Innovation
Manufacturing for Growth
Manufacturing for Growth Interactive Report ReaderExecutive SummaryVolume 1Volume 2Volume 3Manufacturing for GrowthStrategies for Driving Growth and EmploymentExecutive Summary Download Executive Summary hereThe Future of Manufacturing report (April 2012) identified a number of factors that will shape the future of competition between countries and companies. Three areas rose to the top as the most critical: human capital and talent development; innovation and technology advancement; and strategic use of public policy emphasizing collaboration between policy-makers and business leaders....
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April 23, 2013
Can empathy scale technology?
Jonathan Jackson argues that empathy is necessary to make technology effective.
I have been fortunate enough to have been in the emerging field of mobile health well before there was much mobile to hype about. At Dimagi, our first “mobile” project was on a personal digital assistant that had no wireless capability. Over the years I have seen mobile technology help save lives. But I’ve also seen mobile technology employed in nearly identical situations, do absolutely nothing, or worse, make healthcare delivery more cumbersome.
We have certainly had deployments that fit in both categories. As I...
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March 18, 2013
A creative future for education
Tim Brown discusses how creativity has an essential role in education
It was good to see a strong focus on education at Davos this year. There seems to be a growing realization that basic issues such as education, health and employment require fundamental reinvention if we are to face the coming challenges of a more volatile interconnected world.
One session at the Annual Meeting that I particularly enjoyed discussed the addition of creative and artistic education to the traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) agenda. John Maeda, Carol Becker, Justine Cassell and Tomas...
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February 6, 2013
Businesses are not doing enough to foster innovation
Barry Salzberg on the role business can play in fostering new ideas to drive economic growth
American economist and Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt wrote, “Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation,so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement, and progress.”
And it’s this intersection of innovation, society, and business that’s the focus of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited 2012 Millennial Survey, the results of which were launched last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
I believe that...
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January 25, 2013
Growing spinach in a skyscraper
As humans, we’ve always innovated our way out of problems, from steam engines to city farms, argues Frans van Houten.
What if just 20 buildings dedicated to urban farming could provide the entire city of New York with fruit and vegetables year round? It sounds like a fantasy of the future dreamed up on a Hollywood film set. But with breakthrough technology in LED lighting, when it comes to growing spinach in a skyscraper, the future is already here.
City farming is not only possible, it is the very definition of the kind of meaningful, sustainable innovation we will need to meet the grand...
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January 23, 2013
How open data can save lives
William A. Brindley, Chief Executive Officer of NetHope.org discusses the building of a data-sharing ecosystem.
To paraphrase English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, sometimes it seems as if there are data, data everywhere, nor any bit makes sense.
NetHope is a consortium of 37 leading international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) collaborating to address the world’s most pressing challenges through the smarter use of technology. We want all this data to make sense and help us do our jobs more effectively.
So earlier this year we started the Open Humanitarian...
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January 22, 2013
The optimist’s timeline
SEATTLE – Usually, “optimism” and “realism” are used to describe two different outlooks on life. But I believe that a realistic appraisal of the human condition compels an optimistic worldview. I am particularly optimistic about the potential for technological innovation to improve the lives of the poorest people in the world. That is why I do the work that I do.
Even so, there is one area of technology and global development where reality has tempered my optimism: the idea that cellphones would revolutionize life in developing countries. A decade ago, many people believed that the...
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January 3, 2013
How can competitiveness bolster resilient dynamism?
For more than three decades, the World Economic Forum has been working on the topic of national competitiveness, in an effort to understand and measure what drives national productivity and prosperity.
Being competitive requires countries to have in place a mix of factors such as solid infrastructure, a healthy and educated workforce, efficient markets, and a propensity for technological adoption and innovation. Over the years, we have continued to integrate the latest thinking and priorities into our work, with a goal of supporting national and regional efforts towards improved economic...
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January 3, 2013
The wakening of Chinese innovation
Napoleon’s once famously said that “when China wakes, it will shake the world”. Well, the world is certainly feeling shaken now. As one Chinese newspaper noted following the recent change in leadership, China’s transition is about a “new start, new expectations and new era”.
China’s reform programme is three-decades old and there are signs that the economic model of growth driven by exports and infrastructure investment may be running out of steam. So, China’s economic policy-makers are seeking to instigate an era of innovation-led growth instead.
China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, which runs until...
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December 12, 2012
Who’s afraid of mobile Internet in healthcare?
What will the future of health and healthcare look like? In a series of blog posts by the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Foresight and Health teams, a number of leading voices will present their own visions for the future. Contributions are linked to the Scenarios for Sustainable Health Systems project, the Workplace Wellness Alliance and the Healthy Living Initiative. In the following post, Andrew Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Proteus Biomedical, shares his perspective on the future of health.Healthcare in the 21st century will be transformed by a new utility more available than...
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November 23, 2012
