Innovation Nations Ride the Next Wave of Invention
Innovation has always been the most important factor in the continuing growth
of the IT industry. It comes from well-funded research labs, and it also comes
from dorm rooms, garages and may be seen in scribbled notes on the backs of
napkins after a late night at the pub. The earliest waves of IT innovation were
centered in Silicon Valley, and later spread out coast-to-coast to other high-tech
regions. The next wave takes another giant leap.
What started in Silicon Valley may well be overshadowed by tech centers in
some very unlikely places. The very design of the high-tech economy has created
incredible new methods of communication and collaboration, promoting the idea
of a company without borders. And although it may not have been intentional,
the high-tech revolution has allowed the focus to shift away from what was once
a small cluster of techies in California -- allowing innovators from all across
the globe to take a seat at the table. The very nature of the innovation that
has come out of Silicon Valley has ushered in Silicon Valley's own demise as
the center of the high-tech world.
According to Goldman
Sachs' landmark BRICs
(Brazil, Russia, India, China) report, fifty years from now, the ten largest
economies in the world will be quite different from what they are today. The
BRICs economies today make up just about 15 percent of the powerful G6, but
in 40 years, the BRICs economies will be larger than the G6. China, a powerhouse
by dint of its sheer size and population, has gotten on the technology and innovation
bandwagon too, and China's economy will be larger than that of the US by 2041.
The Starbucks Factor
An admittedly unscientific, though very interesting way of determining the state
of technology in any country is to measure the number of Starbucks available.
Workers in tech-heavy central California gulp down lattes and cappuccinos like
water, with a Starbucks or Starbucks-facsimile on nearly every block in some
areas.
Just a few years ago, the idea of spending three bucks for a cup of coffee
was just too outrageous in places like Thailand, where the minimum wage still
hovers at around fifty or sixty cents an hour. Today, Thailand is a high-tech
nation, and it's surprisingly easy to find an overpriced cuppa Joe and Wi-Fi
access anywhere in Bangkok.
Southeast Asia: The Hi-Tech Trail
And so we start our journey in Southeast Asia, the mere mention of which at
one time conjured images of dense jungle, communism and the Ho Chi Minh trail.
But the war is long over, and this region -- including the Communist nations
-- is at the forefront of technological innovation.
In a recent report, analyst and consulting company Ovum
identified the top ten fastest-growing
broadband markets in the world, three of which -- Thailand, Indonesia and
Vietnam -- are members of ASEAN
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Broadband connectivity in the US has
formed the foundation of our own technological revolution, changing the very
nature of how business gets done, and setting the stage for the new global economy.
In developing nations, and certainly in the ASEAN countries, broadband availability
serves as the great enabler, allowing entrepreneurs to create dotcom businesses
that just a few years ago would not be possible. Jonathan Coham, analyst at
Ovum, notes, "Socially and culturally, broadband exposes communities and
individuals to a much greater pool of ideas, values and issues, that can help
a society evolve and learn from others nationally and on a global basis."
Last year, a joint venture between USAID,
Intel, and Vietnam Data
Communications brought WiMAX connectivity to the rural villages of Lao Cai and
Ta Van, bringing citizens in these remote villages broadband Internet and VoIP
service. The biggest factor here is the presence of the IPSTAR satellite --
the largest broadband satellite in the world -- operated by Shin Satellite of
Thailand.
Ni hao! Ni hui shuo Putonghua ma? (Hi there! Can you speak Chinese?)
As a companion metric to the Starbucks factor, one may also take a quick look
at which foreign languages are being taught at high schools and universities
throughout America. While the old standards of French, German and Spanish still
hold dominant positions, more classes are opening up to teach budding global
entrepreneurs to speak Mandarin Chinese.
The National Science Foundation's
Science
and Engineering Indicators report notes that high-technology production
in Asian nations has grown over the past two decades, with Japan being an early
front-runner in the 1980s. The report adds, however, that China's high-technology
industry has already passed that of South Korea and Taiwan and will soon equal
that of Japan. The Chinese government spends liberally on its high-tech goals,
ranking third -- only behind the US and Japan -- in R&D spending.
Nehru was the first to see it coming
India stands out as one of the greatest success stories of modern times. It
all started when Prime Minister Nehru created the Indian
Institutes of Technology, which have become recognized as some of the finest
technological institutions in the world. When Nehru created the schools, India's
poverty seemed to be inescapable. Remarkably, this was in the early '60s, long
before the dotcom boom and the Internet gave rise to India's current status
as the preeminent center of outsourced services. Yet, it was Nehru's bold move
that set India on its current course to prosperity.
Everybody has heard at least one story about a college student who started
a dotcom out of a dorm room or garage and went on to make millions -- and these
young innovators fueled the US's own tech revolution. The first Apple
computer, for example, was built in a garage. Now, it's happening in India,
where start-ups with minimal resources have taken the national spotlight. Throughout
Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, small networking forums and clubs have organized
to support and encourage this type of high-tech entrepreneurship.
The United States: Still a big fish, but the pond is getting bigger
The US, of course, is the granddaddy of technological innovation. And although
it must now share center stage with other countries, it remains strong in its
focus on research and development. Most recently, last year's passage of the
America
COMPETES Act put real dollars behind America's support for technology, offering
improvements in math and science education, a solid commitment to research,
and the establishment of a NIST
Technology
Innovation Program (TIP). The TIP program supports innovation by funding
high-risk, high-reward research.
Some remarkable examples of innovation coming out of the US can be seen in
the Wall Street Journal's Technology
Innovation Awards. Although winners included innovators from Switzerland,
Luxembourg, Germany and other locations, the US nonetheless dominated, with
innovators such as NComputing,
which developed a method by which up to 30 users can share a standard PC; Zonbu,
for its low-cost, energy-efficient PC; and Xerox,
for its development of "temporary" printed documents that can erase
themselves.
But that's not all, folks…
There are many more noteworthy centers of high-tech innovation. Although we're
not sure as to the number of Starbucks in Taipei, another metric is more telling:
Taiwan's US-based patent activity. Taiwan ranks third, behind Japan and Germany
and ahead of France and the UK, in terms of foreign countries whose residents
have obtained US patents.
Israel, too, scores high on the innovation index, and the National Science
Foundation noted in its Science
and Engineering Indicators report that the countries with the most technology
exports are China and Israel. Encouraging foreign investment, as well as strong
government support for research and development, has put Israel in an enviable
position globally. Already taking a global outlook on innovation, Israel was
the first country outside of the European Union to join the European Commission's
€36 billion "Competitiveness
and Innovation Program," designed to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.
The next wave after the next wave
With developed and emerging nations around the globe all drinking from the espresso
cup of high-tech success, will there be any left behind? Regrettably, and for
the foreseeable future, yes. But as the theory goes, "a rising tide lifts
all ships," and today we're already seeing the seeds of technological innovation
in the poorest of countries. The landmark "One
Laptop Per Child" program, in making available bare-bones laptops to
some of the poorest countries of the world, will contribute to a new generation
of Internet-savvy innovators. Rwanda, a participant in the OLPC project, hopes
to provide laptops to all primary school children within five years. Rwanda's
visionary President Paul Kagame believes that technology is the key to Rwanda's
future, and has set an aggressive goal of transforming the country into a knowledge-based
economy by 2020.
The new global economy, and the greatest innovation of them all -- the borderless
workplace -- has created high-tech centers of innovation all around the world.
Silicon Valley has finally become "Silicon Everywhere."