The Price of the Decline of Innovation

Judy Estrin, JLABS, LLC

How did the floodgates of research, development, and innovation slow to a trickle, and how will the nation as a whole suffer as a result? Judy Estrin, CEO of JLABS, outlines the depletion of the resources behind engineering, technology, and science, and how these areas of study have been denied the necessary nutrients to thrive. While we can't go back and recreate the great research labs of past decades, we can close the innovation gap. Should we fail to do so, says Estrin, entrepreneurs will no longer be able to find the talent to develop new ideas – or the science-minded middle-class consumer market to buy them.