Now Hear This!

At some point around 11:30pm eastern last night, it became clear that Democrat Barack Obama would be named the United States' president elect when the final electoral votes were in.

And, after a very gracious concession speech from his opponent Republican John McCain, Obama took the stage in Chicago just after midnight where he in turn made gracious comments and specific points of McCain's sacrifices for this country.

Obama even gave a nod to tech in his victory speech. Making example of Ann Nixon Cooper, a106-year-old voter in Atlanta, and describing the change that has come to the US over the last century, the 44th president said:

"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote. …"

I slept well last night. Not because of the final outcome, not because glass broke all over Washington as Americans voted in their first minority president, but because many, many of the races were very close thanks to the long lines of Americans who in a time of war and financial crisis celebrated their freedom yesterday and voiced their opinions on how the US should move forward.

Don't let the electoral votes fool you. While Obama ended the night with 338 electoral votes to McCain's 163, giving the Illinois senator more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win, this morning's poll results show approximately 52% of the popular vote went to Obama and 46% to McCain. Figure in a 3% margin of error and see just how tight the race was.

And you, readers of this blog, have also proved how close this election was within our tech ecosystem. All of the vote 2008 entries made to this blog saw comments from both Obama and McCain supporters. And you brought their campaigns into tech perspective, discussing the H-1B visa system, R&D funding, and the multitude of other issues that could be affected in the next four years.

Watching CNN and NBC last night while scanning headlines on my iPod touch, the public's excitement was evident. News broadcasts and stories compared the enthusiasm exhibited by Obama supporters to the Kennedy years, calling this election a point of "profound change" for America, saying it "energized" the nation and demonstrated a "return to greater public involvement" in the government and election systems.

Greater involvement was among the points George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association and member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, made in an October interview with EDN on ensuring US tech leadership through policy action.  In that interview, I asked what the average engineer can do to encourage better policies for tech innovation. Scalise responded by encouraging engineers to seek out their representative to make tech's case and also encouraged greater involvement in bipartisan trade organizations like the SIA (these statements were cut from final article because of space restraints).

Are you energized? Do you believe that change -- better funding for STEM education, tax credits, immigration reform that supports US tech and science leadership, etc -- can be brought about through the everyday engineer's involvement in government processes? Share your opinions on the elections and their potential impact on tech below.