I came across a website that tallies votes on technological ideas that the Obama CTO will hopefully take to heart. I like the voting scheme employed; you’re given 10 votes and you can give up to three votes per idea–kind of like the Condorcet voting method I learned about during this presidential election.

I agreed with the top three choices (net neutrality, repeal the patriot act, and repeal the DMCA), so these received one vote each. I also put one point into restoring DARPA because I’m a fan of futuristic research that may have no commercial impacts for years to come. I put three votes towards more research into energy and rethinking IP law because those are two of my biggest technological pet peeves.

The site has a lot of good ideas, although I would like to see more about security. All the money and technology in the world will be useless if we do not have control of our own machines. America has criminalized hacking rather than studying it; without knowledge of hacking, how can we stop it?

I would also like to see more push for improving technological infrastructure so that America can continue to compete in the future. We know the theory, but other nations are actually implementing these cool ideas.

In your opinion is the site missing any good ideas? Where did you put your 10 votes?