From an idea to a product

How far away is the distance from an idea to a product? Of course, it is not about physical distance. Most of the country should know their answer, because they may not have the capacity to start all the way from the idea to product. For a society with several million people, how many percent of GDP could be generated from this supply and demand chain, may the companies in our geographical location migrate from OEM to ODM, and again from ODM to OBM, the differences seem blur but the profit is significant. For a society with several million, could they work all the way from an idea to a product?

Started from an idea, it is from scratch to prototype, R&D, for the idea develop to a prototype, there are not only science inventions, also skillfully technician with excellent craftmanship to polish a prototype. After that, you need mass production, it is another stage. For a society with several million people, will they have the opportunity to go all the way from an idea to a product and mass production finally? That is a question. You may not think so. In phase 1, from an idea to prototype is talent-intensive needed, and they will be very concerned about their education, and in phase 2, from prototype to mass production is labor-intensive and technology-intensive needed. If you evaluate the people skill and how people were educated and trained, you may say what portion they are capable to do.

In this view, we go back to STEM education, for a place they are very strong in OEM manufacturing, their education is not focused on inspiring, the training is more on memorize a lot of things and know the procedures to operate, for society stronger in ODM, they tend more on technology advancement, for a place stronger in OBM, they need student not in memorizing knowledge, it needs more inspiring. It is how we see the difference of education-centered and student-centered. What fruit you prepare your tree to be bear, what tree you will plant.

Let's think about the difference between Innovative technology(科創) and technological innovation(創科), one is innovating a new thing, another one is using existing technology to innovate. For example, if a company designed to innovate a new electronic nose (let's call it e-nose) to smell aromatic substance, to distinguish the year of red wine, they may invest hundred million dollar to design a 5 mm by 5mm integrated circuit is an innovative e-nose, however, a start-up company not yet creditable to gather investment, they may choose to a device not 5mm by 5mm, they start the device from 5 cm by 5cm, the scale is much larger, the investment may under a million-dollar immediately, they could even choose some electronic component already exist on the market, so, they walk the way from innovative technology to way of technological innovation, use existing technology to innovate, they could use artificial intelligence algorithm to get data from an array of devices. That's still possible for such a start-up company.