Right now, we feel like a country in a very slow decline — in infrastructure, basic research and education — just slow enough to lull us into thinking that we have all the time and money to play around in Tbilisi, Georgia, more than Atlanta, Georgia...Our competitiveness... is based on having a broadly educated work force, superb research universities, innovation-supportive taxes, immigration and regulatory policies, a productive physical and virtual infrastructure, and a culture that embraces hard work and the creation of new opportunities.Alas, though, the Republicans just had a convention where abortion got vastly more attention than innovation, calls to buttress Tbilisi, Georgia, swamped any for Atlanta, Georgia, and “drill, baby, drill” was chanted instead of “innovate, baby, innovate.”
I think what is echoed here is the power of a renewed commitment to the middle class of America. To giving them the access and resources to break into to our creative class. We will always have innovation and technology flowing from the Ivy league schools, from big corporations, from the top talent in government agencies. But what if, instead of going on the path of the Manhattan Project, we invested and stimulated the path of the Apple and Microsoft project. The power of 100,000 innovators starting in 100,000 small garages across the country to generate new ideas and new technology to solve new problems and find a new way to fix old problems. The world needs more Dean Kamens, and his ideas
