Software. Genetics. Nanomaterials. These are the market sectors we typically associate with the term “innovation.” Disruptive breakthroughs in these and other innovation-rich fields have totally changed the way we live and work, and the businesses that spawned them have grown to become some of the most successful in the world today. Names like Apple, Amgen and Amazon are synonymous with innovation – and rightly so, as their game-changing products and services are intertwined throughout the world today.
But while these well-known companies and their sectors continue to thrive and grow through innovation, they hardly have a monopoly on the practice. In fact, today some of the most exciting breakthroughs are found in rather unexpected sectors hungry for disruption and innovation. We have some great examples right here in our backyard.
Take education, for example. Global competition for jobs and capital investment places even greater pressure on our education institutions to increase workforce productivity. As established public schools, universities and community colleges work to reengineer their approaches to meet the changing marketplace, new entrants into the market are making great strides in shifting the education model forward.
One such innovation is found in MOOCs, or massive open online courses. These online education platforms offer free classes from top institutions on topics ranging from computer programming to art history via sites like Coursera, EdX and Kahn Academy. Leveraging this new capability, Georgia Tech recently launched a new Masters in Computer Science degree program that is completely online through its Web partner Udacity and can be completed without ever setting foot in Atlanta. Though the long-term effectiveness of MOOCs is unknown, the fact that free college-level courses are available online for anyone to use is a major innovation for education and one that will continue to drive change in that marketplace.
Another new entrant into the education market is coding schools. With the supply of computer programmers not keeping up with market demand and the need to train future programmers on more current languages, private coding schools have sprung up to fill the need. One of the largest code schools in the country is The Iron Yard – a company headquartered in Greenville. With intense 12-week courses teaching a variety of programming languages in 14 locations from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas, The Iron Yard has emerged to become one of the global leaders in disrupting computer programming education through innovative new approaches.
NEXT High School offers another glimpse into the world of innovation within education right here in the Upstate. The new school is modeled after other project-based learning schools around the world and leverages how students learn best, through hands-on experience working on real-world multidisciplinary problems instead of listening passively to classroom lectures. NHS will open in August 2015 with the mandate to “prepare students for life.” As a free, pubic school chartered by the state of South Carolina, NEXT High School is an innovation that is changing the landscape for public schools in our state before it even opens.
Another field not typically associated with innovation is economic development, and, in particular, chambers of commerce. With established membership bases and longstanding community roles in place, chambers are typically well entrenched in their current positions and thus are not known for innovations and game-changing breakthroughs.
However, there are always exceptions to the rule, with one example right here locally. The Greenville Chamber was willing to innovate when it launched NEXT, one of the leading entrepreneur development efforts in the Southeastern U.S. today.
Back in 2006 when NEXT was being formed, opposition was strong against creating something that didn’t drive near-term membership revenues, much less a new program that didn’t have “Greenville” or “Chamber” in its name.
Yet the Greenville Chamber had the vision to see what the community needed, the courage to launch innovative new solutions, and the will to stay with a new startup venture within its own walls as it matured. Today, NEXT supports more than 150 early-stage high-growth companies across the Upstate region and has helped generate hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars of new capital investment in our state.
Since before NEXT was launched, detractors scoffed at the idea of a chamber of commerce being able to lead such an innovation, with one even saying “Good luck with that” when I described our plans for NEXT. But today, with hundreds of entrepreneurs plugging into the NEXT support ecosystem and a second NEXT facility coming online in May, there is little doubt whether a chamber can become prime ground for innovation if its leadership has the necessary vision and will.
These are just a few examples of innovation in unexpected places. The fact that breakthroughs are happening in fields like public education and chambers of commerce should encourage future business pioneers that innovation can and will happen anywhere innovators find themselves.
