10.17 Preparing for the Future
219
companies, and self-employed people. This can be reached by avoiding too much
standardization while demanding differentiated interoperability, particularly from
large companies. In this respect, incentivizing information exchange and Open Data
is of key importance.
43
Well-designed, participatory information platforms will help everyone to engage
in the Economy 4.0 more effectively. They will support people in communicating
more easily, identifying suitable partners to work with, coordinating activities, and
collaboratively creating goods and services. Furthermore, such platforms could be
used to do financial and project planning, to manage supply chains, to schedule
processes, to carry out accounting, and to perform many other management tasks
such as health insurance and tax administration. Such a platform could largely reduce
the barriers of entry to the market and provide everyone with the tools needed to easily
set up collaborative projects. In fact, future job and work platforms should have all
of these features. Why don’t we build them as public infrastructures to foster the
Economy 4.0?
10.18 Appendix 1: Re-Inventing Innovation
Compared to material goods, information is a special resource. While material goods
are limited, which can lead to resource conflicts, information can be reproduced
cheaply and as often as we like. Nevertheless, current intellectual property rights
treat digital goods more or less like material goods. I believe, a different kind of
intellectual property right (IPR) would dramatically accelerate innovation and create
many more jobs. While we have to catch up with the pace at which our world is
changing, the current IPR regime creates major obstacles. Therefore, we need a new
paradigm which will allow collaborative creation (“co-creation”) to flourish.
In fact, we could fundamentally change the way we foster innovation. Currently,
many people don’t like to share their best ideas, because they don’t want other people
to become rich in the wake of their research, while getting very little compensation.
As a result, it often takes years until an idea is shared with the world through a
publication or patent. But what if we innovated cooperatively from the very first
moment? Let us assume an idea is born in America, and it is shared with others
through a public portal such as GitHub. Afterwards, experts from Asia could work
on these ideas for a couple of hours, then experts from Europe could build on their
results, and so on. In this way, we could create a research and development paradigm
that never sleeps, that overcomes the limits of a single team, and that embraces
“collective intelligence”.
43 A report by McKinsey & Co. estimates the additional value of Open Data to be of the order
of $3–5 trillion per year: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-ins
ights/open-data-unlocking-innovationand-performance-with-liquid-information.
219
companies, and self-employed people. This can be reached by avoiding too much
standardization while demanding differentiated interoperability, particularly from
large companies. In this respect, incentivizing information exchange and Open Data
is of key importance.
43
Well-designed, participatory information platforms will help everyone to engage
in the Economy 4.0 more effectively. They will support people in communicating
more easily, identifying suitable partners to work with, coordinating activities, and
collaboratively creating goods and services. Furthermore, such platforms could be
used to do financial and project planning, to manage supply chains, to schedule
processes, to carry out accounting, and to perform many other management tasks
such as health insurance and tax administration. Such a platform could largely reduce
the barriers of entry to the market and provide everyone with the tools needed to easily
set up collaborative projects. In fact, future job and work platforms should have all
of these features. Why don’t we build them as public infrastructures to foster the
Economy 4.0?
10.18 Appendix 1: Re-Inventing Innovation
Compared to material goods, information is a special resource. While material goods
are limited, which can lead to resource conflicts, information can be reproduced
cheaply and as often as we like. Nevertheless, current intellectual property rights
treat digital goods more or less like material goods. I believe, a different kind of
intellectual property right (IPR) would dramatically accelerate innovation and create
many more jobs. While we have to catch up with the pace at which our world is
changing, the current IPR regime creates major obstacles. Therefore, we need a new
paradigm which will allow collaborative creation (“co-creation”) to flourish.
In fact, we could fundamentally change the way we foster innovation. Currently,
many people don’t like to share their best ideas, because they don’t want other people
to become rich in the wake of their research, while getting very little compensation.
As a result, it often takes years until an idea is shared with the world through a
publication or patent. But what if we innovated cooperatively from the very first
moment? Let us assume an idea is born in America, and it is shared with others
through a public portal such as GitHub. Afterwards, experts from Asia could work
on these ideas for a couple of hours, then experts from Europe could build on their
results, and so on. In this way, we could create a research and development paradigm
that never sleeps, that overcomes the limits of a single team, and that embraces
“collective intelligence”.
43 A report by McKinsey & Co. estimates the additional value of Open Data to be of the order
of $3–5 trillion per year: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-ins
ights/open-data-unlocking-innovationand-performance-with-liquid-information.