An article in the Wall Street Journal by Mills and Ottino (Jan 30, 2012) states that in 2020 the US population will be younger than China and Europe. They present three trends – computing power and its ubiquity, smart manufacturing and use of nanomaterials and cloud computing.  Will the young workers and a culture of risk taking and innovation create a competitive advantage for US manufacturing ? Will the need for sophisticated capability and the role of technology make age a nonissue ? Will getting to this level of technology require proactive government policies regarding research and development – bordering on industrial policy ?