Posts tagged R&D

Now, in the case of climate change, because there’s so many possible solutions, it’s not like the Manhattan Project. I don’t think anyone’s saying, “Hey, pick just one approach, and pick some ranch in New Mexico, and just have those guys kind of hang out there.” Here, we want to give a little bit of money to the guy who thinks that high wind will work; we want to give a little bit of money to the guy who thinks that taking sunlight and making oil directly out of sunlight will work. So there’s dozens of those ideas, and there’s enabling technologies for those ideas. That’s the kind of thing that we should be funding more of.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an-energy-miracle/407881/

In ‘Maker to Market’ spaces, things can get even messier. Several of the companies on this path depend on ‘open innovation’ models that allow them to engage with keen communities, providing ongoing feedback and mass customisation. This also allows customers to be used as a cheap form of R&D; a practice common in the creative and culture industries, described by Miya Tokumitsu as ‘Do what you love’ where a volunteer workforce works for passion and social capital rather than actual hard cash.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2014/apr/24/making-in-china-maker-faire-shenzhen-global-politics-maker-movement