In the next few weeks, the Government has an extraordinary opportunity to place the State at the cutting edge of Internet and new media research and development.
For some months, it has been in negotiations with the creme de la creme of technology research centres, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to set up a new, Internet-focused division of its famed Media Lab in Dublin.
The Media Lab, led by internationally-known digital researcher, pundit and author, Prof Nicholas Negroponte, has since its launch in 1985 led the world in many areas of new media research and pioneered many of the technologies now taken for granted on the Web. Because of its work with virtual reality devices and in the area of artificial intelligence and robotics, the Media Lab is also considered to be the epitome of digital cool.
The proposed Dublin project, for the creation of a campus for Internet-related research and business incubation, is broad in scope and would make the Republic one of the leading centres in the world for new media.
The Media Lab has no other presence abroad and the Dublin campus would be unique. According to sources, the project would bring Prof Negroponte to the Republic to oversee the laboratroy for part of each year as well as a range of MIT research staff and, presumably, would include some Irish senior staff as well. Premises in Ringsend have been earmarked because the campus would be central and also because the area is likely to be a landing site for one of the fibreoptic cables that will bring highspeed, "broadband" Internet connections into the State, or for one of the facilities that will manage and distribute such connectivity.
MIT is asking for a £28 million (€36 million) commitment from the Government for a project estimated to cost around £150 million. For a variety of reasons, over the past months the project has at times, rushed ahead, then drifted, and almost been abandoned.
The key problem seems to have been concern on the Government's part that it get value out of the relationship and not simply be asked to put up money for a project that might not bring direct benefit to Irish researchers and start-up companies.
Such concerns are perfectly valid. One of the elements the Government is likely to structure into the project, should it go ahead, is to link in a surrounding incubator "village" of start-up or potential start-up companies whose research would fit within the scope of the lab. This would allow a productive and exciting cross-fertilisation between MIT and Irish brainpower, and between academia and industry.
But the Government must also realise it holds in its hands the chance to vault the State into the top tier of high-tech visibility. The importance of this opportunity cannot possibly be underestimated. Approval for the venture will very likely, single-handedly ensure the State's profile around the world as one of the most serious and committed contenders in the emerging digital economy.
But let's set aside the intellectual, cultural and economic doors that would open and look at the project simply as an advertisement for the Republic. At the moment, the State is ambitiously pursuing a goal of becoming a centre of next-generation technology and e-commerce, and hopes to attract global firms looking for a European base for such activities.
The Government could not have a better endorsement of the State's high-tech capabilities and potential than to be able to say that MIT chose the Republic for its European Media Lab project.
In public relations terms, the Lab's arrival here would easily eclipse Microsoft's much-publicised decision two years ago to open a research laboratory in Cambridge. Bringing MIT's Media Lab here bestows digital street cred like no other project and no other endorsement could. Karlin Lillington is at klillington@irish-times.ie
