We live in an era saturated with AI. Large language models are everywhere. Chatbots are being bolted onto every product. And somewhere in the rush to automate everything, we seem to have forgotten a more fundamental technology — one that requires no training data, no compute, and no venture capital: conversation.

We recently invited Erika Hall to join us on AXSChat to talk about design, AI, accessibility, and the quiet crisis unfolding inside the organizations building the systems we all depend on. Erika is the co-founder of Mule Design, a strategic design consultancy she launched with her partner back in 2001. She’s the author of Just Enough Research and Conversational Design — the latter of which is available for free and offers a deeply thoughtful framework for how we design systems that interact with people on behalf of organizations.

What struck us most in our conversation wasn’t a hot take on AI or a prediction about the future of design. It was something far simpler and, frankly, more urgent: the organizations building our most important systems have largely forgotten how to talk to each other — and to us.

“The Way You Talk to Each Other Determines What You Put Out Into the World”

Early in our conversation, Erika brought up Conway’s Law — the principle, articulated by software engineer Mel Conway back in the 1970s, that the way an organization communicates internally constrains the systems it can design. It’s a deceptively simple idea. And, as Erika pointed out, it’s one that virtually no one remembers in practice.

”The way you talk to each other determines what you put out into the world.” — Erika Hall

In the early days of the commercial web, the most common symptom was a corporate website that mirrored the company’s org chart — baffling to anyone on the outside trying to actually accomplish something. In retrospect, Erika called that “the simplest and most benign example” of Conway’s Law at work. The stakes have gotten considerably higher since then.

Today, we have systems that purport to be conversational — chatbots, voice assistants, AI-powered customer service — built by organizations that are actively trying to prevent humans from talking to each other. The irony is sharp, and Erika didn’t shy away from naming it.

”There are systems that are supplanting human interaction designed by people who don’t like or value people.” — Erika Hall

She drew a comparison to comedy writing: a friend of hers, a screenwriter, once told her that to write humor, you have to like people. The same is true, she argued, of designing interactive systems. If your systems are involved in people’s most important and intimate relationships — with their bank, their doctor, their government — then the people designing those systems need to genuinely value people. And right now, too often, they don’t.

Designing for Humans Means Designing Multimodally

One of the sharpest critiques Erika offered was aimed at what she called the “everything mindset” — the tendency for companies to chase a single modality as though it were the only one that matters. First everyone was doing voice interfaces. Then everyone pivoted to chatbots. The industry lurches from trend to trend, and accessibility gets treated as an afterthought at best.

”If it’s truly valuable to people, then you should make that value accessible.”— Erika Hall

Erika’s argument is elegantly practical. Humans, she reminded us, are amazing mode switchers. Think about your own life: sometimes you’re in a loud room where voice input is useless. Sometimes you’re in a dark room. Sometimes you’re around other people and you’d rather type than speak. You switch between devices constantly. You’ll be having a face-to-face conversation with a colleague while secretly texting them under the table to coordinate strategy.

This isn’t an edge case. This is how all of us live. And Erika’s frustration with the industry is that you don’t even have to care about people with abilities or preferences different from your own to understand the case for multimodal design. You just have to think about yourself for five minutes. The real opportunity, she argued, is to offer people genuine choice — text, voice, GUI — based on what’s most possible and convenient for them in any given moment. Accessibility isn’t a feature you bolt on. It’s a design philosophy you start from.

The Courage Gap: When Designers Know Better But Can’t Act

During our conversation, Debra Ruh shared a story that we might all relate to. While training a large American telecommunications company on accessibility, she noticed something surprising: the internal design team already knew the standards. They understood ARIA. They were following best practices in their own time. They believed in the work.

So she asked them the obvious question: Why aren’t you doing it?

”Are you kidding? There’s no way we can do this. No matter what, I can’t do what they’ve already asked me to do. And by the way, they did not tell me to go and do that.” — Designers at a major US telecom company

Erika recognized the pattern. She said it had happened to Mule Design “so many times, throughout the entire history” of the firm. They’d come in as outside consultants, meet the internal design team, and discover a group of talented people who had all the right recommendations sitting in a drawer — recommendations that no one in the organization would listen to.

The issue, she explained, is structural. When the industry shifted around 2015 from agency partnerships to in-house teams, something fundamental changed. Bringing design in-house isn’t inherently better or worse, but it is different. You lose the contractual power that an external partner has — the ability to draw a line, push back, or walk away.

”When you can get fired, you’re not going to have a strong point of view.”
— Erika Hall

The result is a courage gap. The people closest to the work often see the problems most clearly — but they’re the least empowered to act. Erika argued that the most powerful arrangement is an internal-external partnership, where outside consultants can create the safe space for internal teams to finally say what needs to be said: *this isn’t going to work, and here’s what we should do instead.*

Employee Engagement, Fear, and the Fog of AI Hype

Antonio Vieira Santos raised a question that’s been nagging at many of us: employee engagement has been dropping for years, and now we’re layering AI tools — often built by engineers for themselves, not for others — on top of an already fractured workplace. How do we bring people back to the conversation?

Erika’s answer was unflinching. People are afraid, she said, and rightly so. The modern workplace makes no sense to the people working in it. Companies post record profits and then lay off thousands. Projects spin up and shut down capriciously. The pandemic-era over-hiring gave way to mass cuts. And through it all, CEOs make grand pronouncements about a ten-year AI future that get reported as news — shaping markets and careers on the basis of what are essentially speculative fantasies.

”Everybody at the top of these organizations is lying. We’re in a complete fog right now.” — Erika Hall

She pointed to research coming out of Stanford, MIT, and Oxford that paints a more sober picture of what these “so-called tools” are actually delivering. She cited a study published in the Harvard Business Review about “work slop” — the proliferation of mediocre, AI-generated output that creates the illusion of productivity without the substance.

Perhaps most provocatively, Erika argued that the people who find AI tools helpful tend to be senior professionals who are underrating their own expertise. They bring decades of knowledge and judgment to their prompts and interactions, and then credit the tool for the result.

”The tools are not bringing capabilities to people. People are imbuing them with their own expertise.” — Erika Hall

Meanwhile, the wealth concentration accelerates. Private equity consumes beloved businesses — Toys R Us, Denny’s, craft stores — while worker power remains the only credible counterbalance. It’s a bleak picture, but Erika didn’t leave it there.

Building Relationships as an Act of Resistance

If the landscape sounds overwhelming, Erika’s practical advice was almost radical in its simplicity: **build relationships with your colleagues.** Not through Slack. Not through tracked, recorded, employer-mediated channels. But through real, human, off-the-grid conversation.

Have a voice call on your personal phone. Get a coffee and just chat. Talk about movies, music, food — not just work. She acknowledged that this feels awkward now, in a world where we’ve forgotten how to make adult friends. But the awkwardness is worth pushing through.

”Making time for that conversation means you have a relationship outside of how you’re being told to relate by the structures and the tools that are being imposed upon you by your employer. And that is a way of getting power back over your life.” — Erika Hall

For accessibility professionals who often feel isolated in their organizations — Antonio noted that loneliness and even depression are common in the field — Erika’s advice was to build relationships that aren’t *about* your specialty. Don’t just connect with other accessibility people about accessibility. Connect with people across your organization as a human being. Start from curiosity. Ask someone: tell me about your job, tell me about your life. You’ll find you have more in common than you thought.

And it’s also, she added with warmth, “cool to know people.”

Advice for New Professionals: “You’re Really Early”

When Antonio asked what advice Erika would give to someone just finishing their studies and entering this turbulent landscape, she spoke with the kind of honesty that only comes from lived experience. She graduated in a recession — with a philosophy degree, no less — and remembers the feeling of panic well.

Her message to new graduates was direct and generous: you’re really early. It’s really early. The feeling that your life is over at twenty-two is universal and completely wrong.

”Don’t react. Take care of yourself and just get oriented in the world, because all of the ways that you succeed in education are very different from what comes next.” — Erika Hall

She was particularly candid about design education, arguing that design schools are “preparing people for a world that does not exist” — an idealized version of the profession that doesn’t account for organizational politics, power dynamics, or the reality that your first job might not be your dream job, and that’s completely fine.

The trap, she explained, is assuming mutuality with organizations — believing that because you care deeply about a company, the company cares deeply about you. It doesn’t. And once you accept that, you can focus on what actually matters: taking care of your mental health, your physical health, your relationships. Being a good friend and a good family member.

”Ride the wave. Sometimes you’re like, I need to paddle. I’m just paddling right now. And then you’ll see something and be like, that’s what I want to work on.” — Erika Hall

The career stuff, she promised, will follow. But only if you take care of yourself first.

We ended our conversation with Erika feeling something that’s become increasingly rare in discussions about technology: grounded optimism. Not the breathless, venture-backed kind. The kind that comes from believing that people are fundamentally capable, creative, and worth designing for — if only we’d bother to talk to them first.

In an age where every organization is racing to deploy AI, Erika Hall is asking a question that’s almost embarrassingly simple: *Have you tried talking to each other?*

It turns out that the most powerful design tool was never a language model. It was a conversation.

ƒ*ƒFind Erika Hall’s Work: Erika’s books — including Just Enough Research and Conversational Design — are available at [Mulebooks.com](https://mulebooks.com). Mule Design is now also a publisher, so you’ll find additional resources and fun things there too.

This post is based on a conversation recorded for AXSChat, a community dedicated to accessibility, inclusion, and the future of work.

Talk to Each Other: Erika Hall on Why Human Conversation Is Still the Most Powerful Design Tool was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a Senior Business Intelligence and Innovation Evangelist committed to digital inclusion, I’ve learned that the spaces and services we often overlook can have the biggest impact on people’s ability to participate fully in society. In a recent AXSChat interview, Neil Milliken and I had the pleasure of speaking with Gail Ramster, Senior Research Associate at the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlin Centre for Design, about her 16+ years researching one of the least glamorous — and most vital — public facilities: the toilet.

Why Toilets Matter

Public toilets are a basic necessity, yet they remain a challenging topic for both design and conversation. Gail highlights a persistent “toilet taboo” in our society — a tendency to avoid discussing our bodily needs, which leads to underinvestment in these crucial spaces. As a result, outdated and inaccessible toilets persist, and new, more inclusive facilities are slow to appear.But toilets are more than a convenience: they’re a foundation for dignity, health, and social participation. When people can’t find accessible toilets, they’re often forced to stay home, missing out on work, culture, and community life. This is especially true for people with disabilities or chronic health conditions.

The Challenge of Inclusive Design

One of the most powerful lessons from our discussion with Gail is the idea that inclusive design is not about finding a single “perfect” solution. People have diverse — and sometimes conflicting — needs. For example, a wheelchair-accessible toilet is different from a “Changing Places” facility designed for people with profound disabilities and their carers. Universal design must be flexible and evolve as we learn more from users.Gail’s advice for new designers is simple, yet profound:

Be brave. Talk to people. Never assume you know it all.

This means seeking out — and really listening to — those who are excluded by current designs. User stories and lived experiences are the true bedrock of accessible innovation. Even after 15+ years of research, Gail finds that every conversation brings a new insight and inspiration.

Technology, Data, and the Power of Mapping

Gail’s work also shows how technology can help bridge the information gap. Her “Great British Public Toilet Map” (now simply the Toilet Map) crowdsources and shares information on 15,000+ publicly accessible toilets across the UK. This open data project helps people plan their journeys and has become a resource for researchers and app developers alike.Yet, as we discussed, challenges remain — especially around data privacy and business cooperation. While some community businesses are happy to open their toilets to the public, others fear being overwhelmed or stigmatized. National chains are often reluctant to share data that could help people in need.

Learning from Other Cultures

Our conversation also touched on international differences. In Japan, for example, public toilets are celebrated as places of wellness and hygiene, with cutting-edge technology and thoughtful design. This positive framing contrasts with the Western focus on waste and the “unpleasant” aspects of toilets — a reminder that cultural attitudes shape both policy and practice.

A Resource for Designers and Advocates

If you’re passionate about accessibility, design, or just want to understand why toilets matter, I highly recommend Gail Ramster’s new book: “We the People: Designing Inclusive Public Toilets”
It’s filled with best-practice images, user stories, and plenty of thoughtful insights. You can find it at Waterstones, Bloomsbury, Amazon, and other online bookstores for around £15.

Final Thoughts

As someone who champions digital and societal inclusion, I believe we need to have more of these “uncomfortable” conversations. The future of work, public space, and technology depends on our willingness to listen, learn, and design for everyone.So, to all new designers: be brave. Step outside your comfort zone. Talk to real people. Your next great idea might just come from the most unlikely place — even the humble public toilet.

Let’s keep the conversation going. Share your experiences, thoughts, or questions in the comments below. And don’t forget to check out “We the People” for more inspiration on designing a truly inclusive world.#InclusiveDesign #Accessibility #AXSChat #PublicToilets #Innovation #DigitalInclusion #WeThePeople

Designing for Everyone was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Katrin, eurodeputada do grupo Greens/EFA, destacou os desafios persistentes que as pessoas com deficiência enfrentam na política, no emprego e na vida quotidiana. Sendo a única mulher visivelmente com deficiência no Parlamento Europeu, descreveu a falta de representação como um “privilégio” e, ao mesmo tempo, “muito triste”. Apesar dos compromissos assumidos pela UE no âmbito da Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência (UNCRPD), sublinhou que as barreiras reais continuam a ser um grande obstáculo.

Um dos seus principais feitos tem sido a Carteira Europeia da Deficiência, que pretende garantir o reconhecimento e acesso igualitário a serviços nos diferentes Estados-membros. No entanto, alertou que o cartão, por si só, não resolverá os problemas sistémicos de acessibilidade que ainda afetam inúmeras cidades na Europa. “Um cartão de deficiência não resolverá problemas de acessibilidade se as cidades e infraestruturas continuarem inadequadas”, explicou.

Katrin também abordou desigualdades sociais e económicas mais amplas, nomeadamente no acesso à habitação e ao emprego. Referiu que, paradoxalmente, Bruxelas, o centro político da UE, é uma das cidades mais inacessíveis da Europa. Manifestou ainda preocupação com o crescimento da influência da direita em vários países europeus, alertando que isso pode comprometer ainda mais os direitos das pessoas com deficiência.

Durante a nossa conversa, foi crítica em relação à fragmentação dentro do movimento pelos direitos das pessoas com deficiência, argumentando que a falta de unidade enfraquece o impacto das reivindicações. Comparou esta realidade com a comunidade LGBTQ+, que considera ter sido mais eficaz em apresentar uma frente unida.

Olhando para o futuro, sublinhou a importância de defender os direitos já conquistados e, ao mesmo tempo, continuar a lutar por uma maior inclusão. “As pessoas com deficiência correm frequentemente o risco de cair na pobreza”, afirmou, apelando a políticas mais robustas e a um melhor apoio financeiro.

Katrin estará presente na Cimeira Global da Deficiência em Berlim, onde estas questões estarão certamente em destaque.

As suas reflexões recordam-nos que a luta pela acessibilidade, inclusão e igualdade deve continuar a ser uma prioridade — não só na União Europeia, mas em todo o mundo.

acessibilidade.micro.blog/2025/02/1…

Ontem no meu AXSChat podcast, eu, Neil e Debra tivemos o prazer de receber três convidados incríveis: Kathryn Townsend, Emily Baum e Mark Horrocks. Durante a conversa, explorámos temas essenciais relacionados com a inclusão de pessoas com deficiência no setor financeiro no Reino Unido, em particular no segmento de FinTech.

Kathryn Townsend, que ocupa o cargo de chefe de acessibilidade e vulnerabilidade do cliente na Nationwide, partilhou a sua paixão pela acessibilidade no setor bancário e destacou o papel fundamental que desempenha como embaixadora do governo para a inclusão de pessoas com deficiência. Um ponto importante que Kathryn mencionou foi a importância de garantir que a comunicação seja acessível para pessoas surdas, considerando que a língua gestual é o seu primeiro idioma.

A conversa também abordou o Project Nemo, que se foca na inclusão de pessoas com dificuldades de aprendizagem no setor de FinTech. Emily Baum partilhou a sua experiência como mãe de uma jovem com paralisia cerebral e autismo, o que lhe deu uma visão única sobre os desafios enfrentados por pessoas com deficiências de aprendizagem no acesso a serviços financeiros.

Mark Horrocks também trouxe uma perspetiva valiosa, relatando a sua experiência pessoal como pai de um jovem com síndrome de Down. Ele destacou a importância de criar soluções que permitam uma vida financeira mais independente para estas pessoas.

O Project Nemo já está a causar impacto positivo, especialmente com a organização do FinTech Fringe Innovation Challenge. Este desafio visa encorajar fintechs a criarem soluções inovadoras para pessoas com dificuldades de aprendizagem, promovendo um ambiente onde a tecnologia e a inclusão caminham lado a lado. Foi um episódio repleto de insights valiosos e de partilhas emocionantes, que reforçam a importância da inclusão de todas as pessoas no acesso aos serviços financeiros.

Continuaremos a seguir e a apoiar o progresso do Project Nemo e outras iniciativas semelhantes. Fiquem atentos para mais atualizações!

What if the climate cooled, power outages became a relic of the past, and sustainable, efficient transportation was the norm? What if technology wasn’t just a tool but the foundation of a better, more inclusive world? These were some of the bold questions Peter Körte, Siemens’ Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, posed during his keynote at CES 2025. His message? The future isn’t just possible — it’s actionable, and Siemens is leading the charge.

🚀 The Power of Industrial AI

Industrial AI stands apart from its consumer counterpart. While traditional AI might misread the tone of an email, industrial AI operates in high-stakes environments like healthcare, manufacturing, and energy grids, where errors could be catastrophic. This means industrial AI must be safe, reliable, and trustworthy.

Here’s how Siemens is already putting industrial AI to work:

• Buildings: AI-powered systems reduce energy use and emissions by 30%.
• Energy Grids: As demand doubles, AI helps increase grid capacity by 30%, ensuring renewable energy sources like solar and wind are effectively managed.
• Factories: The Siemens Industrial Copilot, a 24/7 AI assistant, helps workers troubleshoot and program machines, addressing a growing skills gap in manufacturing.

✈️ Revolutionizing Air Travel with Jet Zero

One of the most exciting announcements was Siemens’ partnership with Jet Zero. Together, they’re developing a blended wing aircraft set to debut in 2030. This revolutionary design promises to:

• Reduce fuel consumption by 50%.
• Enable the transition to sustainable aviation fuels.
• Create the first fully digital aircraft, from design to maintenance.

With Siemens’ digital twin technology and Jet Zero’s bold vision, the project highlights how industrial AI accelerates innovation while prioritizing sustainability.

🌍 Supporting the Workforce

Peter Körte didn’t shy away from addressing workforce challenges, particularly in manufacturing:

• Skills Gap: Since 2019, the average factory worker’s experience has dropped from 20 years to just 3 years, leading to a 10% productivity decline, a 33% increase in product recalls, and a 9% rise in workplace fatalities.
• AI as an Ally: Siemens’ Industrial Copilot functions like a virtual colleague, available 24/7 to guide workers in programming, troubleshooting, and machine setup. By empowering workers to make smarter decisions, Siemens is enhancing both confidence and efficiency.
• Future-Ready Workforce: AI doesn’t replace workers; it amplifies their capabilities, enabling them to focus on creative, strategic tasks while AI handles repetitive or complex calculations.

🌎 Scaling Impact Across Industries

Siemens is making its transformative technology accessible not just to industry giants but also to startups. The newly launched Siemens 4 Startup program offers early-stage companies access to cutting-edge tools at discounted rates. This democratizes innovation, enabling smaller companies to tackle big challenges like marine electrification, water sustainability, and land restoration.

🔄 Tools to Drive Bold Leaps

Innovation isn’t incremental — it’s about taking leaps. Siemens introduced several groundbreaking tools at CES 2025 to help businesses leap forward:

• Siemens Industrial Copilot: Now available on-premise and on the industrial edge, ensuring data security and lower latency.
• NX Design Copilot: A generative AI tool that helps designers optimize and innovate with confidence.
• Teamcenter Digital Reality Viewer: A collaboration with Nvidia that brings photorealistic 3D models to life, enabling faster, smarter decision-making.

Why Siemens?

Peter emphasized Siemens’ unique position to lead the way. Here’s why:

1. Unmatched Data: Siemens connects to over 17 billion devices and manages more design data than any other company.
2. Deep Industrial Expertise: Serving over 25 industries, Siemens understands the unique challenges of each sector.
3. Proven Leadership: Decades of AI innovation, 3,000+ AI patents, and a team of 1,500+ AI experts make Siemens a trusted partner in industrial transformation.

The Takeaway

This isn’t just about technology — it’s about transforming the everyday for everyone. Whether it’s enabling sustainable air travel, empowering startups, or closing the skills gap in manufacturing, Siemens is proving that industrial AI is more than hype — it’s a game-changer.

If you’re as inspired as I am by the bold possibilities of technology, let’s connect and discuss how we can drive meaningful change together.

#IndustrialAI #CES2025 #Sustainability #Innovation #DigitalTransformation

Ready for more insights? Join the conversation and follow Siemens’ journey as they shape the future of industry and innovation.

At the Web Summit in Lisbon, I had the pleasure of speaking with Luis Lancos, the visionary behind Data Whisper, a startup making waves in financial services by offering a unique platform to streamline and secure agentic workflows.

The Idea Behind Data Whisper

Luis and his team have created an innovative drag-and-drop platform that empowers financial services to easily design complex workflows. From help desks to contractual and fraud analysis, this solution simplifies automation while ensuring compliance with strict regulatory requirements. The secret sauce? A built-in safety layer that monitors processes end-to-end, flagging any rule violations.

Early Success and Innovation

Data Whisper secured its first customer in just six months — a payment processor. They collaborated to automate processes within the merchant portal and introduced one of the first AI-driven payment terminals capable of managing contractual, transaction, and fraud analysis. This groundbreaking solution earned an Innovation Award from the Payment Association in England.

What Sets Data Whisper Apart

Luis emphasizes that their team brings unique expertise in AI, payments, and strategic consulting. They’re not just offering a tool — they’re providing partnership and guidance to help businesses stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

Why Web Summit?

For Luis, a Portuguese native living in the UK for nearly two decades, presenting at the Web Summit in Lisbon was deeply symbolic. “It’s a circle closing,” he shared, reflecting on the significance of showcasing their innovation at one of the world’s largest tech events.

The Road Ahead

With a proven track record and growing interest, Data Whisper is now raising seed capital to scale its vision. The future looks bright for this promising startup as it continues to redefine what’s possible in the financial services industry.

The industrial sector stands at a critical juncture, contributing to one-quarter of all energy-related CO2 emissions. However, innovative financing solutions are emerging as key enablers for sustainable manufacturing transformation, as revealed in this interview with Madlen Junker, Financing Solution Partner for Digital Industries at Siemens Financial Services.

Strategic Imperatives for Industrial Decarbonisation

Digital-First Approach
Manufacturing companies are increasingly adopting a two-pronged strategy to reduce their carbon footprint. The first pillar combines digitalization and automation through digital twins, enabling efficient planning and optimized production processes.

Alternative Energy Integration
The second strategic thrust focuses on green energy adoption. A prime example is the Swedish steel manufacturer Stegra, which has revolutionized traditional steel production by replacing coal with green hydrogen, targeting a remarkable 95% reduction in CO2 emissions.

Financial Innovation Driving Sustainability

Flexible Financing Models
Siemens Financial Services has developed a comprehensive portfolio of financing solutions to overcome implementation barriers:

• Equity investments for future-proof technologies
• Project structured finance for large-scale initiatives
• Smart leasing solutions for facility modernization
• Corporate lending options
• Specialized finance advisory services

Success Stories
PlantSwitch, a US-based manufacturer of biodegradable resins, exemplifies how innovative financing can accelerate sustainable manufacturing. Through smart leasing solutions, the company rapidly established operations to produce completely compostable plastic substitutes.

The Business Case for Sustainability

Market Leadership
A compelling 60% of machine builders now view sustainability as a key competitive differentiator. This trend aligns with broader market movements, where four out of five companies actively pursue carbon-neutral operations.

Triple Bottom Line Benefits
Sustainable manufacturing delivers multiple competitive advantages:

• Reduced operational costs and material waste
• Enhanced talent attraction, particularly among younger generations
• Strengthened brand reputation and stakeholder trust

Looking Ahead

With 90% of Siemens AG’s business practices contributing to positive sustainable impact, the industry is witnessing a paradigm shift.

The convergence of technological innovation and creative financing solutions accelerates the transition to sustainable manufacturing, making it an environmental imperative and a compelling business proposition. The transformation of industrial manufacturing is no longer a question of technology availability but rather of implementing the right financing structures to enable this critical transition. As climate events become more frequent and severe, the manufacturing sector’s evolution toward sustainability has become an urgent business imperative rather than an optional strategy.

A new report from Mario Draghi to the European Commission highlights a critical innovation gap between Europe and its global competitors, particularly the US and China. This gap is not just a matter of pride — it’s a fundamental challenge to Europe’s future competitiveness and economic growth. The report reveals some stark statistics: only 4 of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European, and EU companies spend about half as much on R&D as US companies (a gap of €270 billion in 2021). Perhaps most tellingly, Europe has no companies valued at over €100 billion that were founded in the last 50 years. At the root of this innovation deficit is a static industrial structure in Europe that produces a vicious cycle of low investment and low innovation. While the US has seen a shift towards digital and tech companies leading R&D spending, Europe’s top R&D spenders remain dominated by automotive companies. The report identifies several critical barriers holding back European innovation:

1. A weak pipeline from research to commercialization
2. Regulatory hurdles preventing innovative companies from scaling up
3. Fragmentation of the Single Market
4. Insufficient public R&D spending at the EU level
5. Lack of late-stage venture capital funding

As a result, many European startups seek financing from US venture capitalists and scale up in the US market instead of Europe. Between 2008 and 2021, nearly 30% of European “unicorns” relocated their headquarters abroad, mainly to the US. The report recommends several bold actions to address these challenges, including doubling EU-level R&D funding, reforming the European Innovation Council, creating a new EU-wide legal statute for innovative startups, and expanding incentives for early-stage investors. With the world on the cusp of an AI revolution, Europe cannot afford to remain stuck in the “middle technologies” of the previous century. By implementing these recommendations, Europe can reverse its innovation deficit and reclaim its position as a global leader in breakthrough technologies. The report's conclusions are not new, and many people have pointed out these problems over the last 15 years, but they now seem close to being part of the program that the new European Commission might want to address.

What do you think about Europe’s innovation challenges? How can we foster a more dynamic and innovative ecosystem in Europe?

SourceÇ https://commission.europa.eu/topics/strengthening-european-competitiveness/eu-competitiveness-looking-ahead_en