THIS newspaper was established in 1843 to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” One of the chief ways in which intelligence presses forward is through innovation, which is now recognised as one of the most important contributors to economic growth. Innovation, in turn, depends on the creative individuals who dream up new ideas and turn them into reality.
The Economist recognises these talented people through its annual Innovation Awards, presented in eight fields: bioscience, computing and telecommunications, energy and the environment, social and economic innovation, business-process innovation, consumer products, a flexible “no boundaries” category, and the corporate use of innovation. This year we also asked readers to vote on which of our previous winners was the greatest innovator. The awards were presented by John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, at a ceremony at the Science Museum in London on October 20th. And the winners were:
• Bioscience: Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prolific biomedical engineer, for his pioneering work on controlled-release drug delivery andtissue engineering, which has benefited tens of millions of people.
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• Business process: Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital in Bangalore, for reducing health-care costs using mass-production techniques. His hospital performs more heart operations at a lower cost and a lower mortality rate than leading American hospitals.
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• Social and economic innovation: Marc Koska of SafePoint Trust, for inventing the K1auto-disposable syringe that cannot be reused, thus preventing infection from spreading. Since 2001 the K1 has prevented an estimated 10m infections and saved more than 5m lives.
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• Computing and telecommunications: Paul Buchheit of Y Combinator, who created Gmail, a popular webmail service, and AdSense, an advertising platform, while working at Google. The internet giant’s 23rd employee, he also coined its mantra, “Don’t be evil”.
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• Consumer products: Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com andGregg Zehr of Lab126 for creating the Kindle e-book reader. Launched in 2007, its striking design and innovative new business model sparked mass adoption of e-readers.
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• Energy and the environment: Chetan Maini of Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles for building affordable, mass-produced electric cars. The REVAi, known as the G-Wiz in some markets, is sold in more than 20 countries and has accumulated more passenger miles than any other model of electric car since its 2001 launch.
• No boundaries: Jessica Jackley and Matt Flannery, co-founders of Kiva, for pioneering web-based, peer-to-peer microlending. Since 2005 Kiva has facilitated more than 343,000 loans worth a total of $261m, mostly to borrowers in the developing world.
• Corporate use of innovation: Amazon.com, the leading online retailer. Originally an internet bookstore, Amazon now sells almost everything, has diversified into providing on-demand computing and storage, and catalysed a new market for e-books and e-readers.
• Anniversary award: To mark the tenth anniversary of our awards, we asked our readers to choose which of our previous winners was the most significant innovator of the decade. The winner was Steve Jobs of Apple, who died in October.
From: The Economist, 01/12/11
