Submission to Innovation Taskforce
DARWINIAN INNOVATION INCENTIVE SCHEMEBackground Assumptions:
- The high tech (and in particular ICT) sector is unique in that the most important raw material required is time from skilled people.
- Ireland has lots of skilled people but these don’t have time to invest as they must “pay the mortgage”.
- The people working in these niche industries on the ground know the niche markets and the products required for the future.
Proposed Approach
Google Research type approach where technically skilled employees can spend say 20% of their work time working on their own innovation project at work. This could be incentivised through tax breaks to employee . Sometimes this could be also be combined with tax breaks to employers if the work is related to the employer’s business.
In early stage the ideas themselves should not be approved, but merely the people. IP Ownership would be shared between employer and employee.
At end of say a one year period, results are evaluated by peers (i.e. the people running the other projects) and employers. Projects with unsatisfactory results will not be allowed use the scheme in the following year(s). Good results will be supported through increased time and so on with a funnel type filter approach at each stage. Viable innovation based businesses should emerge.
Model
Consider say if 5,000 technologies were funded through this scheme through tax breaks to employers and employees .
Estimated annual cost per project €20k
Total Cost: €100 million
Benefits:
- The digital sector is a high risk numbers game so better to invest €20k in 5000 projects rather than say €2m in 50. Darwinian survival of the fittest weeds out weaker projects.
- Admin costs are low as it is self-regulated by peers (the employees and employers): A state agency only gets involved to funnel the best projects to the next level.
- Any specialised equipment, hardware services required is already available from the employer.
- Reduces employment as companies can retain good employees they might not be able to afford in difficult times.
NOTE: These views are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
posted by alatto @ 12:26 PM
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