Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley) is defined as the technology park located in California, where a large number of industries are located that develop computer or semiconductor devices whose base material is mostly the silicon element, such is the case of Apple Inc., eBay, Google, Intel among others.
In order to discover the secret of the success of this technological complex, the author devoted himself to conducting in-depth research, through interviews with different characters, whose creativity and innovation have led them to the realization and implementation of their ideas.
In the case of Viveck Wadhwa, who is Academic Vice President of Research and Innovation at Singularity University, he commented that the secret of success lies in people, that is, that creative minds are attracted to an environment of acceptance towards cultural diversity., ethnic and even sexual, an environment that prevails in Silicon Valley. This diversity is seen and translated as multicultural cities. Likewise, it can be seen that wealth is not found in resources or economic incentives, but in the talent of the people. What is important is that all that talent is backed by good educational systems.
One of the obstacles to this type of community in Latin American countries is bureaucracy, which in most cases prevents innovation.
There are so many procedures that make it difficult to open a new business unit or a new company, that people end up discarding the idea or moving to another place or country where this type of procedure is less or has more flexibility to start to the implementation of your ideas.
On the other hand, Richard Florida, in his book The rise of the creative class, comments that creative minds are the ones that will attract companies in the future and not companies to talents, as it has been managing until a few years ago. Likewise, Florida, who is currently a professor and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, at the University of Toronto and also runs a private consulting company, the Creative Class Group, comments that creativity is a " social process", In other words, the people with whom we compete, collaborate and learn make the greatest advances exist in these creative communities.
In fact, throughout the chapter it is mentioned that creative or innovative minds tend to gather in places outside the standards of organizations, such as in cafes, bookstores or restaurants. In these places the social process occurs and they share ideas, they give solutions to some problems, despite not knowing each other.
According to Oppenheimer, Florida says (Create or Die, p. 12):
“I came to the somewhat controversial conclusion that the most conducive places for innovation are those where the arts flourish, new musical expressions, where there is a large gay population, where there is good cuisine, in addition to universities that can transform creativity. in innovation ”
This is handled as a preamble, to consider that there are places in Latin America with the characteristics to host creativity and that innovation flourishes, since there are some universities that could stand out, although they are not currently among the best in the world. We have the case of Mexico, Brazil or Argentina for example.
Importantly, according to Florida, the places where innovation flourishes "tend to glorify talent rather than money" (Create or Die, p. 12). People learn from their failures and are recognized for what they know how to do well, rather than for what they have, as in the case of Steve Jobs (Father of the first personal computer and founder of Apple Computer), Bill Gates (Entrepreneur, computer scientist and American philanthropist, co-founder of the Microsoft software company along with Paul Allen) or Mark Zuckerberg (Programmer, philanthropist and American businessman known for being the creator of Facebook).
As a benchmark in the world of the future, the slogan of companies will be to create or die, referring to the fact that different organizations must have the flexibility to innovate to satisfy the demand of society, to make or manufacture new products that meet or exceed the expectations of it.
As an example of an innovative product, we have 3D printers, which were released commercially in 2013, thanks to the mention made by the President of the United States at the time, Barack Obama, in one of his speeches as an invention truly innovative that could revolutionize the way things are made. It is a fact that before this type of larger printers were already used in the manufacturing industry, for the manufacture of some auto parts and some other spare parts.
Drones or drones have already been used previously for war purposes, however, today they are already manufactured on a large scale and for commercial purposes so that any sector of society can make use of them, from taking photographs, carrying medications, coastguard services, delivering pizza to your home or modifying the way you deliver packages and documents. Jordi Muñoz is the co-founder of 3D Robotics, one of the largest low-cost drone manufacturing companies in the United States.
On the other hand, we can talk about cars that do not require a driver, according to Brad Templeton, who currently works for Google, it is a car that offers greater safety because it will reduce the number of deaths from car accidents by up to 90%. It is not easy and it is not yet fully approved and there are many skeptics. However, work continues on the prototypes.
Another innovation are self-cleaning materials or smart materials. A group of scientists from Stanford University have been working on some flexible polymers that can be used to make prosthetics and frameworks for robots, these materials are also good conductors of electricity and sensitive to pressure and heat.
It is interesting to note that a new ecosystem is emerging that is known as the “internet of things”. This refers to the fact that through microchips, things will be interconnected and will have positive consequences: as sensors that will warn if someone suffers a fainting or accident, objects will warn of the end of their useful life so that they can be replaced, detect epidemics, determine traffic patterns, clocks that take the heart pulse and send information to the attending physician, regulators of light, water and other services, energy saving systems, among others. However, there is concern that this interconnection will generate cyber terrorism, that computers will be hacked, that instructions will be changed without prior notice, proliferation of junk information, and so on. The consequences can be devastating, but as has happened today, the internet has connected people and despite the dangers,progress has not stopped.
As for education, thanks to technological advances, the famous online education is increasing more and more, it is suggested that in the future schools will operate exactly the opposite of the current ones. Children will study from home, this is known as flipped schools. These types of schools are already proliferating in the United States. According to Oppenheimer, the New York Times notes: "Almost everyone (the experts) agrees with the premise that the strategy of reversing classes works."
In summary, there are two currents, the "techno-utopian" and the "techno-skeptical".
The former affirm that technological advances are the main engine for poverty reduction and of course improves the quality of life of people (we live longer and better). They think that little progress has been made in the last decade. Peter H. Diamandis (current president of Singularity University) and his co-author Steven Kotler, in their book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, states:
“A period of radical transformation is now entering, in which technology has the potential to substantially improve the average living standards of every man, woman and child on the planet. Within a generation we will be able to provide goods and services that in the past were reserved for the wealthy few to all who need or want them. Abundance for all is within our grasp. ” (Create or Die, p. 27)
The "techno-skeptics" see Diamandis and other technology innovators, only as utopian sellers. These argue that most technologies have been invented in rich countries, obviously to solve the problems of rich countries. They also warn of the dangers that such technologies bring, such as destructive power when each person can make a weapon at home or that drones, instead of delivering pizzas, deliver bombs, as examples.
The great challenge is that new technologies are used for the benefit of as many people as possible.
Finally, there is talk of a lag in technological advances in Latin America, since the number of patents for new innovations registered in these countries is insignificant. WIPO, is the World Intellectual Property Organization, makes a comparison, South Korea registers around 12,400 international patent applications, while Latin America and the Caribbean barely reach 1,200 (Mexico with a total of 230 applications). In Latin America there is no culture for the registration of patents by universities or companies, there is also a total lack of respect for intellectual property.
According to Oppenheimer, Carsten Fink (Create or Die, p. 29), affirms "the challenge for Latin American countries is to create an ecosystem where innovation can flourish." Therefore, it is considered that there is no Latin American city within the first 100 scientific knowledge producing cities in the world.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), occupies the 151st place according to the ranking made by the Jiao Tong University of Shanghai China. In other rankings they do not name it. It is clear that our country, like others in Latin America, invests relatively little in scientific research. We are producing too many philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and poets, and too few scientists and engineers. There is also a backwardness in education that occurs at the primary and secondary levels, where educational quality has lagged behind that of the rest of the world, as can be seen in the results of the international PISA test, where they are measured knowledge of mathematics, science and reading ability.
Most of the great scientific, technological and artistic innovators were the result of a collaborative process. Such is the case of Albert Einstein, Picasso, the Orville and Wilbur Wright brothers, Henry Ford, among others.
To conclude, it is necessary to generate an ecosystem with a quality education and a culture of tolerance to failure, companies and universities that invest in research and development of new products, globalized study centers that attract talent from all sides, interaction between universities and companies, an economic environment conducive to risky investments, legislation that encourages the creation of new companies and a concentration of creative minds in the same city.
In my opinion, companies generally seek to increase their efficiency through increased productivity, and this can lead them to make uncontrolled changes, discourage staff, inhibit creativity and, therefore, failure to achieve objectives.
Top management can lose sight of their employees and how valuable it is to have a team that works and acts because of their motivation to do things well.
A motivated team will tend to generate new and innovative ideas for problem solving, to lower costs or simply to harmoniously carry out their work. As discussed in the book, the most important part is an organization is the people.
To the extent that organizations understand that having a motivated community, in an environment that favors creativity and innovation, will result in a true interaction between the factors that intervene for learning, teamwork in a cooperative and collaborative way and finally, the company will benefit by reducing costs, increasing productivity, being more competitive, achieving objectives, among others.
Technological advances have far surpassed the ability of companies to react, the world is globalizing and changes are occurring rapidly. Companies and individuals have to adapt to these changes so as not to be left out or left behind. In this new "ecosystem" of creativity and innovation in products, services or processes, people like companies must use their strengths and talents, take advantage of them, but above all, motivated people.
I really liked the way the concepts of creativity and innovation are addressed in the book, the examples of people who have managed to stand out thanks to this new way of thinking, taking advantage of their failures to continue advancing in the improvement and implementation of ideas.
Due to my profession I have had the opportunity to develop new products or some innovation to the medical equipment used in the hospital area, being truly satisfactory to be able to provide improvements to benefit primary and secondary users. In the area of education, I believe that creativity is essential to arouse interest in students on the topics included in the different subjects.
Bibliographic references:
- Oppenheimer, A. (2014). Create or Die! The hope of Latin America and the five keys to Innovation. New York: Vintage Española. Available at: http://vamoseleste.com/img/biblioteca/Crear_o_Morir.Oppenheimer.pdf.
