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*This piece was originally published, in Italian, in the exceedingly innovative (and very Italian) website "Che Futuro." *As somebody who spends a lot of time in non-Anglophone countries, this is a situation that I see commonly. I rarely see it as well-described as this.

Lack of R&D, innovation and structural problems in education are root causes of the eurozone crisis in Portugal, Greece, but also Italy and Spain struggle. 

But we idealize America's present culture of innovation too much. In fact, our trailblazing digital firms may not be the hothouse environments for creativity we might think. 

"'If it's not talking to each other, it's not a market.' Europe, despite being a political union (of sorts), does not yet feel like a real market. Part of the solution would be to know more about each other, and to talk to each other more often. That's what 'Whiteboard' wants to offer: a place to find information about interesting businesses and innovation, and to talk about it." So yet another DJ journalist, as professor Mark Deuze would say. Raf Weverbergh left the Flemish magazine Humo and started his own venture, Whiteboard.  He won't be the one who is on stage all the time creating his very own content, but rather he invites contributors to talk about entrepreneurship in Europe. Which seems like a great idea, as Europe is not just that doom and gloom continent - but it needs media ventures to talk about its entrepreneurs and to facilitate the conversation between entrepreneurs. So I cannot wait to hear a thousand (or more) entrepreneurial voices on Whiteboard reporting about exciting new things in Europe! 

The robotic future is here, and it looks nothing like we thought it would. Instead of humanoid, highly-intelligent robots that do our bidding, the future is increasingly one of robotic swarms, robotic quadrotors, and tiny robots no larger than insects that perform surgery.

"Britain plans to make it easier for technology firms to list their shares in London, the government said on Thursday, in an attempt to stem the flow of high-growth companies heading across the Atlantic in search of capital." Interesting. Countries in a competition to keep their tech wizards at home. But how important are stock markets for innovation? And nation-states? Don't think too fast stocks and nation-states are something of the past... 

Yesterday the Washington Post had a great piece in the business section entitled  "Economists offer more pessimistic view on manufacturing in upcoming report."

Economists are failing to account for mass technological innovations when making forecasts and constructing models.

'We're in the middle of a revolution caused by the near collapse of free-market capitalism combined with an upswing in technical innovation, a surge in desire for individual freedom and a change in consciousness about what freedom means.'

"You Can Be Active with the Activists or Sleeping with the Sleepers: Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow" Another book by Cory Doctorow - and I'm still busy reading Makers! Stefan Raets discusses the Doctorow's Youthful Techno-Defiance Trilogy: 'From Little Brother (tech-savvy teenagers take on a government-run surveillance system) to For the Win (tech-savvy teenagers take on unfair working conditions for MMORPG gold farmers) to now Pirate Cinema (tech-savvy teenagers take on draconian copyright laws).'

Every page a homepage. The river of news. The infinite scroll. All have been built into the new Reuters dot com http://t.co/yGZzdJ906d - Jay Rosen (jayrosen_nyu) http://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/329962973240123394

I can take a photo of a check and deposit it in my bank account, then turn around and find a new book through a Twitter link and buy it, all while being surveilled by a drone in Afghanistan and keeping track of how many steps I've walked. The question is, as it has always been: now what?

The digitisation of manufacturing will transform the way goods are made-and change the politics of jobs too

n a forceful, hard-hitting policy brief, Executive Director Ann Mettler and Senior Fellow Anthony Williams look at the deep-seated changes afoot in our economy.

L et's first take a step back and see where these new American exports will be coming from. At least three forces are likely to combine to make the United States an export powerhouse.