Big time Brits to whom Apple are indebted

In a previous post I spoke of my amazement at how the UK was the engine of innovation during the industrial revolution. Whilst the UK is no longer the powerhouse it used to be we still probably punch above our weight in certain fields given the we make up 1 in a thousand inhabitants of Planet Earth.

In this post I just wanted to pay tribute to two world renowned Brits who both have connections with Apple and with where I hail from in the UK. One who was born twenty miles away from my hometown and the other studied at Uni some 14 miles away.

They are Ridley Scott (born in South Shields) and Jonathan Ive (who studied at Newcastle Polytechnic). The Jony Ive connection with Apple is obvious as he is their SVP of Design.

The other connection is that Ridley Scott directed the Apple's '1984 Big Brother' Superbowl commercial that is still regarded nearly twenty years after its broadcast as one of the most iconic and important commercials ever made.

The question I'm asking is where are Microsoft's or Google's Brit, and indeed North East, connection?

The Beast in the East

The other night I was watching a TV show about Rivers (the BBC one with Gryff Rhys Jones) and apart from admiring the beautiful scenery a recurring point of the show is that rivers and canals were the lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution, much in the way that roads were in the 20th Century and copper (for broadband) is in the Information Age. As such innovation flourised along these waterways. Indeed, something that always amazes me is just how much innovation sprang from the small island of my birth - the UK - and this is where the US picked up the during the early 20th Century.

The other day I was having a discussion at lunch with a friend who is an senior australian academic and the I questioned whether any of the emerging economic powers, namely India or China, was poised to pick up the innovation chalice from the US. For the record he has travelled and dealt with major research organisations in both the US and China. His answer was categoric and a little bit worrying.

Within a generation he believes that China will be the only engine of innovation that matters, something far removed from its current role as the world's factory. This makes me wonder what will become of Silicon Valley in twenty or thirty years time and I suppose bring the current spat between the US, Google and China into some perpective.