Under new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, innovation for once is the policy du jour in Australia. Innovation is associated with risk taking, but too often, government wants others to take the risk. It wants venture capitalists to take investment risk, and start-ups to take R&D risks. Is it time now for government to walk the talk?
State and federal agencies remain the most important buyers of IT in Australia. To stimulate domestic R&D and advance an innovation culture, governments should be taking some bold procurement risk, punting to some degree on new trechnology. Major projects like driver licence technology upgrades, the erstwhile Human Services Access Card, the national broadband rollout, and national e-health systems, would be ideal environments in which to preferentially select next generation, home-grown products.
Obviously government must be prudent spending public money on new technology. Yet at the same time, there is a public interest argument for selecting newer solutions: in the rapidly changing online environment, citizens stand to benefit from the latest innovations, bred in response to current challenges.
What do entrepreneurs need most to help them innovate and prosper? It's metaphorical oxygen!
Innovators need:
- access to prospective customers, so we may showcase disruptive technologies
- procurement processes that admit, nay encourage, some technology risk taking
- agile tender specifications that call for the unexpected in responses - disruptive technologies
- open-mindedness from big prime contractors, who too often are deaf to inventive SMEs
- curiosity for innovation amongst business people
- optimism amongst buyers that small local players might have something special to offer
- and a reversal of the classic Australian taboo against sales.
Too often, innovative Australian entrepreneurs are met with the admonition "you're only trying to sell us something". Well yes we are, but it's because we believe we have something to meet real needs, and that customers actually need to buy something.
