Worldchanging.com has a neat post about India's Honey Bee Network. What's that? It finds tinkerers and inventors from the countryside. People like the guy who invented a shock absorbing bicycle with gears that translate the impact of hitting a bump into energy that turns the wheels, speeding you up instead of just inconveniencing you.
The Honey Bee Network then works to "cross-pollinate" these local innovations, connecting their innovators to other people in other villages who can use their ideas, as well as to companies that might license their inventions and provide an income from their creativity.
I encourage you to read Michael Porter's April 1990 Harvard Business article about the competitive advantage of nations and clustering.
I have, a long time ago. It's good - but this is necessarily a smaller-scale thing. A cluster or two may one day arise out of it, or not. Meanwhile, more limited forms of expertise are being passed on and used to general benefit.
Perhaps the real story is that advanced communications makes clusters less dependant on place.
BTW similar "invention systems" are being started in the Mid-West USA.
I'm personally involved.
I'll report as soon as I have something solid to report on. At this point it is still "talk".
It's good - but this is necessarily a smaller-scale thing. A cluster or two may one day arise out of it, or not. Meanwhile, more limited forms of expertise are being passed on and used to general benefit.
Its a wonderful concept, but the execution is far from the mark. I'd welcome anyone connecting to the Honey Bee Network and coming out with a better experience than the one I had.
India could be transformed if it functioned as promised.
[Your URL formatting seemed to have a problem. I corrected it, this tim. --NM]