WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation announced today the creation of its new Center for Technology Policy, a public policy research center within Heritage’s highly esteemed Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. Leading this new center will be Klon Kitchen, who has served as senior research fellow for technology at Heritage since 2018.
The center’s mission will be simple: to provide the best insight and advice to policymakers and the American public on the most important technology policy issues of our day.
The Center for Technology Policy will formulate and promote conservative public policies on technology issues related to global technological competition and developments, national and homeland security, and impacts on domestic social, legal, and economic issues. As always, these policies will be based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
“With the rapid pace at which new technologies are becoming more integral to our lives, policymakers are seeking principled guidance and Heritage is prepared to fulfill this need with independent analysis and policy research,” said Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James.
“Heritage’s new Center for Technology Policy will be providing solutions for using emerging technologies to enhance America’s national security and economic well-being, on protecting the personal and financial data that private companies and governments collect on Americans, and on the types of guardrails needed to ensure that powerful tools like artificial intelligence are ethically used,” James added. “Throughout his time at Heritage, Klon Kitchen has served as one of the nation’s leading experts in the technology policy arena, and I am excited for what the future holds with him at the helm of this new center.”
James Carafano, vice president of the Davis Institute and E.W. Richardson fellow, had high praise for the new Center for Technology Policy and the work it would to strengthen Heritage’s leadership role.
“Technology is central to nearly every aspect of both our private lives and public policy,” Carafano said. “How we move forward in a world increasingly more reliant on technology will determine, in many ways, the character of our nation. This is even more true in the midst of our current fight against the coronavirus pandemic. There is no better leader for Heritage’s new center than Klon Kitchen. His leadership on these issues will make a difference for years to come.”
Prior to joining Heritage, Kitchen was national security advisor to U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and also the staff director of the National Security and International Trade and Finance Subcommittee for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. In these roles, Kitchen served as Sasse’s primary foreign policy and national security advisor, he managed and mentored the senator’s foreign policy and defense staff, and he guided the execution of key legislative priorities.
Since joining Heritage in 2018, Kitchen has written and spoken about the most important technology issues, including research on international cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and social media. He has helped shape public opinion on Huawei, which he has called an extension of the Chinese government and a part of Beijing’s explicit “civil-military fusion” strategy, where government and industry work together to expand the power and influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Kitchen expressed eagerness to get started as the Center for Technology Policy’s first director.
“It is a privilege to be given this opportunity and responsibility,” Kitchen said. “We are committed to building a world-class policy effort that enables government, industry, and civil society to better understand and engage the technologies shaping our lives and society.”
The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy research institute, with more than a half-million members. Founded in 1973, it develops and promotes public policy solutions that advance free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values and a strong national defense. Heritage does not support policies that deviate from these principles, nor are our recommendations ever influenced by donations or outside political pressure.
