Saudi Arabia has tried to build new centres of knowledge and innovation in the middle of the desert. Ecuador attempted something similar, while Norway has sought to join the race to become the world’s next battery nation. What they all have in common is that most of these efforts have gone wrong.
Why do large, expensive attempts to build innovation from scratch fail, while a 21-year-old Briton, Samuel Salter, managed to kick-start the American Industrial Revolution?
What is it about knowledge — and the way it spreads — that makes it so difficult to understand?
Professor César Hidalgo is originally a physicist and a world-leading figure in the field of economic complexity. He has studied the laws of knowledge: why knowledge grows, where it takes root, and how quickly it disappears when it is no longer used.
He is fairly certain that Chile’s access to lithium as a raw material will never turn the country into a battery nation. Does Norway have something to learn from this?
In his new book, The Infinite Alphabet, Hidalgo shows that knowledge certainly cannot simply be bought and placed wherever we want. More on this when Hidalgo visits Stavanger during this year’s KÅKÅnomics.
