Reinventing Innovation to Solve the World’s Largest Problems

Humanity can plausibly enter an era of innovation if it meets five?main conditions.

Contrary to popular belief, you may not be living in the most innovative time in history. Economists?Tyler Cowen and Robert J. Gordon?point to data that suggests that humanity experienced a much bigger wave of innovation between 1870 and 1970. During this period,?technological breakthroughs?such?as electricity, the automobile, indoor plumbing, antibiotics and the telephone radically transformed human life. Innovations?boosted?productivity and?sparked a?shift from an agrarian economy to a service and industrial?economy.?

Today, humanity is undergoing a?shift to a knowledge economy, but the verdict is still out on whether the near future will be genuinely innovative.?In his book The Innovation Delusion, Lee Vinsel points out that most of?the technologies?in the room with you?were probably invented more than 50 years ago – an indicator that, perhaps, most of the innovation tell you hear from Silicon Valley companies is just that.?In many ways, humanity is experiencing?“innovation theater” instead of?true innovation.

“On the stage, the people play-acting innovation have perfectly mastered innovation talk.”

Still, new technologies,?such as those enabling synthetic biology and green energy, could propel humanity into a genuine?era of innovation.?Though no one can?predict the future with certainty, innovation levels could increase under the following five circumstances:

1. The global scientific community cooperates, as it did when rapidly creating vaccines to combat COVID-19.?
2. Governments and private interests increase their?investments in innovation.?
3. Ramped-up competition between companies and nations – such as the United States and China – pushes innovation forward in ways that benefit the world at large.
4. Antitrust regulation prevents a few?monopolies and oligopolies from dominating the market and stifling innovation.
5. Governments create and support?public “innovation agencies.”

The label “tech for good” applies only to innovations that actually?improve life for the majority.

Now is the time to take risks. Humanity needs breakthrough innovations to deal with existential challenges such as climate change.

Seafield's Solutions, a company co-founded by Spanish marine biologist Mar Fernández-Mendez,?has partnered with the industrial chemical giant BASF to pioneer a unique approach to both carbon capture and the manufacturing of bioplastics.?Mendez and her partners plan to nurture the growth of algae in containers placed in the open ocean.?Robots will then compress the algae, reserving a portion to produce the?bioethanol used to make plastic parts for?computers and cars. The machines will then?roll?the rest of the algae into?bales and let them sink to the ocean floor. These could remove?a gigaton of carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere each year?and hold that CO2 securely for 1,000 years.?

Seafield's Solutions and BASF appear well-positioned to achieve economies of scale. But they aren’t the only ones trying to harness the power of green energy. Why?have so many similar initiatives failed to secure investments??

“At what points can efficient technology help us find a socioecological transformation…for a still-growing population?”

While those in the tech industry throw around catchphrases, like “using tech for good,”?it’s important to question whether they’re actually achieving meaningful progress and making life “better” for the majority. Jeremy Bentham,?the founder of modern utilitarianism, believed people should aim for solutions that? achieved “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”?Using that logic to describe “good,” can you really argue?gig-economy platforms that use tactics like “surge pricing” (raising?prices when demand is high) count as “tech for good”??

If you’re trying to make life better for the majority, aspire to create innovations that help people meet their five basic needs, which psychologist Abraham Maslow modeled in pyramid form: “physiological needs,” “safety needs,” “social needs,” “individual needs” and “self-actualization.”?You should also work to help achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals,?which include ending poverty, achieving gender equality, and providing people with access to clean water and sanitation.

People who achieve innovative breakthroughs share five qualities.

People who achieve innovative breakthroughs tend to share the following five characteristics:

1. “Early specialization” – Innovators have specialized interests that they often identify long before becoming adults. Others may fail to comprehend their dedication to their area of focus, which can appear almost manic or obsessive.
2. Tenacity?– Those who take innovative leaps display resilience in the face of extreme challenges, including social ostracism.
3. “Openness” –?Breakthrough innovators are?receptive to constructive criticism and carefully consider perspectives that differ from their own. They’re keen to exchange ideas,?absorbing those they find?interesting.
4. An empowering leadership style – Innovative leaders give team members enough freedom to push innovation forward, inspiring them to work toward a collaborative mission.
5. A desire to make a difference – Those achieving breakthrough innovations are?obsessed with the idea that their knowledge and discoveries will?help the world at large.?

Governments can radically boost?innovation levels with a three-pronged approach.

On a national level,?dramatically increasing innovation requires the following three conditions:

1. Less “red tape”?– An overabundance of bureaucratic red tape holds State-funded projects back. If innovators become overwhelmed by paperwork and are hindered by dated regulatory frameworks, it slows the pace of innovation. For example, government bodies may prohibit different research bodies from exploring the same problem, viewing it as a waste of money. In reality, it pays to have multiple teams working on the same complex issues.
2. “Measure innovation, reward success, red-flag ‘pseudo success’”?– Find productive metrics for innovation. Reflect on metrics such as:?the number of start-ups the research gives rise to; how many good jobs the research organization’s work creates; the start-ups’?sales, company market values and profits; the corporate taxes paid; and any specific environmental metrics, such as the tons of?CO2?captured.?Companies that fail to properly measure their innovations should not receive?innovation funding.
3. Leverage governmental “purchasing power” – Public spending isn’t just for?education and health infrastructure:?Governments must also invest in innovation. For example, if your country is slow in its adoption of electric cars, perhaps the government?could?invest in charging stations.

Governments and venture capitalists should invest in “deep tech” – not just “easy wins.”

When in the prototype development phase, many companies find themselves facing innovation’s “valley of death,” as it’s often difficult to obtain funds for?products that do not yet exist.?National governments spend?billions on “application-oriented research,” but tend to choke off funds when companies actually need them.?If states want to support innovative ideas, then investing in advance, as a purchaser, can help companies survive during this “valley of death” phase. States must weigh both the risk that companies may fail to deliver on their promises and the challenges they’ll face if lack of funding keeps innovators from finding solutions to complex problems.

“Risk intelligence also means understanding when not taking any risks is a major risk.”

Venture capital financing tends to benefit companies creating easy-t0-copy digital assets. These backers and organizations bet?on markets – for example, the ride-sharing economy –?rather than taking the sort of risks required to drive breakthrough technological innovation.?Venture capitalists must invest more in deep-tech companies: those?working to solve complex engineering and scientific problems in areas such as green energy and biotechnology.?

According to the Boston Consulting Group?and the think tank Hello Tomorrow, in spring of 2021, venture capital companies had about $1.9 trillion dollars “sitting around” uninvested.?These companies could allocate some of these?funds toward deep-tech solutions to safeguard planetary life.?But those working to round up investment for?deep tech companies say?investors lack the capacity to properly assess the risks and benefits of cutting-edge technologies, hindering funding. Venture capitalists must improve their risk intelligence and embrace?long-term thinking, as opposed to a “quick wins” mentality.

Open-source?software and open data sharing drive innovation.

Open-source?software drives?innovation:?It is no longer “designed by nerds for nerds” and is becoming ever-more?accessible and user-friendly. Even Big Tech companies that have made their fortunes selling proprietary systems, such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook, rely on open-source?solutions and build?open-source software themselves.?This is because open-source software provides demonstrably?superior solutions to proprietary systems.?Open-source development underlies the cloud and high-performance databases,?and software like MongoDB and Hadoop, is powering the Big Data revolution. Self-driving cars rely heavily on open-source code.

“The most important source of innovation is access to knowledge.”

If Big Tech companies truly want to fuel global innovation in ways that benefit?the majority, they should leverage?open and decentralized solutions, harnessing the creative energies of the world’s best minds.?These companies currently hoard data, using it for their purposes?while blocking others?from harnessing its power?to generate the innovative solutions needed to steer humanity forward.

An innovative spurt would follow similar patterns to surges of co-evolution in nature.

American evolutionary biologist Steven Johnson attributes periods of major technological breakthroughs throughout human history?to?the “hummingbird effect”: One tiny?innovative discovery can drive the next?in an iterative,?observable manner.?Johnson compares the tendency of human innovation to influence subsequent innovations to the co-evolution between flowers and hummingbirds: First, flowers evolved to attract pollinators, such as bees, then, hummingbirds evolved to fly low, with rapidly flapping wings to?drink nectar from blossoms.?Likewise, when tackling major global challenges like?the need for efficient and sustainable energy solutions, technological breakthroughs will co-evolve or develop in response to one another.?

“Highly original follow-up innovations in the coming decades will help us to meet the major challenges that today often seem distressing, dangerous and unsolvable.”

A wide range of life forms spontaneously evolved millions of years ago during the “Cambrian explosion”; technologists could witness something similar?in the future.?The growing?computational capacity and explosion of big data in chemistry and biotechnology could trigger a massive burst of innovation across a variety of fields.?Solving one complex, global challenge –?creating an abundant supply of affordable,?clean energy with technologies such as solar and wind power, for example –?could also help humanity find solutions to other problems, such as systemic poverty and climate change.?

Innovative leaps require self-efficacy and techno-optimism.

When imagining future utopias, many people commit errors of “linear overestimation.”?For example, in the 1950s, people imagined a future that was a continuation of existing technology, overestimating the role of?the automobile, with visions of flying cars.?Likewise, today, visions of the future tend to highlight humanity’s current fixations, such as artificial intelligence. Perhaps you imagine a dystopian world in which Machiavellian robots oppress humans, or you imagine benevolent superintelligent AI robots will help you with your everyday tasks.?In reality, nobody can predict the path technological development will take with certainty. Humanity could see radical innovations in areas such as quantum computing, genetic engineering and?synthetic biology.?

“Our descendants should have an even better life than we do. To accomplish this, we have to be optimistic and set out for a leap over the brink of utopia to make the world greener, healthier and wealthier.”

There’s an urgent need to embrace techno-optimism. As Jonas Salk, the?immunologist who developed the inactive polio vaccine, argued,?innovation must help those living today “be good ancestors.” Developing collective “self-efficacy” –?self-belief –?is also a vital component of breakthrough innovation.?Those working in the public education system have a responsibility to instill an ethos of curiosity and continuous learning in children, ensuring the innovators who will take tomorrow’s leaps possess?the ability to see possibility where others see impossibility.