Mother is the necessity of invention and the famous TED talk, and one of the most inspirational given by William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind shows just how. With no food, no power, and not even able to speak English William innovated broken parts of garbage to build a windmill that saved his village, provided irrigation and actually generated enough power to charge peoples cell phones for which he created a revenue stream again saving his family from starvation. How? He NEEDED to. Does your company have this need? Are your employees empowered to benefit from that which they disrupt, create and innovate?
This is why some developing nations innovate faster. They have to. Because if they don't those in need will perish. A recent fast company article on this demonstrates how in a simple progression of:
1) It must be directly relevant to the situation
2) Local fixes work faster than top down
3) Long term investment wins: the R&D model
4) Working with the government is actually good: increases roll-out
makes this possible and gives some clues how you can do this inside your organization as well.
