Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough and Samuel Palmisano, the CEO of IBM, will be honored at the Council on Competitiveness annual dinner tonight for their leadership on the Council's National Innovation Initiative (NII).

Clough and Palmisano's involvement in the National Innovation Initiative - a call to action to bolster U.S. competitiveness and innovation - paved the way for the American COMPETES Act, which President George W. Bush recently signed into law. This statute was called for in the Council's NII report, "Innovate America," and authorizes increased funding for math and science education, supports increased research budgets and implements a national innovation agenda.

The dinner is held in conjunction with the Council on Competitiveness annual meeting, which takes place Friday, October 26, 2007. The meeting will explore five policy goals that will be critical to sustained U.S. competitiveness: challenging frontiers in science and technology; renewing access to competitive, secure and sustainable energy; achieving creative and cutting-edge talent; transforming risk intelligence into resilience; and engaging in the global economy.