The Innovation Edge

The Innovation Edge, Nesta's 18 monthly conference, took place on 20th May 2008 at the Festival Hall. Jonathan Kestenbaum, Nesta's Cheif Executive, was determined to show just how far the organisation has moved on under his stewardship by reflecting on the difference between this gathering and the last one at The Business Design Centre in Islington in 2006, shortly after he took the reigns. I am not in a position to comment on whether Nesta is a very different beast to its previous incarnation, but if the key note speakers on show are anything to go on then they certainly seem to have moved up a league.

The key note session was chaired by Jonathan Freedland and began with Jonathan interviewing none other than Sir Tim Burners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web. Sir Tim appeared every bit the modest unassuming and selfless socially motivated scientist that you one might expect from the person who invented arguably the most important innovation since the industrial revolution. He jokingly reminisced how his initial proposal to create the www was described by his manager at CERN as being 'vague but interesting' and how he was only able to work on it in down time between his important work.

Sir Tim was followed by Bob Geldof (no hyper link required) who stole the show with a witty, invigorating and critical speech that seamlessly bridged the conference theme of sustaining UK innovation with a call to arms on how innovation can do so much more to help people in Africa work their way out of poverty. He made the point that Europe should do more to use its innovation capital to help Africa. He reflected despite the fact Africa lies just 8 miles off the southern coast of Spain and Europe remains the richest continent in the world, China is investing so much more in Africa that European nations.

The afternoon began in similar big hitter style with none other than Gordon Brown providing 10 minutes of surprisingly relaxed informal comment and even a couple of jokes in support of UK innovation.

If Nesta is able to become as good as the speakers on show in effecting positive change and sustaining innovation then they really will have moved a long way in the last 18 months. I look forward to seeing how they appear in another 18 months time.