WE CAN CREATE THE CONDITIONS FOR OUR OWN SILICONE VALLEY

CAN the Gold Coast become an innovation hub like Silicon Valley?

With around 200 would-be “silicon valley” clones in the world, it’s natural to ask, what made the original Silicon Valley in California the leader of a very large pack?

The soul of any innovation hub is a research university. In Silicon Valley there is Stanford with its culture of academic entrepreneurship plus a generous attitude towards making land available to startups at low-cost.

Hand in hand with entrepreneurship goes venture capital and philanthropy. The US has a strong culture of private money willing to strategically invest in start-up enterprises. The US also has a tradition of wealthy philanthropists ready to donate to a worthy cause.

Then there is government- sponsored research and development. In the case of Silicon Valley this began during World War II when the US Department of Defense funded high-tech research to help with the war effort.

Next comes a progressive attitude towards innovation and change. San Francisco developed such a culture going back to the gold rush of 1849. Tens of thousands of mostly young men streamed in and in the absence of parental supervision were free to experiment with new ways.

No fear of failure, or better to say a tolerance of failure as a necessary step towards success. There is a saying in Silicon Valley: Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

Cautious venture capitalists will want to minimise the failures. But the fact remains; no one gets it right the first time and everyone there understands that.

And finally, the presence of the San Andreas Fault means a catastrophic earthquake could happen at any time. It gives the locals a “seize the day” attitude – worry about it if it happens. In the meantime let’s get on with changing the world.

To make it all work, the stakeholders need to have plenty of contact with each other. Universities, businesses, and governments all talking to each other, kicking around ideas, trying out the more promising ones and avoiding a silo mentality. Over time, the three different threads weave together to become a kind of “triple helix”.

Is this something we can do on the Gold Coast? Absolutely, but the better question to ask is why should we not do it? With jobs being automated, we need to invent new jobs made possible by the technology and the entrepreneurial spirit that is already thriving in the community.

Success does not come overnight. It takes years, decades to build a culture of innovation. We can’t create it on demand, but we can create the right conditions for it to happen over time.