While many in our nation bemoan the loss of manufacturing plants and capacity to lower-cost countries -- the losses of jobs and tax base are understandably traumatic to the affected communities and the people who live within them -- the United States is increasingly depending on innovation to lead the way. We are becoming a nation of knowledge workers -- farming out or outsourcing or licensing cutting-edge technologies to manufacturers overseas. It is important that instead of throwing government money after the rapidly disappearing manufacturing base, and instead to invest it wisely in innovation -- the seeds of our future.

A year ago or so I helped the Foundation for Enterprise Development out on a project they had in support of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program (with the emphasis on Innovation!). The FED’s task was to create a success booklet and DVD containing summaries of 36 successful research projects performed by small businesses under the DARPA SBIR program. Some of the projects included the development of a small, hovering unmanned aerial vehicle by Aurora Flight Sciences in Manassas, Virginia, a smart miniature robotic vehicle designed and built by Omnitech Robotics in Englewood, Colorado, and a handheld one-way voice translation system developed by VoxTec International in Annapolis, Maryland. The success reports and DVD may be viewed here: http://www.darpa.mil/sbir/Success_Story_Main_Page.htm

I was of course proud to work on this project, but I was amazed at the things that these 36 businesses were doing. They truly are on the cutting edge of innovation, and they -- and many other American companies like them -- are leading the way to our future. And the sooner companies realize that innovation is the key to future success and stop dragging their feet, the better.