Gary Ling, Digital Producer, Data Monetiser, Political Savant, Information Economist, Solution Seller, Business Strategist.
"Life, is a Virtual State of Mind" - Gary Ling
  • Garys Balls
    • Ballsy Start
    • Marketing
    • Economics
    • Project Management
    • Business Strategy
    • eCommerce
    • Business Intelligence
  • Theory of Balls
    • Ling's Theory of Balls Rule 1: "Play Ball"
    • Rule 2: "Have Balls"
    • Rule 3: "Crystal Ball"
    • Rule 4: "Play The Ball"
    • Rule 5: "Talk Balls"
    • Rule 6: "Listen For Balls"
    • Rule 7: "Juggle Balls"
    • Rule 8: "Eye On The Ball"
    • Rule 9: "Score With The Ball"
    • Rule 10: "Have A Ball!"
  • Digital Thinking
    • ...Hi-Tech Cities
    • ...eCommerce
    • ...Bloomberg Reuters
    • ...User Behaviour
    • ...LoveIn My Blacky
    • ...GDS Digital By Default
    • ...InfoWorker BullsEye
    • ...The Cloud
  • DigiShorts
  • Ballsy Thinking
    • ...WikiLeaks
    • ...Stop Iranian Nukes
    • ... on UK Economy
    • ...on the EuroZone
    • ....on Terrorism
    • ...UK Independence Party
    • ...on Crime
    • ...on Social issues
    • ...on China
    • ... on Soviet Union
    • ... on Companies House
    • ... on Drones
  • Ballsy Shorts
  • Chicken Balls
  • Pit Balls
  • Maggie Balls
  • Military Balls
    • British Balls
  • Greenwich Balls
  • China Balls
  • Soviet Balls
  • Scotland Balls
  • Watford Balls
  • Adult Balls
  • Twitter Balls
  • Marketing

How can governments help national businesses reinvent light bulbs?

5/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Almost unnoticed the UK has become a world leader in nurturing government backed innovation. It is helping many industries to reinvent their own versions of the light bulb. I have recently been involved in helping clients who seek to raise money with pitches to venture capital organisations or with submissions in response to Innovate UK funding calls. Most people are aware of what VCs purport to do in our economy but many may be unaware of ‘Innovate UK’. It holds itself out to be the “UK's innovation agency” and is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It is an organisation of around 300 staff and since 2007 says it has committed over £1.8 billion to innovation, matched by a similar amount in partner and business funding.
​
I first submitted bids for UK government innovation money when Innovate UK was called the ‘Technology Strategy Board’ and, as an ardent free marketer, was sceptical of how effective government can be in ‘picking winners’ on the industrial landscape. However, as years have passed I have come to realise that, in practice, Innovate UK has proven its worth as a part of Britain’s sophisticated digital economy. This is not to say that I am convinced that the Prime Minister’s latest push for a much more comprehensive ‘industrial strategy’ is either desirable in Global Britain or has much chance of being effective given our short political time frames (think NHS reforms) – but this is a matter for another blog post.

Having given this some serious thought over past year since the UK's EU Referendum, I now see Innovate UK having three core strengths that can boost Britain’s economy in a post-Brexit world:  

First the UK's Innovation Agency, is very good at identifying broad ‘future problem areas’ which will need innovative solutions. Post the 2007/8 Great Global Financial Correction, most government’s around the world must make do with getting more from less in trying to solve some of the greatest problems facing their citizens. These may be health issues associated with aging populations or issues surrounding the quality of life in urban environments as more people move into cities. A look at the Innovate UK website shows that they have a good understanding of where future problems are likely to crop up or, more importantly, get worse.

Second, Calls for bids for Innovate UK funds show that they understand that “the trend is your friend.” They appear to be staffed with knowledgeable people who are tapped into the latest cutting edge thinking which is driving momentum in a whole range of areas from biomedical, digital health to connected autonomous vehicles, innovation in rail, connected transport and emerging and enabling technologies. In some cases, Innovate UK money may be awarded to ‘bleeding edge’ technology within an emerging trend that would never get funding from elsewhere, like those in its First of a Kind competitions.

Third, Innovate UK has developed world class processes for both awarding and tracking the success of taxpayers’ money spent on innovation. From whether such leading-edge technology solutions  pass the informed ‘Sniff Test’ (which is all you may have to go on in the most bloody of bleeding edge innovations)  to a robust but flexible analysis of how the money is spent, Innovate UK leads the world, surpassing in many instances even the accountability benchmark procedures of Britain’s VC companies.  

Today, it is not surprising that other countries which are trying to understand how to finance their own national innovation schemes are looking to Britain as source of best practice in this area. As a result, Innovate UK are sending some of their brightest across the globe to set up Innovate UK-type Calls in which British firms can link up with partners in distant markets (India, China). Clearly, as Britain Brexits (and the EU’s share of the world economy falls to only 13% without us) the Government hopes that Britain’s entrepreneurs will open their eyes to the opportunities in these markets.

Whether it is possible to set up an Innovate UK style body in countries with higher levels of corruption than in the UK is open to question. Robust integrity in awarding public money may turn out to be the most significant prerequisite for any state to successfully seed fund national businesses who have the best ideas to solve future problems. In this case, these less scrupulous countries can let the UK innovate these ideas and then steal them as they have done in the past.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Check the 'Categories List' below to select by topic.
    These Blog comments focus on developments in the Digital space. To discover how the
    ebbs and flows of markets, politics,
    conflicts, countries, people and money
    make the world go round see
    'Ballsy Thinking'.
    Picture

    Digital Ballsy Thinking
    (Pron. "bawl-zee thing-king")

    defined:
    adj: 1. Slang courageous and spirited reasoning; judgement  2. Characterized by clear, straightforward thought or thoughtfulness; 
    rational: “That’s the sort of Ballsy Thinking to move us towards our objective”.

    n.  1. The act or practice of one that thinks differently, innovatively; new thought.  2. Leading by way of reasoning; judgment: “This is not ballsy thinking, it is too timid an idea.”

    Picture

    Archives

    November 2018
    September 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012

    Categories

    All
    Artifical Intelligence
    Big Data
    Blackberry
    Business Information
    Client Case Studies
    Data Centres
    Digital Business
    Ecommerce
    Ethics
    Government
    Human Life
    Innovation
    Revolut
    Social Trading
    Tech City Movements
    The Cloud
    Uk Digital Strategy
    User Behaviour
    Wikileaks
    Windows 10

    RSS Feed

Picture
Current Status: 
Gary welcomes the opportunity to discuss projects that he might be able to work on with you.  
Tel: +44 7706 666 106 
 
Email: [email protected]
Picture
Photos from hans s, mikebaird