Technological Innovation: The Road to Prosperity

My first assignment in my Technical Innovation class I was tasked with a 'concept diagram' with my view on the importance of technical innovation. I wasn't the only one to take a more philosophic bend on the task though I was the only one who quoted Rand :-)

Technological innovation is bringing something new into existence combining knowledge gained from scientific study to solve practical problems. It is different from traditional engineering practice, since there the principles are known and while creativity and problem-solving are required they are in the application of existing and tested principles. When an architect builds a building out of steel and concrete he can lean on all of the knowledge about existing structures and their performance to aid him in his design. He also has an established business market to sell his building in. When Bell invented the telephone, he had neither. The engineering principles (and some of the scientific ones) had to be discovered and the market needed to be created. If the Wright brothers had chose to publish a paper on wing warping after their discovery of that aerodynamic process in their bike garage it would have been a great scientific accomplishment. Taking it all the way to the 1903 Wright Flyer made it a technical innovation. Clearly there is an extra step taken after the laws of nature are discovered by science before they are of practical use to man.

So why is technical innovation important? Technology innovation is the creation of new applications of scientific discoveries to productive problems of man. It is how we get from the discovery of radio waves to iPhones and from the steam engine (known as far back as ancient Greece) to the modern jet engine. Man's ability to be more productive (and live better, more flourishing life) is bounded only by the creativity and ability of the people who innovate. This is why it is important: it makes YOUR life better.

Most of the rest of the class focused on the military and cultural superiority that comes from leading technical innovation. I wanted to bring in especially Rand's quote that technology is the implicit and ultimate purpose of man's pursuit of knowledge.