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Yet China's lack of originality matters less than you may think, believe Dan Breznitz and Michael Murphree of the Georgia Institute of Technology. In a new book, "Run of the Red Queen", they argue that it is wrong to equate innovation solely with the invention of breakthrough products. In an emerging economy, other forms of innovation can yield bigger dividends. One is "process innovation": the relentless improvement of factories and distribution systems. Another is "product innovation": the adaptation of existing goods to China's unique requirements.

How interested are people in innovation - and how does that change cross-culturally? What do users across the world really want, how can we uncover and design for their unmet needs, and what services can we attach to products to stay close to our customers? We've found that these questions point to a new need for innovative cultures in the world today (distinct from innovative companies).

A website of tech ideas whose time has come promotes collaborative research

Kundavi is building a global hub for creativity and innovation in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Africans are active participants in the social media industry, here are a few examples: Motribe - This South African company enables you to create your own mobile social network with speed and ease and offers you great social tools to power your mobile social network MXit - A South Africa-based mobile social network. Over 27 million registered users, adding over 40,000 every day. Check out this cool infographic about MXit Adloopz - An innovative Nigerian startup that puts a social twist to advertising on the internet Personera - Personera lets you create custom artifacts from your content on social networking sites like Facebook Nikohapa - A Kenyan startup that offers Foursquare-like checkins made simple and that reward you with discounts for checking in to partner stores Ushahidi - Crowdsources information using multiple channels including social networking platforms like Twitter  Swift River - An Ushahidi project that adds super data processing to data coming from sources of unstructured information such as a twitter feed Zoopy - Another South African company that focuses on mobile video ForgetMeNot Africa: bridges the huge gap between the internet and mobile messaging worlds allowing any mobile phone to send and receive email and chat message on any carriers network. Quirk eMarketing - A digital marketing agency that also helps companies make use of social media for great results. Quirk has also spawned other cool companies in social media such as BrandsEye that creates great tools for online reputation management and crowdsourcing company IdeaBounty. And as far as group buying is concerned, Groupon has inspired many an African groupon clone. There are numerous African companies playing in this area - Rupu and Zetu in Kenya, DealDey in Nigeria, and a whole lot of others in South Africa

In the years since the first social networks went online, the disruption had spread to government, creating shifts in power structures as large as those enabled by the introduction of the printing press centuries ago. "Connection technologies, including social media, tend to devolve power from the nation state and large institutions to individuals and small institutions," said Alec J. Ross, senior innovation advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview. "Nothing demonstrated that more than the power to publish and distribute at great scale by historically disempowered individuals with inexpensive devices."