Elliott Masie: It’s Only a Short Trip From The Drawing Board to the Marketplace

Futurist Elliott Masie recently visited Big Think to discuss the aims of his MASIE Center think tank, where researchers explore the intersection of innovation and learning. There is no respectable form of education today that doesn’t include technology so as tech innovations continue to advance it’s up to folks like the ones at MASIE to identify new applications:

Masie notes that the link has been stronger or more streamlined between innovative ideas and getting products on the market:

"Innovation happens and it happens now in ways that are almost instant in the marketplace. So somebody comes up with a wonderful idea that we could do, a 3D printer. In the old days it might have been 12 years before we could see it but about nine months later for $1200 you can buy one."

The same can be said for drones. Remember where you were three years ago when drones first became a huge topic in the public conversation? Now it seems like everybody and their mother has got their hands on a personal quadcopter. Masie has tasked his namesake think tank with identifying practical uses for these innovative devices upon their introduction.

"If you worked at an insurance company and there was a fire imagine the ability to literally hours after the fire is under control to fly above not only for you the insurance company doing an audit but think about the peace of mind for the owner of that house. So we’re always involved kind of like the MIT media lab for learning to look at the connection between technology and innovation and learning."

You can see the sort of work The MASIE Center has been up to here.