilization." In it he describes 16 selected great cities and their attributes from five perspectives, namely: a) Great cities in their Golden Age; b) City as Innovation Milieu; c) Marriage of Art and Technology - Mass Culture; d) The Establishment of Urban Order; and e) The Union of Art, Technology and Organization - The City of the Coming Golden Age.

The focus of this paper is on the complementary need to better understand the dynamics of knowledge exchange networks in wealth creation in today's global cities and how to close the knowledge gap in an environment of accelerating global growth and change. The perspective looks beyond attributes to the dynamic relationships of parallel networks linkages and the flows of information and knowledge that connect city regions. Yesterday, the networks were limited to the distribution of tangible products through tangible intermodal network hubs, today the internet is transferring weightless intangible assets globally from one local region to another.

The paper's focus is, therefore, limited to the cities in knowledge-creating regions - in North America, Europe, and Japan, in the "big" emerging markets of Brazil, Greater China, and India and is intended as background to the accelerating global trends in the emerging knowledge economy. These issues and trends are also the underlying assumptions to a recently launched collaborative research program at Stanford University, named KNEXUS - Knowledge: Networks, Exchange, and Uses.

It is more common to report on the research results or upon interesting interim findings, however, in this case the purpose is to describe the assumptions that underlie architecture and construction of the intended collaborative networks that will be both the framework and the subject of the research that will be centered in the Silicon Valley - Bay Region. Three networks are described. The first is the proposed Stanford knowledge network of collaborative institutions. The second parallel network is structured around a "collabatory" of participating corporations in a "Global Fellows Network." The third network is intended to focus upon the intersection of science and technology with the economic and political aspects of global growth and change in urban and regional development.

A second purpose of the presentation is to invite comment, active participation, and investment in the process and development of the program. Major institutional and corporate support to match the current sponsor's contribution is being launched world wide. The goal is to undertake research over a 10-year period and anticipating that the process will generate web-enterprise partnerships, organize them around the opportunities within and between the collaborative networks of KNEXUS.