Innovation Needs Inventors

Why is it that so many innovators are white males from the financial top 1% of the American population? According to management and economics professor John Van Reenen of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the dearth of women and minorities in the inventor sphere has nothing to do with ability, and everything to do with a lack of exposure to the idea of innovation as a viable career path and fewer opportunities to pursue groundbreaking ideas. In this video talk for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Van Reenen discusses why inclusivity is important for stimulating innovation and how to better support women, low-income and minority innovators.