
Innovation is the lone renewable fuel for growth. When stimulus fades and demographics stall, only fresh ideas keep the engine humming. Yet invention alone is a firework; it must be embedded in firms, schools, and streets. Chips, mRNA vaccines, and QR payments all began with questions, then spread through networks of capital, universities, and daring policy.
Governments should stop picking winners and start tilling soil: light bankruptcy rules, open data portals, and rising carbon prices that nudge every tinkerer toward green bets without dictating blueprints. Equity is efficiency: closing gender gaps in STEM could add 10 % to GDP. Culture matters too: celebrate iteration, not just triumphs, so children learn that failure is data, not shame.
In a networked century, the boldest move is to share knowledge. Open-source drug discovery saved years during COVID; shared climate patents could do the same for clean tech. Innovation is a relay, not a spark. Run every leg—imagination, investment, infrastructure, inclusion—and growth becomes compound interest forever.