In Praise of Innovation

            The United States needs a second act. Or maybe at this point it would be something like a 12^th act. But semantics aside, there needs to be something new to remake the economy for the next century. However, it seems like it will be quite some time before the main character of this second act is made known. Until then, the past successes need to make a comeback. The U.S.’ great tech boom a decade ago has not spent all its power to improve the economy of the United States. Facebook, one of the last great stories from Silicon Valley, has yet to even have an I.P.O. Unfortunately for all of us who saw The Social Network, it is abundantly clear that United States needs to pull a few more tech Start-Ups out of its hat.

            Local governments continue to chase the web’s power to create an enormous amount of high paying, high-knowledge jobs, but the Federal Government has done nearly nothing. In a time when state level austerity will threaten any efforts on the part of localities to create more tech innovation, the Federal Government needs to step in. A simple incubator program is all that is necessary to restart the U.S.’ potential for innovation. The idea of an incubator program is to provide young entrepreneurs with the money and office to develop their ideas. These programs are already in place in Detroit and New York. A national version, creating a network of centers in the ten largest cities in the United States could not only spur innovation that would rejuvenate the most decaying of America’s inner urban areas, but also unite the country. Such a system could connect aspiring small business owners with those whose skills would allow them to realize their dreams. The United States’ geography had lent itself to small regions dominating certain industries, Wall Street in Finance, Silicon Valley in technology. Business incubators could spread the economic benefits of new businesses across the country, using the social networking technology of the last decade to put together people who otherwise would never have met, helping to avoid the economic disparities that have plagued the U.S. in the recent past. This is the best way to expand the United States’ economy today and for the future.

            -G. Ferrante