Creating a Massive Innovation Incubator Program in the United States - The Plan

Many say that the US is not keeping up in scientific research and innovation, and they cite the many other nations which are rising quickly; nations like Brazil, China, India, etc. These US detractors say that we will not be able to keep up in the future. Well, I say hogwash, and I say that as a man with Mayflower ancestry, yes, going back to the beginning of this great nation, whose ancestors and the genes they passed on know better. All we need is a "little funding" and vision. Let me explain my plan:

We use giant warehouses or aircraft hangars which are vacant right now and we section them off with all the best ideas, each project going simultaneously with different teams, each project running ahead without being inhibited by bureaucracy. Then each group could explain their progress to the other groups at the end of each week.

Then we divide up into teams and set up a second hangar competing to develop the best new innovations. Perhaps, someone like you could be in charge of one group and one hangar, someone like me runs the other, and we compete to innovate. It wouldn't cost that much, it would be like 16 Garage start ups in the same place sectioned off.

The competing hangar with 16 more start-ups would share a wind tunnel, and eating facility. I am thinking a new DARPA on steroids like a mini-Manhattan Project. I mean really take some of these ideas and do them. Each team and project would have its own plan, and access to contact all the top researchers in the USA in all those esoteric niches - literally hyper spacing innovation.

Then there would be a support team with 3D renderings, marketing, PR, press releases. There could be a team of people helping each of the 32 groups put together their ideas and concepts out there. Next, we have special media days, and walk-throughs with NASA Space Camp kids, graduating seniors with scholastic aptitude, and FBLA or Future Business Leaders of America. Everyone gets a security check and we innovate from within America like no one has ever seen before.

Oh, but I'm not finished, I am just getting warmed up!

Then we franchise this concept, and put one in every major city in the country and allow other rural economic development corporations, cities, and universities to buy-into the concept. All talk you say? Well, would you like to see the whole plan? Indeed, this is what I'd like to do - because I believe in America. I believe in you.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes in innovation.