I’m bigging
up the Economist again. Just got in from an insightful and inspiring evening to
recognise global innovation champions at this year’s Economist
Innovation awards Over the past ten years the awards have gone to some of
the world’s leading entrepreneurs, thinkers, creators, scientists and
innovators. Previous winners include Hernando De Soto, Bill Gates, Mark
Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, no slouches in there then.
I liked the
innovative slant on this year’s awards as they called out the idea that formed
the groundbreaking transformation or product or service we know today. We
learnt that Garmin can be traced back to a conversation about the not yet
completed satellite navigation constellation and consumer product. The whole
lithium ion batteries phenomenon came from one man’s thinking in the shower but
the winner for me was Elon Musk’s thinking about extending life beyond Earth
when he was 19.
The event
was blessed with some the brightest people on the planet but Elon winning the no boundaries category, but with his Space X, Tesla
Solar panels and something called Hyperloop was on, another level. Hyperloop a
cross between concord and rail gun so you can travel from LA to San Francisco in
30 mins. I’d certainly travel on it but it was great to hear how innovations
and thinking in one world is cross pollinated to another.
