WASHINGTON   –  “Technology is a wonderful thing with brilliant applications which have the potential to make our lives easier and more efficient, to create jobs, and to provide us with information at the touch of a button.  When it is used properly, technology is a boon to Americans.  Finding the right purpose for the new tools at our disposal is the trick.

Enter the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T).  For years, the faculty and students at Missouri S&T have been coming up with innovative ideas that can change the way we live and work.  Their research has yielded opportunities for our Missouri businesses and sparked scientific advancements around the world. 

But, now, some of their inspired students have also put forth an idea that will work in the palm of your hand because it fits in newer cell phones.  Their company, IDC, which is located in Rolla, has developed an application, a program, that enables you to scan a bar code on any product in any store you might go into – then your phone tells you whether that product was made in America.

In the good old days, we would all conscientiously look for the “Made in the U.S.A.” label, and those labels are still there.  With this application, however, IDC has married new technology that turns some newer cell phones into bar code readers with information about the choices we make in the grocery store, the department store, everywhere we make decisions with our dollars.

And those decisions are important.  America’s trade imbalance is a major area of economic concern.  The U.S. trade deficit in 2009 measured $390 billion.  That number is actually headed in the right direction, but it is still daunting for our economy, our jobs outlook, and the future health of our nation.  In order to grow good jobs at home, particularly in the manufacturing sector, we need consumers to make purchases with their patriotism in mind.

The cell phone application thought up by these students enables any of us to perform that civic duty of buying American-made products just by taking a picture of them.  I’ve tried it, and I know it works.  Use the application to snap a picture of the bar code and, within seconds, an American flag pops up telling you, yes, the product I have in my hand was made right here.

The best thing America has going for it is the ability to innovate, to reward “idea entrepreneurs,” and to encourage someone to consider their time, their resources and even their career – then risk it on an idea in which they believe.

We must encourage continued innovations from civic-minded researchers at Missouri S&T and other colleges and universities around the country.  If we give them the tools to put their ideas into production in the U.S., it will only be a matter of time before we close our technology manufacturing gap with other competing nations.  On the strength of their educations, entrepreneurialism and work ethic, we will reach the day when the application is “Made in America,” and so is the cell phone.”