Impact Spotlights

As challenging as today’s problems are, the world is coming together to define and confront them. Executive Director Carol Dahl shares the story of two longtime Lemelson partners and their inspiring, life-saving work in Malawi.

Birthdays are a good time to celebrate accomplishments and reflect on what you’ve learned. This year as VentureWell turns 20 years old, we’re celebrating work with hundreds of universities and thousands of faculty to strengthen invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship education in the US. We’ve learned many valuable lessons – through success and setbacks – about what it takes to nurture the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Here’s what I think are the most important learnings of VentureWell’s past two decades: Support the individuals, develop the pathways, connect with the ecosystem, and extend broadly and widely.

Before winter break, I had the privilege to sit in on a new class at that was launched by TIE Oregon as part of the TIE Young Entrepreneurs program. The course teaches the principles of invention and entrepreneurship by guiding the students through real-world problem identification, brainstorming and prototyping solutions, and planning businesses around their inventions. The class took place at Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland, which is not what most people think of as a training ground for top technology start-up leaders. Benson is a school of more than 1,100 students, and many of them are from minority groups and low-income families. Most Benson students have had a tough time in traditional academic environments.

Jay Harman, one of this year’s AAAS-Lemelson Ambassadors, is a naturalist, entrepreneur, and founder of PAX Scientific, Inc. PAX is a fluid dynamics research and design firm that uses biomimicry – emulation of nature’s patterns and strategies to solve human challenges – to develop energy-efficient industrial tools. Harman believes that inefficient energy usage is the root of many problems in industry today, and that simple solutions can be found in nature. All we need to do is pay attention.

Over the summer, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History celebrated the opening of the new Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation. The Hall explores the role of invention in the United States, through hands-on activities, informative exhibits, and collaboration. In just a few months since its opening, the Hall is abuzz with the excitement of young and old would-be inventors. The new Hall is the first permanent public home of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention, and its opening showcases a 20-year partnership between The Lemelson Foundation and the Smithsonian. The alliance was forged in 1995 when Jerry and Dorothy Lemelson approached the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, about an exhibition space that would increase the public’s understanding of invention and its power to effect change in our lives and communities. From those early conversations, the Lemelson Center was born. Over the course of the next two decades, it would become the nation’s leading resource for the study of the history of invention and innovation.