Innovation

If you have a mind to start your own company, or at least manufacture a new product, please keep in mind that many new products fail because they can be produced cheaper elsewhere by cheaper labor or higher tech manufacturing techniques.

A year or so ago I wrote in this space that American ingenuity and engineering could create the next generation of energy production and export it to the world community. This would help underdeveloped nations gain access to electrical power, heating and air conditioning comfort that much of the globe already enjoys.

The know-how to create new energy methods – solar, wind, thermal and yet to be discovered miracles of physics – could be harnessed here at home and then traded to other nations. This would create jobs in the US but also deliver the same to other cultures. In fact, if successful, I think we won’t even have to manufacture much here. We will save on the raw resources and the logistics of same, while focusing our energy and strength on physics, engineering and invention.

If manufacturing is needed in this process, other countries have labor pools much cheaper than America. But we can also design and build their factories to use artificial intelligence, robots and all the rest of modern technology to minimize costs and increase accuracy and efficiency.

One huge caution: do not wait.

Other nations have the same interests and are working on solutions. We are not alone in the world. Nor are we the best at what we do any longer. We have competition. That means we have work to do if we are to beat the competition.

America was challenged before. Just like now. Many times. The one I remember best is the 1957 emergence of Sputnik. The Russians had launched a space satellite before America did. Boy howdy were we embarrassed!

Among the reactions that were positive was a refunding of public education. A heavy emphasis on math and science in primary and secondary schools led to a huge expansion in engineering curricula at universities and colleges. The result was the American space industry. Its record of achievements is legendary. But that is all in the past. We can build on it, but we must be active in doing so. And in other industries as well. And that is precisely where the competition resides. Take your pick of these industries and choose the future:

·         Transportation: equipment, navigation, AI piloting, moving people between home and jobs, home and culture, home and shopping

·         Materials engineering: creating materials from common raw materials that hold up to the rigors of heat, cold, 3-D and 4-D printing techniques, and medical applications

·         Healthcare: new methods of replacing worn-out body parts, high tech applications to prevent and/or recover from disease

·         Breakthrough methods to expand education and career development to the masses

·         Discover methods to unlock the genius inside each of us through education, art and expression

·         Low cost housing alternatives that emphasize social integration and community

·         Advances in wireless technology; cut the cord!

·         Pollution-free energy production; clean the air

·         And so many more…

To do most of the above we will need to stop protecting old industries that have anchored us to obsolete methods, pollution of water, soil and air, and killer international power struggles (think oil interests in the Middle East and elsewhere!).

The future will demand from us intelligent responses to human needs, including protecting the environment. Those responses will be efficient and healthy. Education will include more people in making workable solutions possible. A higher quality of living should be more broadly attainable.

All this from innovation. Discoveries await our finding them.

What are we waiting for? What are you waiting for?

November 20, 2017