Mobile Asia Congress 2008: Stefan on Telecom TV
Wave of Asian Innovation
It is timely to ask where global innovation starts. Five years ago, the US Patent Office issued 170,000 patents;
- 80% were from the US, Japan or Germany;
- 15% from Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, Israel or Canada.
- Just 0.4% originated in India and China.
Fortunately, these numbers do not reflect the truth of Asian creativity and innovation. A UC Berkeley study of Silicon Valley start-ups since 1990, found 1/3 were founded or co-founded by Chinese or Indian entrepreneurs creating US$20 billion in annual revenue and more than 70,000 jobs.
Largely due to making Asia the “offshore” operations for MNCs, a generation of “micro-multinationals” have built a critical mass of engineers and managers around these operations. This is beginning to impact the creativity and innovation as talented engineers and managers across Asia join emerging businesses or build their own.
Asia is creating entrepreneurial centres of rapid innovation and a multitude of venture resources are providing the entrepreneurial infrastructure.
D is for Digital
If you’re like me and have children you are going to want to read this report. Here an extract from their Executive Summary
“Technology is everywhere children live. However, finding the positive potential of new media to accelerate children’s learning is not yet part of our national conversation.
If we can harness media as a powerful teaching tool, we can help children grow up as literate, responsible global citizens. Now is the time to turn the new media that children have a natural attraction to into learning tools that will build their knowledge and broaden their perspectives.”
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