i3 - May/June 2016 - 33

Policy

DINNER HONORS
TRAILBLAZERS

Gary Shapiro, Senator Cory Booker

Gary Shapiro, Senator Marco Rubio

TA's 12th annual Digital Patriots
Dinner held on April 20 was an
innovation celebration. Held at
the Marriott Marquis in Washington,
D.C. the dinner honored Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-FL) with the CTA's Innovation
Policy Ninja Award and Sen. Cory Booker
(D-NJ) and Rep. Blake Farenthold
(R-TX) as Digital Patriot honorees for
their instrumental roles in supporting and
advancing technology innovation.
Senator Marco Rubio was honored by
CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro
as a forward-thinking legislator who has
influenced tech policy as a fierce advocate
of ridesharing, crowdfunding, high-skilled
immigration reform and modernizing
patent laws to protect innovators. Shapiro
also heralded Rubio for his belief that
"tech should not need permission from the
government to innovate," and dedication
to championing technology as a platform
to promote paths to the American dream.
Rubio described receiving this award
as his "childhood dream come true" to
become a ninja. He stressed the economic
transformation being driven by the technology industry and the importance of
this change in creating jobs and strengthening the economy.
Senator Cory Booker was recognized
as a Digital Patriot for his tech-friendly
bipartisan solutions as well as serving as a
thought leader on drones, driverless cars
and the Internet of Things (IoT). During his inspirational acceptance remarks,
Booker talked about the radical change
in paradigms he saw as a young man
while his parents worked at IBM. He said,
"Our paradigm has become outdated.
Let's focus on the future, not the past."
He added, "Tech is the sweet spot for jobs
and economic growth. We must not let
government choke innovation. We have

C TA . t e c h / i 3

Gary Shapiro, Dan Pidgeon, Pat
Lavelle, Darrell Issa

Sen. Blake
Farenthold

Hon. Barbara Comstock
(R-VA)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

to demand that our government moves at
the speed of innovation." He also called
for increased national collaboration and
interdependence, quoting an African saying, "If you want to go fast, go alone but if
you want to go far, go together." He ended
his remarks by reading a motivating poem
by Langston Hughes.
Rep. Blake Farenthold highlighted the
merits of the sharing economy, from ridesharing to fashion, like Rent the Runway. He said, "The sharing economy is
making things easier. It's making things
less expensive. It's making the American
Dream within everyone's reach." Market
disruption, Farenthold added, is a good
thing, not something to be scared of.
"Change is what it's all about," he said.
"Technology enables you to follow your
American Dream and be an entrepreneur
at almost no cost."
Shapiro praised bipartisanship collaboration and encouraged dinner guests to
urge members of Congress to remain
open to progress in the consumer technology industry, whose innovation and
creativity continue to change and better
the world.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott accepted
CTA's Innovation Champion Award on
behalf of his state. Texas was among the
Innovation Champions identified by CTA's
second annual Innovation Scorecard, a
report that evaluates and ranks states'
innovation friendliness in 10 areas. Abbott
noted that for the past three years, Texas
has ranked number one in the U.S. for
exporting high tech, calling special attention to the state's business-friendly tax
policy, STEM-based education initiatives
and the number of colleges and universities offering renowned engineering
programs. "Ten or 20 years from now, you
will not know Texas as an energy state," he
said. "You will know that triangle as the
innovation triangle in the United States
of America."
Also at the dinner, HTC demoed its latest virtual reality system, the HTC Vive
offering a true room-scale VR experience. Proceeds from the Digital Patriots
Dinner will go to the CTA Foundation,
a public, national foundation affiliated with CTA, and Black Girls CODE,
a non-profit organization dedicated to
teaching girls ages 7-17 about computer
programming.
MAY/JUNE 2016

http://www.rubio.senate.gov/ https://www.gregabbott.com/ https://farenthold.house.gov/ https://www.booker.senate.gov/ http://CTA.tech/i3

i3 - May/June 2016

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