No Monopoly on Innovation

Filed in archive Intelligence on August 11, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Alex Timaios

One of those old saws about outsourcing - that the U.S. sends "grunt work" offshore while remaining the innovation powerhouse - may be proving to be false. Bangalore now sports the second largest concentration of engineers in the world, outpaced only by Silicon Valley. Concentrating these engineering resources is what often leads to innovation - many times, innovation is a bottom-up, rather than top-down effort.

Furthermore, with extraordinary capital resources in India - and relatively low costs for even the best talent - it is not hard to see the possibility of India, particularly Bangalore, becoming the next, great innovation hub. See this article in CNet for more information.

Where may this talent be turned? I have two bets - energy and health care delivery. In both arenas, the brilliance of these engineers, combined with a developing economy with fewer regulatory constraints (but many political ones) could unleash development in such cutting-edge areas as solar/alternative power, remote delivery of health care, and health records management. These areas, particularly, are places where the political debate in the U.S. has become stifling - to the point of seriously and adversely affecting innovation.