Bill Gates: Four ways the next US president can foster an innovation economy
Mission alignment klaxon!
As the US presidential candidates lay out competing visions for the country, Bill Gates has has been thinking about a topic they have not yet discussed in detail: what political leadership can do to accelerate innovation.
Innovation is the reason our lives have improved over the last century.
It’s important to remember what made the moonshot the moonshot—that is, what transforms political rhetoric into game-changing breakthroughs. A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible. And it requires marshaling the resources and intellect of both the public and private sectors. When we do that, we chart a course for a future that is safer, healthier, and stronger.
In this essay, Bill Gates makes four recommendations for achievable objectives within the next decade, and we could not agree more (especially on the first one).
- Provide everyone on earth with affordable energy without contributing to climate change.
- Develop a vaccine for HIV and a cure for neurodegenerative diseases.
- Protect the world from future health epidemics, which might be more infectious than Ebola and more deadly than Zika.
- Give every student and teacher new tools so that all students get a world-class education.
Read the whole piece here.
