The Brain Race is on!

Paolo Camera Flickr Creative Commons

Earlier this week, the Economist held a summit called: “The Ideas Economy: Human Potential – When the world grows up”. Not only is it becoming clear that the true currency of entrepreneurship is talent - but also that it can be created through education and training.

According to Kauffman Foundation senior fellow Ben Wildavsky, China, Saudi Arabia and many other countries have an intense desire to create Universities on US and British levels. The race is on.

Vivek Wadhwa cites Wildawsky, in a TechCrunch article as saying that: "knowledge isn’t a finite resource like gold or diamonds—it’s something that can grow; it is a public good".

Wadhwa goes on to say that "this means that innovators around the world, including U.S. entrepreneurs, can take advantage of research breakthroughs in places like China or India. So yes, we should do everything we can to boost our own human capital. But rather than fearing the globalization of higher education, which will be counterproductive, we should embrace it. As executives in the tech industry know, the best strategy to compete is to hire all stars from wherever you can find them."

What we know from the discussion around the Swedish elections yesterday, is that lesser educated vote less. My conclusion is that if Europe, especially southern europe, will want to defend democracy and remain competitive - the need for training is but increasing.