Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back from John Kao is a timely read. To say I enjoyed his lessons how America is losing it’s innovation lead was not pleasant experience, yet the book is highly engaging.
There are timely lessons in this book from the $100 laptop and more importantly the exodus of top American talent. No surprise that top talent from India is returning home after attending college in America as globalization brings new opportunities to India.
You may be surprised to learn how Kao documents the loss of top Americans heading overseas. That’s native-born Americans leaving our best institutions (and their home country) to work in new innovation centers with more creative, less political conditions.
The list includes Paul Saffo from Stanford, John Seely Brown from Xerox PARC, Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network and Rita Colwell, former head of the National Science Foundation and current professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland.
This American brain drain of our TOP talent is a sign that we’ll be losing more in the near term future. Politics aside the loss of talent to companies and institutions overseas (where restrictions on science are non existent) will only damage American technology leadership in the coming years.
As Kao points out the number of talented students being denied entry to the US based upon the new war on terrorism is not going to benefit America either. Kao is not addressing anyone with terrorist links, just those already accepted to our best schools being denied passports and travel based upon tighter security. We need that talent in our country to keep our innovation deveopment moving forward with the best talent … not backward in a time of war.
Globalization is directly impacting the quick growth of Singapore as a new hub for Innovation. By pulling some of the best talent from America, Singapore has quickly established a leading role in the development of future technologies — across the board. And they are not not stopping the invitations to bring the best knowledge to their country. Singapore’s Economic Development Board has secured the following institutions to open local, global schoolhouses:
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Duke School of Medicine
Culinary Institute of America
Tisch School of the Arts
We have become too familiar with the much publicized success of India and China. Friedman has pointed us to Uruguay while Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Taiwan have also established innovation centers. Kao’s chapter, The New Geography of Innovation reinforces four key principals that used to be exclusive to America that are now everywhere:
1. Silicon Valley is now everywhere
2. Talent is now everywhere
3. Capital is now everywhere
4. Gov’t investment in military/aerospace is now everywhere
Kao’s message is clear: Innovate or Die. China is going in-house and saving billions to establish its own fleet of commercial jetliners rather than contract Boeing or Airbus.
The book is now added to my must read list for students and faculty in both K12 & Higher Education. Kao has a great book website. Take a look, download his free chapter and order the Book!