Writes Economist: “The missing factor in the growth equation is often thought to be the addition of new knowledge gleaned from scientific discovery and technological progress – in short, innovation. In this scheme of things, innovation accounts for any growth that cannot be explained by increases in capital and labour. And though the return on investment may decline as capital is added to the economy, any deceleration in growth is more than offset by the leveraging effects of innovation. That explains why rates of return have stayed high in rich countries, and why poorer countries have not caught up.”
The six winners of the Innovation Awards:
– Bioscience: Leroy Hood (University of Washington) for the automated DNA fluorescence sequencer
– Computing: James Gosling (Sun) for Java
– Energy/environment: Rinaldo Rinolfi (Fiat) for the common rail injection system
– Nanotechnology: Stephen Fodor (Affymax Technologies) for the GeneChip
– Telecoms: Irwin jacobs (Qualcomm) for CDMA
– “No Boundaries”: Shuji Nakamura
Innovation+T
