TECH4GOOD
During the first meeting of the National Innovation Council under the Marcos administration held a couple of months back, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan remarked that it is high time to develop the country’s innovation ecosystem. He emphasized the need to establish an innovation ecosystem that will encourage and promote innovation as part of the country’s economic culture.
Those remarks came at a very critical time for the country. Many countries today are jumpstarting their economic growth, stalled by the pandemic, with innovation-centered strategies designed to take advantage of emerging opportunities brought about by the changed global economic landscape.
Republic Act 11293 or the Philippine Innovation Act was signed into law in 2019 but still has to be fully implemented. It is supposed to put innovation at the center of the country’s development policies and economic strategies. The new law mandates the creation of the National Innovation Council which is to be chaired by the President and which shall steer a whole-of-government approach to innovation governance.
The Global Innovation Index of 2022 ranks the Philippines at 58 out of 131 economies covered by the report. The rank represents a slide of four ranks from the GII 2021 report where the country ranked 54 out of 129 economies. The current rank is a big improvement from the GII 2014 rank of 100. I believe the US AID-funded Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) program created a significant impact on boosting science and technology research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the country which resulted in a big jump in the GII ranking.
The 2022 report highlighted several bright spots for the Philippines. It is one of the outperformers in Southeast Asia, having moved up more than 20 ranks in the last 10 years and performing above expectations on innovation relative to its level of economic development. It also ranked second worldwide in terms of hi-tech exports mainly driven by its ICT-enabled services sector.
If we do a deep dive into how the country scored in each of the indicators, it will be easy to see a wide room for improvement. The country ranked 90th in the area of Institutions which covers political, regulatory, and business environments. It needs to improve in the areas of human capital and research, infrastructure, and market sophistication. It is in the areas of business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and creative outputs where the country ranked relatively high.
The GII 2022 report projects that the coming innovation waves will be in two fields. First is the Digital Age which will anchor on supercomputing and artificial intelligence that will have a significant impact across all sectors, especially services, and will allow more scientific breakthroughs to happen. The other is Deep Science innovation in domains like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and the development of new materials that will help address societal issues related to health, food, the environment, and mobility.
How do we then move up the innovation value chain and ensure that it will be inclusive?
The Philippine Innovation Act of 2019 states that the state shall harness innovation efforts to help the poor and marginalized and to enable MSMEs to become part of the domestic and global supply chain. Our leaders from the government, business, and the academe should also understand the critical elements needed to develop an innovation ecosystem and allow it to thrive. These are but are not limited to, the availability of talent with the right skills, enabling policies, access to funding, having the right innovation culture, markets, and support infrastructures.
Innovation starts with a robust pool of rightly skilled people. There is a need to encourage more kids to take on the science, technology, and engineering education tracks. The skills developed from these tracks are usually the ones needed to build a thriving innovation ecosystem.
A market with a broad customer base and a robust supply chain is critical for the development and growth of the ecosystem because startups need to have immediate and direct access to their customers. These startups also thrive in a culture that encourages entrepreneurship, creativity and experimentation, accepts calculated risk-taking, questions the usual way things are done, and looks at mistakes as learning opportunities.
Other critical elements are the presence of a strong intellectual property framework, support infrastructures like a decent broadband network, research hubs, incubators, accelerators, and access to capital to fund startup ideas and bring them to market.
Innovation is the lifeblood of economic growth. A robust innovation ecosystem can help create jobs, increase productivity, and enhance our competitiveness. However, it is a complex process that requires a coordinated effort from the government, business, academia, and other stakeholders. Everyone needs to understand that it is not a one-time effort but rather a journey that will require continuous adaptation and iteration to keep pace with the changing economic, technological, and societal trends.
(The author is the lead convenor of the Alliance for Technology Innovators for the Nation (ATIN), vice president of the Analytics Association of the Philippines, and vice president, UP System Information Technology Foundation. Email: [email protected])