Georgetown Launches Think Tank on Emerging Tech

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Georgetown University announced Thursday the launch of a think tank focused on how technological advances in fields such as artificial intelligence are influencing national and international security.

Backed by a $55 million grant from a private funding group, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology will be based in the university’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

The center’s director, Jason Matheny, was director of federal Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity from 2015 to 2018 and has participated in government initiatives related to artificial intelligence.

“There’s huge demand for policy analysis but very little supply,” Matheny said. The center, to be based near the Capitol, aims to change that. It will start with a staff of about 15, with plans to expand to 35.

The grant, from the San Francisco-based Open Philanthropy Project, is primarily funded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. Moskovitz was a co-founder of Facebook. Forbes estimates his net worth at more than $10 billion.

Here is a link to the new think tank, whose acronym is CSET.

Think Tank Watch estimates that fewer than a half-dozen think tanks are started, on average, each year in Washington, DC.

DC Gets New Think Tank: DC Policy Center

Washington, DC is getting a new state-level think tank called the DC Policy Center, a business-friendly economic policy shop to compete with the left-leaning DC Fiscal Policy Institute.

Here is more on the new think tank from the Washington City Paper:

D.C.'s real estate boom has spurred economic growth and enlivened civic debate on jobs, housing, healthcare, and education.  And that debate is about to get even richer, with the pending launch of the D.C. Policy Center.

Incubated in the offices of the Federal City Council, the prominent “citizens committee” through which the District’s business and professional community advocates for civic improvement, the center will analyze the local economy with a broad demographic focus that is distinct from the issue-based advocacy that ushered in progressive reforms during the last D.C. Council session.

It’s also bound to challenge the work of the liberal D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, which conducts research on budget, tax, and economic issues with a particular focus on low- and moderate-income residents.

Yesim Taylor will be the executive director of the new think tank.  Previously, she was Director of Fiscal and Legislative Analysis at the DC Office of the Chief Financial Officer.  She was also a consultant to the World Bank and has been a researcher at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch story about a former DC mayor fighting with the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI), which, among other things, was a defender of the DC yoga tax.

New "Mini Cato Institute" Launches

Washington, DC welcomes its newest think tank to the mix, the Defense Priorities Foundation, whose main goal is to promote foreign policy that includes a greater reluctance to assert military force.  It other words, it is basically the Cato Institute of defense, a libertarian shop that dislikes costly wars.

Here is more from Politico:

Sen. Rand Paul's vision of a less militaristic foreign policy got little traction in the GOP primaries, but some of his key backers are joining forces with associates of billionaire Charles Koch in a fresh effort to steer Washington away from interventions in overseas wars.

They’re launching a think tank, the Defense Priorities Foundation, that seeks to elevate national security policies that are decidedly out of the mainstream of Republican — and even some Democratic — foreign policy thinking, featuring a significantly greater reluctance to assert military force or even impose sanctions on nations such as North Korea. The related Defense Priorities Initiative, meanwhile, is designed as the organization's advocacy arm, which will seek to lobby Congress.

Among the architects of the nonprofit are William Ruger, a Navy Reserve officer who is the vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. The institute is backed by the billionaire businessman and donor, who along with his brother David has poured millions into conservative political causes that champion lower taxes and lighter regulations.

The think tank is also the brainchild of several acolytes of Paul, the Kentucky Republican who rose to prominence criticizing American military operations in the Middle East and the expanding use of armed drones in particular.

The group's communications director, Eleanor May, was the national press secretary for Paul's presidential campaign. Paul's office declined a request to comment for this story.
The think tank has also enlisted some of D.C.'s leading libertarian foreign policy thinkers and several conservative pundits, as well as a retired Army officer and Afghanistan veteran, Daniel Davis, who was perhaps the most famous military whistleblower of the past generation.

A spokesperson for the Charles Koch Institute told POLITICO that the institute and the Charles Koch Foundation are not providing financial support to the new think tank...

The article goes on to note that Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at Cato, is a senior adviser at the new think tank.  Doug Bandow, a former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, and a Cato Senior Fellow, is also a "recruit" to the new think tank, according to Politico.  And Charles (Chuck) Peña, former Director of Defense Policy Studies at Cato, is a Foreign Policy Fellow and Scholar at the new think tank.  [It also notes notes that Koch has been a major backer of Cato.]

Edward King, who most recently served as Chief Operating Officer for Concerned American Voters, a pro-Rand Paul Super PAC, is listed as the President and Founder of the new think tank.

Unlike Cato, however, Defense Priorities Foundation will have a lobbying arm called the Defense Priorities Initiative.  That will allow it to officially lobby the US Congress and others, much like the Heritage Foundation, which has a sister lobbying arm called Heritage Action.

Think Tank Quickies (#197)

• AEI: 20 reasons ride-sharing is better than taxis.
• Are think tanks undermining democracy? (via Dr. Glenn Savage of University of Melbourne)
• Karen Attiah of Washington Post: "DC think tanks keep excluding Africans from Africa panels."
• Think tank CEI: "Glyphosate in Tampons, Oh My!"
• RAND Corp. on how to stop the world's growing heroin crisis.
• A case study of the US foreign policy think tanks' debates in the general elections of 2004, 2008, and 2012 (via Seyed Hamidreza Serri).
• CSIS on ISIS access to to nuclear material originating from Moldova.
• Bill Kristol interviews AEI President Arthur Brooks.
• Brookings: Make college free.
• Image of think tank financing. (h/t Transparify)
• Vladimir Putin's close confidant Vladimir Yukunin launches new think tank.

Gulf-Funded Think Tank Makes Debut in DC

Here is more from Al-Monitor:

A new think tank funded entirely by UAE and Saudi sources makes its Capitol Hill debut Oct. 6 with a Senate hearing on the crisis in Yemen.

The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) bills itself as an independent institution dedicated to covering the “social, economic, and political diversity of the Arab Gulf states.” Its executive vice president, former Ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche, is slated to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

To its credit, the organization acknowledges that its sole sources of funding so far have been a think tank in Abu Dhabi and the Saudi Embassy in Washington, though it is looking for private sector support “to further diversify funding.” The organization received $2.6 million in contributions last year, according to tax records.

The donations are raising eyebrows following reports in The New York Times and elsewhere that the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other countries are seeking to buy influence at prestigious US think thanks such as the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And a recent Huffington Post profile of UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba linked the diplomat to former US Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner, who serves as chairman of the Arab Gulf States Institute’s board. Wisner is now a paid consultant for Saudi lobbyist Squire Patton Boggs, although he’s only registered as working on Kosovo issues.

The institute is the brainchild of Egyptian academic Abdel Monem Said Aly, a staunch defender of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Said Aly’s role as founding director and honorary chairman has raised concerns that the institute may shy away from criticizing the Gulf states’ autocratic governments and human rights abuses.

The homepage for the think tank can be found here.  And here is a list of its board of directors.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece about the UAE heavily funding US think tanks.

New Ed Policy Think Tank Opens With DC Office

A new education policy think tank has just opened its doors with a focus on pre-K through high school.  Here is more from Education Week:

Stanford educated heavy-hitter Linda Darling-Hammond has launched a new think tank intended to bring evidence into education policy.

The Palo Alto, California-based Learning Policy Institute launched this week with 30 researchers and a board including some big education names, such as Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research, and Kris Gutierrez, a language, literacy and culture professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The institute has some $5 million in initial funding and support from The Atlantic Philanthropies, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Sandler Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, and also the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which also provides support for Education Week coverage of deeper learning issues.

The article notes that the Learning Policy Institute will be based in Palo Alto, California but will also have a Washington office.  That office is located in Dupont Circle, near the heart of "think tank row."

Topics that the new think tank will focus on include early childhood learning, educator quality, college and career readiness, school organization and design, and school funding and management.

According to the latest University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, the world's top five education policy think tanks are:

1. Urban Institute (US)
2. RAND Corporation (US)
3. Brookings Institution (US)
4. Cato Institute (US)
5. National Institute for Educational Policy Research (Japan)

A full list of LPI's Board of Directors, leadership, staff, and senior fellows can be found here.