The Era of Young Innovators: Looking Beyond Universities To Source Talents 86
New submitter billylo writes "Tech heavy industries are constantly looking for new sources of innovations. But where are the best place to find them? Increasingly, businesses are looking beyond universities and source ideas from savvy high schoolers. Cases in point: High school programming team finished in the Top 5 of MasterCard's NXT API challenge (3rd one down the list) last weekend in Toronto; Waterloo's Computing Contest high-school level winners [PDF] tackled complex problems like these [PDF]; the FIRST robotics competition requires design, CAD, manufacturing and programming all done by high schoolers. Do you have other good examples on how to encourage high schoolers to become young innovators?
Do you have any other successful examples?"
Kids are gonna do what they are borned to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
We all seem to be wired to do something. It may be sports, music, art, construction, cars, whatever. I know I have been driven with curiosity of all things electronic/scientific as far back as I can remember. Its like spots on a leopard - I came this way. I have noted others are exactly the same way as far as their wiring goes, whether it be likes/dislikes/foods/sexual orientation/ whatever.
Its easy to find kids with a bent to do this. They will flock to things like science fairs and techie conventions.
They will do this, even with considerable social rejection for doing so.
Face it, techie kids are not near as encouraged as one in sports or some sort of leadership skill.
If you want one of these - catch one before he has been burned out by the system.
Today's business environment is full of very highly paid suit-guys who are more fruit inspector than anything else, rejecting everything that is not perfect. People only handle so much rejection before they pass on doing what they love as a vocation then do it independently. A suit guy more obsessed with conformity and respect for authority is not apt to attract any creative types to his company. I think the kids have wised up that few of us stand a chance to be gainfully employed in the tech sector unless it is something like Google or Facebook. We can't get past the suit guy at the personnel office - you know - the guy who could not bias a transistor into the linear region if his life depended on it, but yet his signature determines whether or not we get employed, or can even speak to anyone knowledgeable in the field who could make an employment decision.
Yes, I am jaded, but that has been my experience. I talk to a lot of kids about this field - and advise them to do this if you are wired to do it - otherwise there are lots more very highly profitable ways to earn a living. Banking and finance especially, One gets far more remuneration from owning rather than working under today's tax laws.
all BS (Score:5, Insightful)
you can innovate at 30, but can't. There's a reason.
You can innovate at 20, but can't. There's a reason.
You can innovate at 15.... it's the same reason.
The reason: having a mentor.
The NXT, FIRST and other competitions work cause the teams have very experienced mentors with the goal to promote innovation.
Colleges used to have mentors, but because of IP competitiveness, marketing hyping bright minds (hence mentoring stops) so quickly, mentoring in college is dropping off. Especially as college kids try to negotiate deals with VCs like a basketball player.
And if you're 30, no one with mentor you cause every mentor thinks you're out to steal IP or just hyping up your skills.
In the end the VCs still win cause the labor is cheap (high schoolers) commpared to college kids who want to be the next Zuckerberg
innovation != "innovation!!!1!" (Score:5, Insightful)
you almost have it...19th Century *Business* model.
you're absolutely right the industry doesn't know what 'innovation' is b/c many tech leaders (broadly) got to be in that position not by 'innovation' but by sheer luck, stealing other's work, or by being a lackey.
M$'s government contract aided ascendence is the perfect example. They scaled up from the garage b/c Gates & Co. were willing to do w/e IBM wanted. IBM, of course, had just gotten a huge government to put PC's on every government desk.
Who needs to do R&D and 'innovate' when the government guarantees your company a revenue stream and captive market???
The industry is killing itself from hype...it's like a human eating only SweetTarts candy everyday...it'll kill you eventually
Re:Ideas are all around (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottleneck is always between idea and implementation. Ideas are cheap and in near infinite supply. Executing ideas successfully and creating a successful business from those ideas - that is always the hard part.
The onus is not on others to explain why they don't want to build your idea; the onus is on you to convince them as to why they should.
Maybe you haven't effectively communicated a compelling value proposition for why someone would want to adopt your technology over other proven methods. Maybe it just isn't a very good idea.
Either way, suggesting that others don't have the "guts" to follow your idea doesn't strike me as a strategy likely to lead to success.