Neal Stephenson and Michael Crow both spoke recently at Solve for X, a conference organized by Google’s X Lab (http://www.solveforx.com). Each of them addressed the Hieroglyph-Arizona State University partnership and the need for more "moon shot" thinking.
Neal's talk about the Tower project and Getting Big Stuff Done is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0n_5qPmRM
You can see Michael's discussion of ASU as a "moon shot" factory and the proposed Center for Science and the Imagination here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iYXPPX24WY.