Strengthening the Innovation Ecosystem

It is always an honor to share that the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® (NIHF) has programming ranging from preschool experiences all the way through a Collegiate Inventors Competition^®. It is even more rewarding when I have the opportunity to sit next to one of Our Nation’s Greatest Innovators^™ — Lonnie Johnson, 2022 NIHF Inductee and inventor of the Super Soaker^® — to describe how our Inductees inspire and are infused and integrated into our programming.

I was fortunate enough to join Johnson, Bismarck Myrick of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and Ingrid Vanderveldt of Empowering a Billion Women on a South by Southwest^® (SXSW) panel this month. “Strengthening the Innovation Ecosystem” was coordinated and facilitated by our partners at the USPTO.

Our long-standing relationship with the USPTO has produced many powerful outcomes, from NIHF Museum exhibits to curricula to public outreach collaborations on conference stages. This partnership allows us to push the envelope on creating highly authentic invention education programs that integrate STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), creativity, intellectual property (IP) and entrepreneurship.

Sparking the Joy of Learning

On our SXSW panel, I mentioned that a key tenet of our NIHF education programs is social-emotional learning (SEL). Lately, I find myself highlighting this even more than the STEM components of our program experiences.

In these times of pandemic-related learning loss, one of my greater concerns is the potential loss of confidence and joy in the learning process when children feel pressured to “catch up.” NIHF education programs reinvigorate the confidence and joy needed for learning, reminding teachers why they pursued their calling and assuring children that they are capable and worthy lifelong learners.

One of the highlights of my time at SXSW was hearing Johnson share a story from his youth about purchasing materials and then mixing them in his kitchen to make rocket fuel. After nearly setting his kitchen on fire, he was worried about what his father would say when he returned home. Johnson shared that his father calmly told him that he was going to have to do these things outside. This story resonates with so many of our NIHF Inductees’ stories of parents and teachers who supported the (sometimes dangerous) curiosity of an innovator in the making.

Understanding the Power of Innovation

As we connected with our SXSW session audience, we shared that some of the simplest ideas on IP that we might cultivate with young innovators also stand true for adults: Your ideas have value. And they can continue to gain value as you grow and develop them. By helping children connect with the emotion of their ideas, their rights as creators and the opportunity to help lay the building blocks (i.e., prior art) for others’ innovations, we help to define and describe that value.

I explained how we make these concepts tangible in Camp Invention^® (our summer camp for grades K-6) and other programs by guiding children to write and sketch in their Inventor Logs, complete mini prior art searches, fill out mock patents, design trademark-worthy logos and more. As children engage in these activities, we demystify IP, making it less intimidating and more accessible.

I encouraged everyone in our session audience to read the Equality of Opportunity Project’s “Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation,” which highlights clear evidence as to why it is imperative that we give children (and ourselves as adults) access to seeing and knowing diverse innovators. The research states that “exposure to inventors and invention during childhood can increase the likelihood that a child will become an innovator.” In addition, it highlights that “if girls were exposed to female inventors at the same rate as boys are to male inventors, the gender gap in innovation would shrink by half.”

Embracing Diverse Perspectives

Vanderveldt, global ambassador and advocate of women and diverse leaders creating social and economic impact and job creation, shined a particular light on women entrepreneurs during our session.  She shared some of the personal challenges she faced in pursuit of her vision with Empowering a Billion Women. The audience deeply connected with her stories about naysayers along the way. They also benefited from her insights on licensing, pursuing funding and support, and clarifying one’s vision to make a unique mark on the world.

Whether the challenges people face within the innovation ecosystem are related to gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, race or other social constructs, I encouraged our SXSW audience to continue to expand their thoughts on diversity. While we have come to better understand, through both research data and human intuition, that diverse ideas come from diverse people, we must ensure that this is more than just a phrase. A commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion must be a core driver in our innovation ecosystem.

We must all strive to ensure that individuals of diverse backgrounds have equitable seats at the table and that their experiences, their perspectives and the challenges they face will inform our collective decisions. We cannot solve problems that we do not understand. When we use empathy and gather data directly from those who have experienced specific barriers and challenges, we are able to invent relevant and meaningful solutions.

Championing Creativity

When Myrick, director of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity at the USPTO, asked the question, “What are you most excited about?” I quickly said, “creativity.” In some ways, I almost surprised myself. While it is one of my favorite topics, the spontaneity of this answer comes from my belief in the role creativity plays in human potential. The creativity field is also ripe with potential. It is an untapped resource pool — rich with tools, techniques and processes that have not fully made their way into business and education.

We can look at creativity through the “4P” framework that researcher Mel Rhodes outlined in 1961: person, process, product and press. From this perspective, we see that there is unlimited opportunity to learn, enhance and utilize creativity through a variety of lenses to solve the heaviest of challenges — and these solutions will show up as inventions and innovations.

NIHF Inductee Garrett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam^® camera stabilizer, believes that invention is about “finding the gap.” During our session, I shared my belief that sometimes these gaps do not look like an immediately visible chasm between two ridges (like those seen on motivational posters). Sometimes they look more like pylons and barricades. They can be subtle and more challenging to identify. I invited our SXSW panel audience to identify one of their goals, wishes or challenges and turn it into a query, using a question starter such as, “How might I …?” or “In what ways might I …?”

In our closing thoughts, I drew upon the wisdom of NIHF Inductee Radia Perlman, inventor of robust network routing and bridging. She has emphasized how important it is to “know the problem you are trying to solve and approach it from several different directions.”

Through critical and creative thinking, and being open and flexible to diverse vantage points, we will strengthen the innovation ecosystem in dynamic ways that will benefit us all.