Too small is a tech myth – Mehran Gul on NZ’s real advantage
About this episode
Mehran Gul discusses the myths of innovation and how New Zealand can enhance its tech landscape.
Why do some places become tech powerhouses while others, just as smart and connected, stall out? In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, global innovation expert Mehran Gul, a former policy expert at the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations, dispels the myths about where breakthrough technology happens – and gives his take on what New Zealand should do to improve its innovation game. Gul’s new book, The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies , comes to a simple conclusion - there’s no fixed map of innovation. Silicon Valley, with its concentration of startups, tech talent and venture capital, remains an innovation powerhouse. But China went from being dismissed as a copycat to a genuine tech superpower in five to seven years. Canada, via one small lab at the University of Toronto, helped trigger the entire modern AI boom with AlexNet and a handful of researchers who went on to shape OpenAI and the wider industry. If they can bend the curve that fast, so can so-called “middle powers” and smaller countries like New Zealand – if they stop telling themselves they’re too…
People in this episode
Host: BusinessDesk
Guest: Mehran Gul
Topics covered
- innovation
- technology
- New Zealand
- global competition
- breakthrough technologies
Keywords
- innovation
- Mehran Gul
- New Zealand
- Silicon Valley
- technology
- AI boom
- breakthrough technologies
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: World Economic Forum, United Nations
Books & works: The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies
Places: Silicon Valley, China, Canada, New Zealand, University of Toronto
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