Ramez Naam in his book entitled “The Infinite Resource – The Power Of Ideas On A Finite Planet” says that the most critical human faculty that exists and the most important source of our prosperity is innovation.

Mr Naam says that the most valuable resource we have isn’t energy or minerals or land. It is our ever increasing store of ways to put things together in new and more inventive forms that give us greater and greater value.

He goes so far as to postulate that almost all of the economic growth of the last two centuries has been dependent on new innovations and discoveries. He says that tapping into innovation and further augmenting it, is our best strategy for overcoming any potential limits to growth. In order to flourish he says we need to invest in innovation. Thus he says that innovation is the ultimate source of human progress, and that wealth is created through innovation.

So if innovation is so important how can it be encouraged?

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Written exclusively for Polity.org.za by Hugh Moubray, Partner, Spoor & Fisher