ENABLING DISPERSED INNOVATION — HOW THE UNITED STATES CAN UTILIZE ITS LONG TAIL OF TALENT

Abstract

The United States, having enjoyed nearly half a century of technology leadership, today faces a number of challenges in maintaining its innovation advantage. These include: (1) Declining science and engineering talent pipeline, (2) increased global competition, (3) rigidity of the venture capital model, and (4) saturation of key technology centers. In a period where all Science Engineering (S&E) talent is not necessarily deployed to S&E occupations due to other opportunities or geographical challenges, "Dispersed Innovation," the idea of a location independent model to achieve higher technical utilization of American S&E talent is a proposed solution which consists of four key components: (1) Build out of advanced transportation networks, (2) increased use of collaboration tools, (3) cultural acceptance of entrepreneurship, and (4) increased funding options and models.