ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

Here are some of the key phrases and sentiments that floated around the Royal Festival Hall yesterday at NESTA's impressive Innovation Edge event....

"The UK is an innovation leader now, and needs to be in the future"
"Innovation needs to work right across the economy, private and public sectors"
"Nothing matters more for the future of our country"
"What is it we think we're 'progressing' towards? Where is the vision?"
"We are becoming too risk averse, too worried about fear of failure"
"The UK is losing it,the very edge that made us the creative centre of the world in the second half of the twentieth century"
"Decisions are becoming increasingly local. We are all leaders now, it's about co-operation not competition"
"Our education model is obsolete. The whole model of learning has changed. 60 year olds who don't understand the digital age are designing the education of 6 year olds who do"
"Our new digital world's currency is co-operation, collaboration, creativity and innovation"
"Too much greed undermines trust"
"Scissors have two blades, you need both of them. But the balance of demand-side and supply-side innovation is skewed towards supply side. We only have one blade"
"In the US the early adoption of innovative products and services is commonplace, unlike the UK"
"When risk averse civil servants protect their Ministers from the risks of failure, they export UK jobs and services and the future of the UK to other countries that are prepared to take those risks"
"Procurement should not describe how you want it done, but what you want to achieve"
"Innovation needs to be built into the objectives and culture of govt departments"
"The civil service model of incentivisation sets them against risk and innovation"
"Govt funded R&D in the US lets patents and intellectual property rest with the inventor not the funder"
'We need a UK innovation architecture, not to pick at parts of the chain"
"Open source innovation offers great potential, with profit-making on services not products"
"The real market failure in the UK in innovation is in supporting early stage and small businesses"
"All the major innovations of the last 50 years came out of the US"
"Long term investment in basic research is needed, not short-term applied research"
"Involving the consumer in service design is essential, but the public sector lags far behind"
"Reward those who try and fail"

And finally:

"In the 20 years to come there will be more innovation and disruption than in the last 100 years"

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