How to Fire Up U.S. Innovation

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What conditions give rise to innovation and facilitate its transforming effects? Contributing factors include the freedom to pursue ideas, the freedom to fail, and the freedom of access to information in the broadest sense. Occasional business failure in the U.S. is a mark of experience, while in other cultures it may be a permanent scar. Information sharing is generally considered a powerful means towards progress, hence the strong influence that the American university system has had on the economy. 

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Despite our well-developed college and post-college system, America simply is not producing enough of our own innovators, and the cause is twofold—a deteriorating K-12 education system and a national culture that does not emphasize the importance of education and the value of engineering and science. The American public focuses more on sports and entertainment figures and less on the scientists and engineers whose innovations make our lives easier, safer, healthier and more productive. 

Since 1990, U.S. scientists and engineers have invented the lithium-ion battery that powers all manner of devices from tablet computers to electric cars, developed GPS for civilian use to keep us on the right path to our destinations, and created both remote-controlled military aircraft (drones) to keep our soldiers safe overseas and robots that keep our floors clean at home. But how many among us know the names of the creators of the lithium-ion battery at Bell Laboratories, or the founder of iRobot Corp. and inventor of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner now sold around the world?