hello there, i'm Nettra (pronounced according to spelling: net + tra = nettra).
i'm a global nomad and digital native currently based in Paris. i was born in California, raised in Phnom Penh and loved my three years in New York City.
i am a recovering political scientist keen on helping diverse stakeholders work together towards sustainable solutions to poverty. learning about the impact of technology, entrepreneurship and creativity on society is what gives me energy.
this tumblr helps me keep track of things which have happened to me, as well as the interesting, funny, inspiring and beautiful links i find this on this internet odyssey (read more).
for something more focused and structured (i.e., without photos of cute animals), you may like to browse my online art portfolio or visit my website. you can also find me on twitter, ask me a question or feed my fish.
Kant Help Me by Nettra Pan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Material posted here is my own, unless otherwise stated.
If you find your content here and would like me to remove or attribute it to you, please let me know and I would be happy to oblige.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Puzzle: Innovation
Continuing my Puzzles series here — a group of posts for me to keep track of a the ideas I’m fascinated by and want to better understand. I will return to add any related articles I find.
How do you qualify innovation? It’s such a buzz word (everyone everywhere seem to want to create a network of tech-savvy/innovators/change-makers — I definitely do!). It’s great that it’s in the mainstream now, but who is doing it versus only talking about it?
What is it actually?
Who is qualified to talk about innovation?
Do you have to be “qualified”? What about the poor (à la Esther Duflo)? The blackmarket? The misfits (as the brilliant due Kyra Choucroun and Alexa Clay investigate)?
Isn’t innovation for everyone? Or only developing countries at a certain stage? Or only developed countries? Or only Silicon Valley?
What context & resources does it require? What context & resources could it benefit from?
- An interesting framing of the issue by the Founder’s Fund: Investing in the Future
Update - some interesting articles on the policy side of innovation:
- Tech Crunch: Silicon Valley, London, NYC: Startup Genome Data Reveals How The World’s Top Tech Hubs Stack Up
- Tech Cruch: What Makes A Startup Successful? Blackbox Report Aims To Map The Startup Genome
- Tech Crunch: How French Presidential Candidates Can Learn To Spell ‘Entrepreneur’
- OECD: Money alone won’t make Europe innovative by Andrew Wyckoff
- OECD: Can we meet the innovation challenge?
- Karen Wilson at the OECD on the Frank Peter Show talking about her book: Financing High-Growth Firms: The Role of Angel Investors
“Europe will need to ensure high-risk capital is available to entrepreneurs. And – if it’s to engage significant numbers of scientists and engineers to do all that R&D – it will need to think about its approach to education, training and even migration policy. It will also need to go further achieve a real internal market: The competitive forces that would come with that would strengthen the innovation performance of all EU countries.”
(OECD: Money alone won’t make Europe innovative by Andrew Wyckoff)
In a related puzzle post, I talked about the need to attract and retain talent - right now so many are leaving Europe’s borders, especially to go to the United States. Europe should debate an entrepreneur or innovator’s visa for limited stay. It’s common knowledge that entrepreneurs create jobs, promote efficient distribution of resources.
“In the U.S., for example, companies less than five years old created 44 million jobs over the last three decades and accounted for all net new jobs created in the U.S. over that period, according to the White House.” (Tech Crunch: Silicon Valley, London, NYC: Startup Genome Data Reveals How The World’s Top Tech Hubs Stack Up)
Interesting actors:
- EU’s Innovation Union
- EBAN: EBAN serves business angels, business angel networks, seed funds and other early stage investment professionals across Europe.
- Startup Compass: A free benchmarking tool that leverages its data to allow entrepreneurs to evaluate their progress compared to other startups in their space. (@bjoernlasse @maxmarmer)
