There are three stages in human progress with regard to the continual benefits derived from 'New' technologies.

This stage is where humankind discovers a phenomenon that at the time of discovery people do not know what use it will be put to in the future. A great example of this is when Faraday created the means to provide 'electricity' at will. Indeed, the great self-taught scientist of the first-order said that he did not know what use that it would be put to, but he instinctively knew that it would eventually be taxed. This stage is the things of Nobel Prizes. It is the most important, as without this start, human progress cannot be achieved and the technologies that make this pre-eminent process possible.

When one looks at the metamorphism of a discovery into a totally new technology, there are not many Nobel Laureates who actual achieve this full transfer from science to applied new technology. Nobel Laureates Seaborg, Mullis, Kilby, Ruska, Binnig, Rohrer, Bloembergen, Schawlow, Siegbahn, Wüthrich, Heeger, Karle, Hauptman, Lauterbur, Gabor, Hounsfield, Shockley, Bardeen, Brattain and Townes and a few others, are prize winners who have actually transferred their science into a new global technology - no more than 3% of all the Nobel Laureates to date.

Indeed, the history of science and technology tells us that this stage of the birth of a new technology is in the hands of predominantly the independent or lone innovators/inventors. Examples of these are Nobel, Whittle, Burners-Lee, Argyris, Bessemer, Edison, the Wright Brothers, Baird and Tomlinson.

There is therefore a myth in the world of industry and business that they are the ones or their employees who create the 'new' technologies. The true fact is that large global industry and business predominantly borrow, steal, acquire by dubious means or destroy ideas that emanate from the outside (in the latter case if a new technology will affect the sales of current technologies and where the new technology will make their technology obsolete).

Indeed, according to the history of the world up to 80% of all the ideas and the fundamental thinking that provided for a new technology resided in the minds of the independent innovator and not institutional science. Considering this truism, the genesis of the vast majority of new technology therefore dwells, not in industry, but in the minds of external innovators who are totally remote from industry itself. Therefore there is presently in the 21st century a 'missing-link' and the reason most probably why 'seen' innovation is now in decline.

Consequently the transference of idea and concept to technology is humankind's Achilles Heel, as industry does not as yet recognise this major deficiency in their corporate makeup. In this respect possibly the greatest 'new' technology introduced over the last 15 years is the WWW. This fundamental invention was the brainchild of just one person, a freelance computer expert called as we all now know, Tim Burners-Lee.

Therefore if anything at all should tell industry that they have totally flawed R & D strategies it is the invention of the World Wide Web as they never thought of this revolutionary invention in the first place. The history of the world is full of such examples but where global industry has never learnt from their past mistakes. But it has to be said that in this century and all those that may follow, a new comprehension and R&D understanding is needed if large multi-national groups wish to stay in business. This is particularly relevant to western transnationals as if not, they will clearly be despatched to the annals of history by the emerging economic giants of the East.

Indeed, it is estimated that the total investment by governments, industry and business in R & D worldwide in 2005 was in the order of US$1 trillion. But where if this vast financial input is measured against the introduction of 'new' technological breakthroughs (totally new technologies and not just add-ons), the return on capital employed is extremely 'poor'. In these terms (and that's what will really count in this century and beyond), global effectiveness of investment indicates that over 90% of all R & D funding is totally wasted.

Therefore according to the mid-stage (the Applications Stage) in the development of a totally 'new' technology, industry presently does not provide sufficient numbers of technology products and services that can basically be said to be 'new'. There is therefore a total lack of 'direction' in the corporate world as waste is at a very high premium in terms of what is created from the vast financial sums invested by government, industry and the business world.

Consequently what is highly needed is a global mechanism that reduces R&D waste considerably. That needed mechanism has to be said can only be what the WIF has been informing governments about for over 10-years now - the concept of globally interlinked research centres for the people (who predominantly come up with the fundamental technological breakthroughs that transform leading edge science into totally 'new' technologies).

Indeed, if the corporate world took on board the concept of the Foundation's global interlinked ORE-Incubator network, humankind would advance at an unprecedented rate of progress, solving many of the immense problems that the world faces and not least that of sustainability and the continuation of human life itself. This process would of course provide for the means to evolve the world's largest company by far, most probably worth several US$ trillions as this company would have captured the world's most precious resource, the innovative thinking of the whole of humankind.

Let us hope therefore that people who are supposed to be highly intelligent running large corporate concerns are actually seen in this century to be so.

It has to be said therefore that not until industry, and especially that in the West, recognise this great economic deficiency, global innovation will continue to be in decline. One has to say that overall, the present situation does not bode very well for all western economies. This reasoning is in the main the reason why the Foundation has been putting forward to governments around the world for the introduction of 'people' research centres, ORE-Incubators, in order that humankind's next generation of technologies can be identified and released. Currently this is not happening and where the incidence of major technological breakthroughs has been in decline for nearly a decade and a half now.

If therefore we wish to rectify this major impediment to human progress we have no alternative but to link and tap into the thoughts of all humankind, for time is literally running out for us all in providing the solutions to our immense global problems. Those problems can now be clearly seen on the horizon of future world history. Therefore the Foundation says, let us do these things together before tomorrow becomes far to late to change things for the better.