Democracy News: Tom Friedman Writes About Innovation

Mission News & Events Masthead

March 4, 2010

Tom Friedman Writes About Innovation - and Democracy Journal

The New York Times

New York Times writer Tom Friedman devoted his latest column to the innovation challenge facing the United States--and mentioned Democracy Journal's innovation symposium while doing so.

The column is focused on a conversation Friedman had with Paul Otellini, the leader of Intel. Friedman describes their discussion:

I asked if his company was being held back by weak science and math education in America’s K-12 schools, Otellini explained:

“As a citizen, I hate it. As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth. If I can’t get them out of M.I.T., I’ll get them out of Tsing Hua” — Beijing’s M.I.T.

It gets worse. Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal “ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness — not great, but not bad. Yet that same study also measured what they call ‘the rate of change in innovation capacity’ over the last decade — in effect, how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital — I.T. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. On this scale, the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. ... When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive. ... we are slipping.”

To read the full Democracy symposium on innovation, click here. Friedman's column is here.

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