Innovation in Today's America

I enjoyed the conversation. But I have issue with one of the callers who said that offshoring or offsourcing innovation to help strengten the U.S.. The problem I have with that's noty a good idea. I work in the technology field and I've worked with baby boomers who are basically being forced to retire. Chances are that these baby boomers have adult children who are probably work with technology or fields that have chances for innovation work. If you have these baby boomers who still want to work and still want to innovate, if they are "forced to retire", their anger and resentment will be transferred to others.

So, when you already have a base of innovators here and upcoming, what is it telling them that in order to save future innovation in the U.S. we have to go elsewhere? Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with other countries, but just the fact of having to go overseas sends a bad picture.

Another issue that I have is with No Child Left Behind. I agree with the female caller who made the comment about NCLB. When you have an enducation system whose sole goal is for students to "just pass tests" and not learn anything, how can we have the eventual goal of innovation? If students are no given the chance to ACTUALLY learn, then how can they QUESTION the big questions?

thanks for sharing

Did not hear the whole broadcast, so this might already have been said -
Two points:
1. While innovation is critical to the success of the economy, a more pressing question in the U.S. might be how the wealth generated by innovation is going to trickle down. Innovation does not = well being (as evidenced by growing poverty and the struggle of many in the middle class to make ends meet).
2. Emphasizing Science and Math education is all well and good, but not everyone has an aptitude toward these subjects.

I work at a museum and we are struggling to integrate ourselves with area schools. Students are being tracked into trendy fields of employment, and the rest of the time are being focused on tests. A have to say that neither of these foci greatly encourage innovation because they don't let kids do what they are good at: play!

It is through play that many discoveries and developments come about, and it's through play that kids learn their capabilities. Even if it's a long slog between an idea and a tangible solution, play allows you to figure out what direction you should take.

Of course, it's also somewhat harder to play today when so much familiar technology is sealed black boxes...

And I have to say that the story about the Soviets using a pencil and the Americans using a multi-million-dollar pen... is a myth. BOTH the early American and Soviet space programs used pencils at first, and later BOTH programs used pressurized ballpoints. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

I heard only part of the conversation, but I think innovation in the biopharmaceutical space in America is hamstrung on several levels, educationally, from an intellectual property standpoint and from a governmental agency standpoint. Educationally, the cost of higher education is increasingly excluding many bright minds who are unable to pay for higher education; instead, they are forced to leverage their future earnings to pay off school debt that may approach over $100,000. How else do you create a knowledge based work-force if you cannot educate them in the first place. Once you are out of school, you cannot re-finance your student debt (beyond the first consolidation) and so are stuck with an 8.25% loan.

Since 9/11, our immigration policy has turned away many of the best and brightest from abroad, especially those from the Middle East and South East Asia, even though they represent the cream of the crop of a merit based education system. Instead, they are going to Canada or Europe for education and work.

On the IP front, Congress hamstrings the patent office by continually cutting the budget so there are less and less qualified examiners, an increasing backlog of patent applications, and the fees collected by the office are directed to the general treasury rather than into the office. The backlog of patent applications only serves to stifle innovation and impede small companies from enforcing their patents against global companies.

From the perspective of competing regulatory agencies, many innovations in the biomedical space cannot adequately be commercialized because government reimbursement on tests and procedures predicated on new technology are woefully small. Consider diagnostics, the reimbursement on a test is based on a fixed set of codes based on procedural steps associated with performing a diagnostic test. Reimbursement government agencies is often below the sum of coded steps. Companies seeking a return on their investment for associated development and IP costs stand little chance of receiving a fair return because the codes don't anticipate the cost of innovation, even though market competition requires IP protection. As the population ages, and health care costs increase, lowering the costs by better diagnosis and treatment is not rewarded by the government agencies or private insurers.

To be competitive in the world economy, we need solve these problems first.