Innovation Race

There are no lesser reports recently from western scholars and business writers commenting on the rise of India and China as the new innovation giants. Many of their verdicts are based on the rising number of technical graduates from these two countries, which they think will eventually promise innovation progress and economic growth. I support critics’ views that this line of argument is too simplistic, and I think it is worthwhile to elaborate further on those views which can be represented by this simple equation: Technical graduates ≠ Innovation ≠ Economic growth.

Critics rightly pointed out that rising number of technical graduates simply is not the answer to innovation. We can not overlook the quality issue and the need of an education system that can truly harness the creativity of graduates. Perhaps it may take a major overhaul to redefine traditional education objectives in Asia which stress more on examination qualification and less on research. Governments must also undertake substantial investment in basic and commercial research to expose students to innovation challenge before innovation progress can truly take off. So the real answer to innovation is a large pool of highly entrepreneurial and innovative graduates through improved education system, mass pool of technical graduates will not take up the challenge effectively.

But innovation alone does not guarantee immediate economic growth. Put it simply, technical innovation alone generates no revenue, it takes business acumen to commercialize technical innovation and deliver economic values. So business judgment and the ability to connect with consumers are absolutely imperative to bridge that gap. India and China still have much to do in developing truly world-class business expertise to complement their aggressive move in producing technical talents.

So I really do not think their current education model which produces mass technical graduates to supply to traditional manufacturing and IT industries will serve them well in long term innovation challenge. It needs a shift to high value based education which stresses the capacity to innovate and commercialize at the same time. Their future of becoming innovative powerhouse is tangibly real but it is largely overplayed at this moment, there is still a long road ahead for them to make significant transformation into truly innovative economies.