The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)

The National Nanotechnology Initiative is a little known, but vitally important R&D program that coordinates 22 departments and independent agencies of the U.S. government. With a budget of $1 billion a year, the NNI is at the forefront of an effort to foster technologies that will, by its own estimates, affect over $1 trillion in products worldwide by the year 2015. M.C. Rocco, a driving force behind the NNI, tells the story of this important organization in a recent on-line edition of Mechanical Engineering.