Innovation in Context - In Ghana

By Tom Daly

In the United States, we hear of "innovation" in the media on a daily basis. Companies need to be innovative to survive. We champion "disruptively innovative" entrepreneurs. For me, overuse of the word has watered down its excitement and confused it with the the word's closest brother: "invention." In the Bentley MBA Innovation theme, we studied the origin of the word "innovation" and formalized a definition. In its definition, innovation is the higher use, impact, economic or social gain of a product, process, idea, service or technology. Invention is simply the realization of the idea itself and innovation is the applicability of the concept to improve livelihood. An unapplied invention has no value, whereas an innovation provides the ability to trade value — for economic and social interest

Our class recently traveled to Ghana to explore innovation and linkages to our next theme: Value. Prior to leaving for Ghana, I was skeptical about what I could learn about innovation from a developing world. Being from the U.S., I think of innovation at massive scale — clean energy, revolutionary health care, and seamless communications. These are all very big concepts — larger than any human being can possibly understand — taking a team to realize. Yet, in Ghana, innovation is everywhere — from biological compost "digestors" used to improve sanitation (and therefore, access to clean water) to power generating merry-go-rounds that allow students to charge torches (to study later into the evening). The context — the environment and conditions of Ghana — makes one realize that what may be considered a "boring invention" by U.S. standards can be a massive innovation in a country like Ghana. It means that innovation exists in a context in which value is derived from invention

Ten days, about 10,000 miles, and a lots of shared time with classmates helps to make simple realizations such as this possible. Working in technology, it's easy to be blinded by the context. Innovation isn't about being the latest, greatest or most cutting edge. Innovation is about the impact and value your work provides to other people.