Aki, In the EU video the whole notion of innovation as 'turning ideas into money' is wrong. There are plenty of innovations that don't have direct monetary value but greatly change the way people work, saving time and effort. Even the EU can't tell Africa what innovation is or what they ought to do, our greatest innovations must be in the largest areas of need ... food, jobs for all and dealing with disease. We need to localize our solutions, I am very encouraged to see people in Tharaka and Gatanga tapping into local rivers/streams to generate electricity. Is that innovation? TED issues aside, government has a role and in the case of Lockheed Martin, they were contracted to build defense systems during cold war and could not trust any other company outside the US. Again if you know everything you produce will be taken up by your one and only customer (govt of the US) how much innovation is there? You are approaching this from a very academic angle, innovators don't need permission or policy from government to come up with new or improved stuff they just do. Even more thoughts Kiania D. On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 10:32 AM, aki <aki275@gmail.com> wrote:
@David, Asante.
Did you know that Equity had already developed an Mpesa model 4 years before Mpesa come into being but were shut out by the CBK? In the Pivot25 feed, this was mentioned by one of the panel. Do you also know that there is some proposal by IBM doing rounds on how to address the traffic situation, which is no different than what was discussed on this list almost 3 years ago? I read the IBM traffic story somewhere but cannot find the link.
As for TEDs, imho, they have no place in developing countries as they will never amount to much. TED really is a marketing platform in such countries, not real drivers of significant innovative development. Simply because there are no govt policies to match the need and drive for innovation. Please listen very carefully to the EU Innovation meet video, these are not TED individuals trying to tell others what innovation is but policy thinkers/makers defining it for themselves to meet the decline of the EU in the future.
No doubt that the private sector will innovate to survive competion, but will never innovate enough to radically change the business or commercial environment. Without any doubts, Govt is the main driving factor in innovation. Ask yourself, what made Lockheed Martin and then see why it is important for us to own the process and development of any govt projects? Because innovation will be born at the core of the process.
some thots. :-)
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