Today I had a great conversation with a director of an European think tank. He was concerned about demographic aging of the population and the importance of having a national 'people' strategy. How are you going to renew your country and keep it's most brilliant minds working within your borders?
Money is not enough to keep people. it's obviously important but even thought you pay more for them still they might leave. Similarily a great geographical location is not enough. So, what is it that keeps the package together? I would say that it's the thrill and challenge. The environment where your talents are appreciated and you can be challenged by your peers. An athmosphere where you have to strecth yourself and be competitive. Clever people crave for action and they like to be around other achievers as well. One has to have a pool of circumstances that together make things work. Silicon Valley is a good case in point. A great number of the new ventures are created by people outside of US origins. They have come to test their wings.
So, how is it with your country? Are they boosting and supporting innovation and R&D in concrete terms? I haven't seen such a support de facto in Europe. We're still too comfortable and lazy with our past success. No need to worry about the aging society and future tax payers. I just wonder who's going to pay for all those baby boomers. They haven't paid their pensions since most of the EU's pension schemes are pay-as-you-go. Enthusiams is not here. Work is not appreciated and it's just something that's financing one's leisure time. Something fundamentally wrong?
Study the history and you will find that in many cases the current great nations were build from the brainpower and resources abroad. This has just tended to faid when the wealth has started to accumulate. The time is not far away that we have to start to thing about something fundamental in order to boost the economy and widen the tax burden or should I say the collateral for nations to rise debt against...
With En Vogue's words: "Free your mind and rest will follow".