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View all search resultsWhen invention is mistaken for innovation
Until Indonesia bridges the gap between policy rhetoric and cultural reality, we will remain a nation of great ideas but few breakthroughs.
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Office buildings fill Jakarta's skyline. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
I
ndonesia does not suffer from a lack of ideas, as many might assume. Instead, the nation suffers from a fundamental confusion regarding innovation.
Innovation is not invention. Innovation is invention multiplied by commercialization, or simply, value for paying customers. True innovation exists only when a product is accepted by the market, meets paying customers and survives competitive pressure.
Much of what is labeled "innovation" in Indonesia stops at ideas, prototypes, programs and facilities. This explains why the country continues to multiply incubators, buildings, cohorts, mentors and demo days. It prioritizes shelter and ideas first, leaving markets for later.
Unfortunately, innovation-driven enterprises are not born from shelter; they are born from confrontation. They emerge from commercialization, from the moment income, reputation and identity are tied to an unproven product.
This is why we have previously argued that universities are not the center of innovation-driven enterprise. The center is the market that purchases: the corporation, the buyer, the moment someone is willing to pay.
However, the insights provided by the recently developed Dynamic Feedback Theory of Entrepreneurial Formation in Loss-Averse, Short-Horizon Cultures reveal a more uncomfortable truth: In Indonesia, even corporations cannot start the innovation process.
This is not because corporations are weak, but because they are structurally anchored inside a deeper cultural control system.
