Drawing from more than 25 years of research and project development, the authors describe how accelerated commercialization strategies building on advances in science and technology offer a sustainable source of wealth. They show how collaboration among business, government, entrepreneurial, and academic partners―all focusing to leverage local resources to compete in the global marketplace―is an established and powerful strategy for 21st century business creation and economic development.
This collaborative success strategy of thinking globally and acting locally, along with supportive activities such as technology incubators, research methods, entrepreneurship training, and use of networks for resource sharing is what has come to be called the Technopolis paradigm. Because a maturing Technopolis evolves as an integral component of a city, state, or larger sociopolitical unit, it promotes attention to sustainability and quality of life. Further, Kozmetsky and Williams consider the Technopolis paradigm as a process of constructive capitalism in that it utilizes private or corporate commercialization of science and technology to create wealth and shared prosperity, the value of which is set by competition in a free market.
FREDERICK WILLIAMS is Director of the Center for Research on Communication Technology and Society at the University of Texas at Austin where he also occupies the Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair in Communication. He is the author of numerous books and articles, the most recent of which are, Research and the New Media: The New Communications (second edition), and Measuring the Information Society.
Victoria Williams, PhD, is an independent writer and researcher living in London. She is the author of ABC-CLIO's Weird Sports and Wacky Games around the World: From Buzkashi to Zorbing (winner of the 2016 RUSA Outstanding Reference Sources Award); Celebrating Life Customs around the World: From Baby Showers to Funerals; Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival; and London: Geography, History and Culture. She is also the coeditor of ABC-CLIO's Etiquette and Taboos around the World: A Geographic Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Customs. Williams wrote her PhD thesis on fairytales in Victorian literature and art and on film, and she has written on a variety of other subjects, including Hollywood ?lm, London society and culture, Mesoamerican mythology, Victorian literature, U.S. folklore, and British folk customs. She has also lectured on Victoria fairy paintings and depictions of childhood in 1940s film. In the past, Williams has worked as an editorial assistant on a leading British food magazine and run a small business selling traditional British cakes at artisan markets. Currently, alongside her writing, Williams runs a West London market championing local makers, including food producers.
