Technology, the Future, Innovation, and Leadership

"That’s the challenge of innovation, is if you wait until you need something - it's too late to innovate."

This quote is an observation made by Dr. Jane Lovas during our podcast interview and I couldn’t agree more! I recently relistened to the podcast, which was from 2023 and aired not too long after I launched my book, Inventing the Future, Stories from a Techno-Optimist. It brought back a lot of memories - good and bad! I open with the story of leaving academia to launch my company to bring "CosmoBot" to market. CosmoBot was our robot for kids with disabilities and we were inspired by all of the kids we were working with. Kids with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, and other developmental disabilities were responding to CosmoBot and reaching new developmental milestones working together with CosmoBot and their therapists.

Unfortunately, we went out for our first round of funding the night before 9/11. The investment community disappeared and took 2 decades to recover. We were able to pivot and bring our innovative educational software and alternative keyboard to market as Cosmo's Learning System, which stayed on the market for about 5 years. A typical lifespan for tech products, which tend to get disrupted by the next big thing. In our case the disruption was iPads!

You can listen to the whole story and/or read my book, Inventing the Future, Stories from a Techno-Optimist.

#Memories #Inventingthefuture #Innovation #Leadership