Californian Dahu
Innovation in Progress...
Genesis of the project
How did this idea come to us? It simply came from observation and critical opinion. Here is our reasoning.
According to FORBES, Grenoble was the 5th world’s most innovative city in 2013.
Actually, it is a misunderstanding: FORBES has only ranked inventive cities according to the ratio of applied patents per residents. This ranking does not completely reflect that these top-ranking cities are the world’s most innovative.
A patent is an invention filed by an individual or a company. Innovation can lead to one or several patents but not necessarily. Inversely, not all the patents turn into innovations.
In 2012, two venture capitalists V. W Hwang and G. Horowitz set up the Rainforest theory. They argue that innovations appear in specific and conductive ecosystems –such as cities- that are made of two essential parts:
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The HARDWARE, which is measurable, countable and visible –such as the patent ratio-.
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The SOFTWARE, which is invisible but remains essential.
That would mean that FORBES has only considered less than one half of what makes an ecosystem suited to innovation.
Not completely?!
Therefore is Grenoble an innovative city or not? How can we evaluate that feature?