The Next Generation of Great Tech Ideas Might Come From Across the Ocean(s)
There’s a perception among Americans that we have a monopoly on all of the great tech ideas being created right now. It’s easy to understand why people think that when the world’s five biggest companies are tech giants located in either Seattle or the Bay Area.
However, a lot of the most interesting ideas in the most important sectors of the tech world are being developed overseas. While some are being pursued by American companies, it’s the governments, communities, and consumers across the world that are providing the conditions necessary to develop the next generation of innovative, world-shifting technology.
Online payments & messaging — The NY Times wrote a great piece last week debunking the idea that all great tech ideas come from Silicon Valley. In two of the tech verticals that have seen the most growth in the past year or two, Chinese companies are leading the way and American companies are racing to copy them. Functions that take 10–15 apps in the U.S. can be done in 1–2 apps in China:
“On Alibaba’s Taobao shopping app, people can also buy groceries, buy credits for online games, scan coupons and find deals at stores nearby. Baidu’s mapping app lets users order an Uber, reserve a restaurant or hotel, order in food, buy movie tickets and find just about any type of store nearby.”
The piece wisely touches on the fact that China’s mobile sector developed faster than ours because mobile phones were the devices that led to everyone having internet access like desktop computers were here. Because they skipped desktops, they jumped right into having a digital economy driven by rapidly innovative mobile-first companies. Now, companies like Facebook & Apple are desperate to copy integrated features like this from their Chinese contemporaries.
Drones (the nice kind) — Zipline, a company that’s been delivering medical supplies in Rwanda, is now exploring partnerships to deliver medicine and blood to rural areas of the U.S., including islands and remote Native American reservations. However, they’re already solving problems that would’ve taken decades of infrastructure development to tackle without them.
They developed an idea, executed it in a place with the greatest need and lowest number of regulations, proved its effectiveness, and are now bringing it back to solve problems in the United States.
Batteries–Don’t worry, Energizer Bunny. I’m talking about the sexy ones that power your computer, phone, some cars, and virtually every major device we’ll be using for the next century. An Arizona-based company is working with governments in Indonesia & Madagascar to provide zinc-air batteries as backup power sources for solar-run villages in places that are too far away to connect to the electrical grid. Providing electricity to the next billion people might be the thing that makes or breaks the planet’s future, and developing clean, reliable backup power to make solar communities a reality could very well be the thing that saves the polar bears, Miami Beach, and the human race itself (excuse the hyperbole — kind of).
If they can prove this works in these countries, it could be the nudge more communities across the globe need to begin to adopt solar in larger numbers, drive a stake through the heart of the remaining plants that are still burning coal, and begin to shift us away from natural gas in time.
If you want to find the next world-changing tech idea, you may have to look outside of the borders of the country with the biggest tech companies to do it.
