Thomas Friedman Challenges Grad To Create and Innovate
Addressing the class of 2007 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, challenged everyone with the thought that “the most important competition is the one between you and your own imagination.” He commented further on the ease by which one can start their own company because of the Internet: “When the world is this flat, with this many distributed tools of innovation, what you will imagine is going to matter so much more because you can now act on your imagination, as individuals, so much faster, farther, deeper, and cheaper.” This is definitely true, although innovation and business generally require some experience and savvy (not just access to the Internet). What I like about Thomas Friedman’s speech is that he balances the need for more “know how” (i.e. Science and engineering) with the need for people to use and expand their imagination (importance of liberal arts) in order to help America with it’s “Quiet Crisis” (outsourcing everything overseas). This is a breath of fresh air from the way things are going with education in the US (memorization and standardized testing). I also liked President Jackson’s call to “Take risks, have courage.” This is where I think more thought leadership is required around innovation and entrepreneurship. It’s not just “know how” and imagination - one has to have guts to take risks. Can this be taught? Are innovators and entrepreneurs just born that way? Probably a little bit of both.
