Innovation at the Innovation Edge Conference?

I attended the above conference today to hear what the presitgious speaker line up had to say about innovation. Here are a handful of comments from the likes of Chris Powell, Jonathan Kestenbaum, Tim Berners Lee (what a nice guy), Sir Bob Geldof, Sam Pitrada, Helen Alexander, and Rt Hon Gordon Brown. You choose which ones you support!

Chris Powell, Chairman, NESTA

Innovation is a necessity to address the social and economic difficulties faced today
Need to stimulate and push innovation

Johnathan Kestenbaum, CEO, NESTA

Liberate innovation in the UK
NESTA is the source of authority on how innovation can flourish in this country

Quoted Rober Kennedy "The future belongs to those with passion, reason, courage."

Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the world wide web

Took his inspiration from a book called 'Enquire Within for Everything'
Commenting on him journalist Jonathan Freedland said "he's done more to change the world than any politician"
TBL said the following:
Give your people innovation time. Most ideas come from the boss not saying yes but more importantly not saying no!
Technology should be neutral and not intefere with how people want to interact
I want the web to support society and democracy
There are more web pages than neurons in your brain
I made the web to solve working in dispersed groups
Innovation is a collective rather than about individuals
It's about collaboration

Sir Bob Geldof



This is a small crowd for me as I'm a global megastar (tongue in cheek - he'd just arrived from Germany where he'd played to millions)
Necessity must be the mother of innovation. A mother's desparation is the father of necessity.
We are running out of everything, air, water, food, so never more than before innovation is everything
Poverty is shit
Has Britain become a risk averse nation?
We so fear failure no one tries anymore - the essence of entrepeneurialism is to try and fail
Innovation is about collaboration
The political climate doesn't give it to us anymore
Political and social paradym must be about dialogue and cooperation
You don't die of drout you die of politics
We need our social entrepeneurs to be innovating and progressing, our politicians and financial institutions supporting it. Is this happening? No.
All change comes from the self

Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission, India

India has 10m new phones every month
Invention is for mankind
Innovation requires a lot of collaboration
Innovation is creativity, curiosity and collaboration
There's too much greed in this world

The panel, when asked the one thing Gordon Brown should do, answered as follows:

Sam Pitroda - encourage risk takers, visionaries
Helen Alexander (CEO The Economist Group) - get out of the way......clarified with get the 60 year olds out of the way, be less institutionalised
Bob Geldof - all of the above plus - to put his intelligence to find a political rhetoric to match the absolute needs of this country in words that make sense

Rt Hon Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

I pledge to you that we will do our best to break down the barriers that exist [to innovation]