What's all the fuss about Innovation?!

Since my professional career began over a year ago, I can't seem to escape this little word called "innovation", everyone from academic institutes, businesses and governments are streamlining this concept in their national development agenda seems to be fascinated and eager to innovate. It sounds like a good idea and i'm pretty sure the boss has told you on more than once occasion to be innovative.  

For me, two things stand out : it is clear that most people do not have a full grasp of the idea and what is also evident is that to a certain extent innovation has become a trendy buzzword which usually follows other ambiguous words such as technology and collaborations. This is quiet a shame as the  intention behind the word is quiet inspiring,as innovation asks you to reflect, be creative, think out of the box, and take risks.

The UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 clearly places the focus on fostering innovation for industries and investing in scientific research. The recent theme study on Science Technology and Innovation at UNESCAP is proposing and pushing developing countries to invest on innovation labs, academic research, intellectual property rights and R&D in terms of funding and other resources to find solutions to social challenges and to tackle poverty and inequality. 

Now I am not an expert on Innovation ( nor are the people framing the UN agenda or the people at the technology transfer center I assure you) but innovation alone  is not going to be the solution to poverty etc...

To add to that there's multiple types and definitions of innovations! Grassroots, disruptive, reverse etc and the list goes on. Without a clear or a well-though out assessment of the  limitations of this word and its subsequent concept we can be fooling ourselves and setting ourselves for  disappointment. 

What I have learned during this past year is that: 

1. Innovations and advancement in technology can not replace essential resources. Infrastructure, skilled and educated manpower, for eg setting computer labs in small villages in the hope to provide distance or e-learning opportunities for people is great but it can not be a substitute for face-to face interaction and attention. 

2.  Innovation does not necessarily have to result or be a tool. Or technology and business models, it can be a simple modification on an existing tool or a supplement or feature to an existing technology such as apps , games or new features using an existing technology for a different purpose. 

3. Entrepreneurs & Innovation go hand in hand. You need capable people with the skills to take informed risks and the ability to identify and take available opportunities. Entrepreneurs have the skill to collaborate and bring all the necessary people on board to bring an idea to life.

4. If we want to nurture innovation we have got to start at home. This begins at inside the  work place and class rooms. We have to communicate openly and feel free to share research, ideas without judgement. Ironically despite all the "innovations" in communication technology I feel we are more closed off today instead of picking up the phone or walking over to our colleagues next door (if your lucky) we simply choose to wait for weeks on end for an email response. 

5. Try & Fail and you shall innovate! ( Hopefully) : Linking back to entrepreneurs you need people and a culture that gives you the freedom to fail and create without judgement. That's why events like Hackathons are super helpful, where people can get together and create prototypes in a limited amount of time or make presentations or business models and get immediate feedback and realize if there are any missing elements to the conceptualization.

I think the essence behind great concept on our hand let's use it responsibly and hone on its essence which requires us to reform, reevaluate and reinvent current methods of working.

On a final note, I believe we have to be fearless, we need to make mistakes and take risks, there is no formula for a true magical innovation- only inspiration, hard work and and guts!