Charles Ostman
Charles Ostman | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Berkeley, California, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Nanomaterials and "greentech"; bioconvergence; futurist analysis of nanotechnology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nanotechnology, nanomaterials, electronics, materials science, artificial intelligence, futures studies |
| Institutions | Institute for Global Futures; NanoSig; Silicon Valley Nano Ventures; formerly Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Charles Ostman is an American technologist, analyst and futurist specialising in nanotechnology, nanomaterials and the convergence of biological and engineered systems. Often described — and describing himself — as a "historian of the future", he argues that nanotechnology has already moved out of speculative research and into markets and applications, and that its greatest near-term value lies in environmentally driven "greentech". He presented this thesis to the independent-inventor community at the Tesla Tech ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference in 2008.
Biography
Ostman has stated decades of experience in electronics, computing, artificial intelligence and materials science, including eight years working with the United States Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He is a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Futures, a consulting group providing strategic research, analysis and technical due diligence to corporations and institutions. He chairs the NanoElectronics and Photonics Forum of NanoSig, an organisation whose stated charter is facilitating investment in nanotechnology ventures, and has served as a senior consultant with Silicon Valley Nano Ventures. He has also been listed on the management team of Fourth Venture, which sought to translate former Soviet and Eastern Bloc military technologies into clean energy and nanotechnology applications, on the scientific advisory board of Legendary Pharmaceuticals, and as a participant in the Millennium Project for Global Futures Studies and Research. He serves on the Nanotechnology Board and the Space Settlement Board of the Lifeboat Foundation.
Ostman lectures frequently in the United States and abroad and has appeared widely in broadcast media, including PBS television, NPR and the radio programmes Coast to Coast AM and America at Night.
Scientific contributions
Nanomaterials, fabrication and "greentech"
Ostman's central argument is that the value in applied nanotechnology is not in any single material or device but in the integration of systems — and of systems of systems — across interrelated technology platforms, infrastructure and market domains. In his 2008 conference presentation he set this alongside what he identified as a sharp rise in the perceived viability of, and investment in, "green businesses", and mapped out where the two intersect.
The specific intersections he identified were: just-as-needed manufacturing practices; renewable and alternative energy platforms; the recapture of waste energy and waste materials; less toxic alternatives to current materials and processes; and ubiquitous computing integration, including sensors, "smart dust" and reconfigurable computing platforms enabling the monitoring and management of complex resource, power and traffic grids.
His stated conclusion is that the promise of nanotechnology is not merely new products and processes at lower cost, but an improvement in the *nature* of how products are made and applied — yielding industrial and consumer practices that are less toxic, more sustainable, more efficient and more environmentally sound.
Bioconvergence
Ostman writes on what he terms bioconvergence: the merging of biological systems with engineered nanoscale and computational systems, which he presents as the precursor and enabling condition of a mature nanotechnology age. He has extended this analysis to questions of long-term human survival, arguing that nanotechnology and related approaches can be applied to protecting and evolving human existence.
TeslaTech
Ostman presented at the Tesla Tech ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference, held at the University of New Mexico Student Union in Albuquerque:
- "Nano Materials, Fabrication Processes, and 'Greentech'" — 2008 ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference, Sunday 3 August 2008, Session 8 (ExtraOrdinary Challenges). A recording is available on the TeslaTech channel: "Charles Ostman — Nanotechnology"
Works
- Bioconvergence: Progenitor of the Nanotechnology Age
- The NanoFuture (ISBN 0-672-30491-0)
- Contributions to the collections CyberLife and Secrets
- Contributions to the SIRS Applied Sciences journal, and numerous technical papers and articles