Most-welcome news is starting to arrive. Believable reports of abating economic turmoil increase daily, accompanied by fresh intelligence that the crushing global recession is nearing its long-awaited end.

As Indiana commences on recovery over the coming months, we all need to refocus our efforts to accelerate recovery and replace lost jobs.

The task of creating jobs is not going to be an easy one, but it does represent a unique opportunity. Although the Hoosier state lost thousands of jobs as the global economy nose-dived over the past 18 months, the state did enter the worldwide fiscal era of carnage in dramatically better financial shape than its neighbors. Now is the time to leverage that enviable position and advance Indiana quickly.

How can these new jobs be organically created over the coming months and years?  Earlier in September, BusinessWeek magazine had a most interesting comment for Hoosiers to consider:

“Name an industry [presently in the United States] that can produce one million new, high-paying jobs over the next three years. You can’t, because there isn’t one. And that’s the problem.”

Adrian Slywotzky, a partner for national management consultancy Oliver Wyman, went on to illustrate for BusinessWeek readers how real American innovation from the mid-20th century – the transistor, cellular telephony, photovoltaic solar cells and others – all became building blocks for new industries and the subsequent creation of millions of new jobs. The paramount task at hand, according to Slywotzky, is for American entrepreneurs, scientists and business professionals to redouble their efforts and produce the next set of truly transformational building blocks.

Those of us living in Indiana would do well to consider how real innovation can dramatically accelerate our own respective position in the national – even global – economy.

“How so Indiana?” one might say. Take a look at Indiana University. Through some amazing and creative collaboration, IU is now a player in the top ranks of supercomputing horsepower. That gives the state an attractive tool for transformational development and innovation through the university’s Big Red supercomputer, which is already available to entrepreneurial businesses and technology entrepreneurship in the state.

Take a look at Purdue University. The Boilermakers raised more than an eyebrow or two when Purdue pulled down a $105 million grant from the National Science Foundation – the largest in the university’s 140-year history – for earthquake research and education. Purdue will now lead no less than 14 other major research universities in this endeavor, positioning even more firmly the state’s outstanding resources, such as Discovery Park in West Lafayette.

The list of Indiana technology innovation and Indiana technology research assets, emerging business technology and the positive impact on Indiana technology jobs and Indiana economic development goes much farther.

If you’re serious about job creation – and you should be – consider gathering with us on Sept. 29 for the statewide Innovation Summit. The Summit’s keynote speaker Clayton Christensen is the Harvard avatar responsible for defining disruptive innovation and how to achieve it. He will be joined by dozens of successful innovators, technologists and finance professionals striving to ignite Hoosier innovation.

Will you be part of the Hoosier solution to drive real transformation and innovation? Join us.

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