Recently, a report from National Association of Manufacturers in US showed the rankings of the top 20 innovative countries in the world. United States used to be the first in innovation, but this report shows that it no longer is.
The problem lies on the quality of human power in the US. US used to be very innovative, because US had the top universities, biggest venture capitals and best financial marketplaces. Also, you can hear lots of successful stories in the US and all of these good things made US became the center of innovation in the world. But under the financial crisis, some of the companies in US prefer to hire Indian staffs to Americans, Indian companies can use H-1B and send a lot of good engineers to US. And also, many Americans have lost their jobs because of that.
As well, financial crisis make lots of Asian aboard students back to home country, because US is no longer a good country for them to work and live. In this list, US is only ranked 8th place.
In contrast, Singapore is always attracting foreigners to work in Singapore or study in Singapore. The Singapore government also lets Singaporeans to study aboard to improve their skills and come back, then innovate.
Financial crisis also affects Singapore, especially in human power. Although many workers left Singapore, the high-tech engineers did not, the government is always supporting them. In my opinion, I believe that the foreigners won’t leave Singapore, because the government can give really good support for foreigners which are living in Singapore, as a scholar in Singapore, I can feel this fully.
Of course, I should give you the complete list of these 20 countries so that you can discover more about national innovation.
1. Singapore
2. South Korea
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. Ireland
6. Hong Kong
7. Finland
8. United States
9. Japan
10. Sweden
11. Denmark
12. Netherlands
13. Luxembourg
14. Canada
15. United Kindom
16. Israel
17. Austrilia
18. Norway
19. Germany
20. France