Ideas are readily available, inexhaustible and free – the NHS could tap into more from the majority of the workforce.
The massive Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California was partially funded by a large Department of Energy loan guarantee yet the policy has been harshly criticized.
Gregg Tavares
The world needs new energy technologies to meet global demand and slow emissions. Government plays an outside role in energy so what policies work best for innovation?
Facebook knows what you’re doing. What you’re watching. How you’re feeling.
Khakimullin Aleksandr/Shutterstock/Wired
Did you recently buy a Samsung smart TV? If you are worried about privacy, you may be wondering how smart that decision was following the manufacturer’s warnings that its voice-activated televisions may…
Ola Henfridsson, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
The news that Google is to get into the ride-hailing scene – the same taxis-that-aren’t-taxis business pioneered by Uber – may have come as a surprise to some. We can speculate that it may even have come…
Big ideas are more likely to follow when directors look beyond shareholders.
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For firms to survive and thrive, innovation is crucial. Innovative companies can respond to changes in today’s dynamic business environment. Countries and regions that are home to innovative companies…
Like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, Australia must change its way of thinking – or else we face the grim fate of being trapped in an economic rut.
Columbia Pictures
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting wraps up off the piste in the Swiss ski resort this weekend. Two themes are growth and stability; and innovation and industry. Attendees must feel like Bill Murray…
The so-called “internet of things” has been the talk of the technology world for years now. Consumer electronics firms are exploring ways of connecting all manner of personal and household objects to the…
It’s what comes after the great scientific discoveries that Russia has traditionally missed out on.
Bin im Garten
Loren Graham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Russia’s economy is highly dependent on the price of oil, as are a few other countries, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Russia differs from those other countries, however, in having a very strong scientific…
Investing in more roads might help boost economic growth, but getting knowledge infrastructure right could take it to a new level.
Image sourced from Shutterstock
Commentators continue to call for new infrastructure to lift Australia’s flagging economic growth, yet there is a significant lack of awareness over what constitutes infrastructure. Infrastructure is not…
To Tolkien, the machine represents a means to attain power over others. His orcs – deformed and ugly creatures, whose hands are sometimes replaced with weapons – embody this lust for power.
LOTR Wikia
My grandfather was a carpenter, and I don’t think he ever developed much of a sense of trust in machines. I remember him laboring away at our home one summer, transforming our screened-in porch into a…
Many governments are realising high-growth tech companies have the keys to their country’s economic future.
Peter Dasilva/EPA/AAP
The world was a very different place in December 1999 when the first G20 met in Berlin. Steve Jobs had just taken back the reins at Apple, but Facebook, Google, Twitter and the dot-com bust were figments…
Congress has recently stepped up its efforts to reform the copyright system, which is woefully inadequate to deal with today’s rapidly evolving communication technologies. These efforts began early last…
Wrinkles in the EU plan to drive innovation?
Giampaolo Squarcina
The European Union might just have made a historically important statement of intent, aimed at laying the foundations to boost investment in the EU as a driver of full recovery and long-term growth. That’s…
According to TechRepublic, Google produced two of the five worst tech products of 2009 – Android 1.0 and Google Wave. The fact that Google remains dominant suggests that, while not infallible, it’s rich…
A new culture is required for Australian manufacturing to be reinvented.
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With major employers heading offshore and employment numbers decimated, what will emerge from the ashes of Australia’s manufacturing industry? And what role should manufacturing play in the federal government’s…
Building an innovation ecosystem can take years of government nurturing.
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Our lives are surrounded by the ideas and creations of thousands of people. The magic of flight, or computers, or vaccines, inventions and innovations we take for granted, have advanced from one idea to…
With its competitiveness agenda, the Abbott government faces a politically fraught path to reform.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The Abbott government’s Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda is an economic policy statement likely to define its term in government. The Agenda has four planks in the government’s efforts to…
There’s plenty of value between an idea and its commercialisation.
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One of the key planks of the government’s new Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda is a desire to boost collaboration between business and industry, the scientific and research communities and…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the selection of five sectors for “growth centres” is not picking winners but “playing to our strengths”.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Alexandra Hansen, The Conversation
The federal government has released its National Industry Investment and Competitiveness Agenda, committing around A$400 million towards “industry growth centres”, new tax incentives for employee share…
In the world of video games few companies have as long or vivid a history as Nintendo, which turns 125 years old this week. Founded in 1889 as a producer of toys and playing-cards, the company is quite…