Use our knack for innovation to get nation out of fiscal doldrums

Most Americans are despondent about our economic mess. But if we pull back and try to rise above the clouds, there are real reasons for hope.

The combination of a new administration headed to the White House, along with our country's established leadership in innovation, has us standing at the crest of a trail that could ensure we never enter this chasm again. Let's get back on our feet and remember what we are made of.

America is the world's leading innovator in medicine, energy, information technology and almost every discipline. Our research, patents, startups and venture capital all show a country driven to innovate, to create and to dream the big dream for a better future.

United States' innovation drives our everyday lives. The light bulb. The transistor. The PC. The Internet. The human genome. An innovator's spirit cannot be doused by a few rain showers, and thrives on adversity. We are amazed by modern daydreamers and historic visionaries, including Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and others. They, like most Americans, possessed an innate disrespect for the status quo. They defied conventional wisdom and created new industries.

America succeeds where others fail because we value creativity over conformity. We respect the hope and naiveté of the young, because sometimes they are right. We seek risk, because it makes us stretch and break new ground. We support a free market for all good ideas and welcome the best and brightest from distant shores.

We learn from failure and don't punish it automatically, but we do not tolerate poor performance either. We reward the risk-takers.

Try that in Germany or Japan or China.

We must stay on the trail of innovation in spite of adversity. Be aware that the trail is prone to mudslides, flooding and more. We can allow our science and education system to continue to slide. We can cease to be the beacon in the world for the best ideas and people. We can accidentally suppress our innovation machine with overregulation and bureaucracy. We can try to protect what we have instead of embracing the challenges of a global economy.

If we slip off the trail, the America we each have been blessed enough to grow up in will die. Our productivity will fall. Foreign powers will dominate our economy.

But now we have a window of opportunity to implement energy independence, protect our homeland and create better health care. This is the moment in time to use our strengths to solve our own problems. Let's harness innovation to solve the world's woes, create jobs and stay competitive.

President-elect Barack Obama has it right. Stabilize the financial markets and economy, and then focus on solving the energy emergency. Then move to disease detection and prevention, and to the fundamentals of education and research. He is standing at the crest of the trail, ready to lead us.

Obama must rally the American innovation culture and must define the challenges. He must harness the patriotic spirit and get Americans to ask themselves how they can help, just like Kennedy articulated in his vision to reach into space.

We need to depend on ourselves for our energy solutions. We must attract the best scientists and entrepreneurs. Give government managers and universities freedom and incentives to take risks. Enlist private sector to help set the goals and execute the plan and create "green" jobs.

Let's double basic science funding to fuel the engine of innovation. We should take steps to reward, not tax, the risk takers who solve our problems. Let's appoint a chief technology officer for the United States who can make sure the bureaucracy does not get in the way of real solutions.

We must restore global confidence in American economic leadership, and reach out to the best and the brightest who want to innovate here on our shores. Let innovation become our olive branch to restore the world's respect. We will lead the world by offering solutions to the major problems of our day — energy, homeland security and disease prevention.

Let's keep on the trail of innovation. Let's take this adversity as a challenge, as our forefathers did. Let's use our strengths to seize the moment and create unprecedented change. At the end of that trail is an economically recharged America that is cleaner, healthier and stronger.

Robert Nelsen is a venture capitalist based in Seattle.