Wanted: angel investors to help ‘tough tech’ grow wings
呼唤名副其实的“登月式”项目
Tech types in Silicon Valley love nothing better than to talk about moonshots. Yet, lest we forget, the first and only organisation to have achieved one is the US government. 硅谷的技术行业人士最喜欢谈论“登月”。不过，我们别忘记，美国政府才是做到登月壮举的第一个、也是唯一一个组织。
The death last week of the astronaut Eugene Cernan drove home how much humanity’s collective ambition and technological ingenuity appears to have shrunk since the glory days of the space race. It is now 45 years since Cernan became the last man to walk on the moon. 尤金•塞尔南(Eugene Cernan)最近去世让我们意识到，自太空竞赛的辉煌时代以来，人类的共同抱负和技术智慧似乎缩小到了何种程度。自塞尔南成为最后一个在月球上行走的人以来，已经过去了足足45年。
Eugene Cernan
Cernan seemed abashed by that “dubious honour”, as he called it. “We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary,” he lamented. “I am disappointed I am still the last man to walk on the moon. It tells us how much we have not done, rather than how much we have done.” 塞尔南看来对他所称的“可疑荣誉”感到尴尬。“我们为了利用太空而牺牲了太空探索，这很有意思，但没有什么创见，”他哀叹道。“我很失望，至今我仍是最后一位在月球上行走的人。这告诉我们，我们没做到的非常多，做到的不多。”
It is not just in space where we now seem to lack the right stuff. 如今，我们似乎缺乏真正成就的，并不仅仅体现在太空领域。
Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues there is a general market failure in developing what he calls “tough tech”, needed to tackle the world’s biggest challenges, such as climate change and Alzheimer’s disease. 麻省理工学院(MIT)校长拉斐尔•赖夫(Rafael Reif)辩称，在开发他所称的“攻关科技”方面，存在着普遍的市场失灵。人类需要“攻关科技”来应对世界上的最大挑战，比如气候变化和阿尔茨海默病。
Cash-strapped politicians in the west appear to have retreated from long-term societal missions and think mostly in terms of short-term electoral cycles — or tweets. 在西方，缺少现金的政客似乎退出了长期的社会任务，转而主要考虑短期的选举周期，或者是Twitter发帖。
Big companies, which traditionally commercialised breakthrough technologies developed at institutions like MIT, have also become fixated with the short term. “In the past 10 years things have changed dramatically,” says Mr Reif. 传统上把麻省理工学院等学府研发的突破性技术商业化的大公司，也变得纠结于短期。“过去10年，事情发生了戏剧性变化，”赖夫说。
Our new digital economy might have brought many consumer blessings but it has also disrupted the model for research and development, increasing the risks of committing long-term capital to moon shot projects. Much innovation has been outsourced to start-up companies, which are designed to bear more risk. But venture capitalists, who back those start-ups, only look ahead five years or so. Hence a surfeit of whizzy messaging apps and a dearth of radical technological breakthroughs. 我们新的数字经济或许给消费者带来了许多福音，但它也颠覆了研究与开发模式，增加了把长期资本投向登月式项目的风险。创新在很大程度上被外包给了初创企业，此类企业从设计上应该承担更大风险。但是，给这些初创企业出资的风险资本家，只展望未来大约5年。结果，我们看到了一大堆花俏的即时通信应用(app)，却没看到很多重大的科技突破。
“We were promised flying cars and all we got was 140 characters,” in the famous formulation of Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor. “他们向我们承诺会飞的汽车，而我们得到的唯有140个字符，”硅谷投资家彼得•蒂尔(Peter Thiel)说了这么一句著名的话。
Scientists rage that many of the most creative ideas, with the greatest potential to transform the world, are all too often stuck in the lab for lack of funding. How do we reignite investment in tough tech? 科学家们情绪激动地表示，在那些最有可能改变世界的最具开创性的创意中，有许多经常因为缺乏资金而出不了实验室。我们如何重燃对“攻关科技”的投资？
First, it has to be said that some governments remain in the business of big thinking, most notably in Asia. It could just be that we are seeing in shift in the geographic location of innovation. China’s Communist regime still believes in transformational societal missions. It is committed to sending its taikonauts*** to the moon and is spending massively on developing renewable technologies. 首先，不得不说，某些国家（主要是在亚洲）仍在追求大思维。我们可能只是在见证创新地点的变化。中国的共产党体制仍相信具有变革意义的社会任务。他们致力于把航天员***送到月球上，并正在大举投资于开发可再生能源技术。
***：taikonaut，特指即“中国宇航员”或“中国太空人”。taikonautn 可数名词 【汉】中国宇航员(系由汉语拼音 taikong 和 astronaut缩合而成)
Some entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are also developing private-sector space programmes and pushing the edges of technological development. Some of the most innovative companies, such as Alphabet, are pouring billions into tackling the biggest societal issues, such as energy efficiency and ageing. 包括埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)和杰夫•贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)在内，有些企业家也在发展私人部门的太空项目，并引领着科技的发展。有些最具创新精神的公司，比如谷歌的母公司Alphabet，正投入巨额资金来应对最大的社会问题，如能源效率和衰老。
But, arguably, universities, which specialise in the “R” side of the research and development equation, should also be doing more to focus on the “D”. Many institutions have teamed up with fund managers to commercialise their research. MIT, for example, has spawned more than 1,000 start-ups in fields ranging from biotech to robotics. 但可以说，在“研究与开发”中偏重于研究的大学，也应当拿出更多精力搞开发。许多学府已跟基金经理合作，致力于实现研究成果的商业化。例如，麻省理工学院已在从生物科技到机器人的诸多领域孵化了逾1000家初创企业。
Mr Reif argues MIT is still missing an opportunity to “bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges”, in the words of the institute’s mission statement. In an attempt to do so, it is partnering with outside investors to launch The Engine, which aims to “prioritise breakthrough answers to big problems over early profit”. 赖夫辩称，麻省理工学院在“用知识去解决世界重大挑战”（援引自该校使命宣言）方面，仍在错过一个机遇。为抓住这一机遇，该校跟外部投资人合作发起了“引擎”(The Engine)，旨在“把找到重大问题的突破性解决方法置于尽快盈利之上”。
MIT is sinking $25m of long term capital into the venture and is aiming to boost its investment firepower to more than $100m over the next few weeks. “This is all about impact investing,” says Mr Reif. “But it may take 10 years to generatea return.” 麻省理工学院把2500万美元长期资本投入到这一项目，并打算在未来几周将其投资“火力”提高至逾1亿美元。“这里的关键是影响力投资，”赖夫说，“但是，要产生回报也许需要10年时间。”
The Engine will involve far more than patient capital. MIT will also provide start-ups with cheap space, access to specialised equipment, legal and administrative support and the expertise of its alumni network. The aim is not just to create new companies but new industries, forms of manufacturing, and jobs. 引擎项目将远不止于“有耐心的资本”。麻省理工学院也将向初创企业提供廉价空间、专业设备使用权、法律和行政支持以及校友网络的专长。目的在于，不但创建新公司，还要打造新的产业、制造形式和工作岗位。
Clearly, it is too early to tell whether The Engine is the answer to powering economic growth. But MIT should be applauded for its ambition. Innovation needs to become more innovative. 很明显，现在要判断引擎项目是不是推动经济增长的答案，还为时过早。但我们应当为麻省理工学院的抱负而鼓掌。创新本身需要采用更创新的方式。
