Oliver Nasatir (6th)

Innovation. The act of improving. Innovating is the ability to see change as an opportunity rather than a threat. The key to human improvement is simply improving. The idea of human achievements only happens on innovation. We would not have the iPhone, the light bulb, shoes, and a ton of other things if it weren’t for innovation. But I could just go on and on about how important innovation is, but I need to get to the point. Innovation has a legacy, a very big one to be exact. And with each day and time period and year that goes by, innovation continues to build the legacy it already has. We’ve been innovating since the beginning of time, from the wheel to the self-driving car. If we can’t innovate we can’t improve, we depend on the newer generations innovating for a more advanced and better world. In this essay,, I will be going over the history of innovation, and the legacy it sets upon us. So sit back as I try to put some of the world's greatest improvements throughout time in only 3 paragraphs. 

The first kind of generation of innovation starts at about the beginning of human civilizations. However before we did have some notable innovations, sewing clothes, portable lamps, etc, we start around with the beginning of civilizations. We start with cropping plants to start staying in one place and house rather than moving around. Before humans were nomadic and moved from place to place. But now with the innovation of crops, breeding animals, and housing, we were able to settle down in one place. This is arguably the most important innovation in human history. But now with humans settled in one place it allowed for one of the best innovations of all time. Something we use today. Something you used today to get here. The wheel. With this new technology, humans were able to carry loads easier, travel easier, etc. The wheel will go down in history as one of the best inventions ever, and the fact that it was made in the neolithic era is so shocking as well. 

To continue, here are some 2nd generation inventions. This starts around the Bronze age, and take your best guess on the innovation that came from that. Well,, you guessed it,  it started with the innovation of bronze. They learned to combine copper and tin to make bronze, which completely replaced stone. They used this new technology for weapons, ornaments, and fittings for chariots. We still use bronze today with coin production,  hardware mounts, furniture trim, ship hardware, etc. As we can tell, people experimented a lot in this age. This led to another innovation, the innovation of Alloys. An Alloy is a metal made by combining two or more metallic elements, especially to give greater strength or resistance to corrosion. This may not seem like much but creating more robust metal is what created a foundation for more advanced innovations in the future. With the new foundation created because of the Bronze Age, the sky was the limit for the next innovations. 

Lastly, now we have the present. In the present, we now have a lot of more impressive innovations. We have spacecraft, we have the iPhone, we have computers, ect. But If I were to just list all of the world's innovations now, but it would serve no purpose. Let’s talk about the future of invitations. The future of innovations is happening in front of our eyes. Just recently we had the innovation of the electric car for our environment. Just this year Mark Zuckerberg announced the  metaverse, a virtual reality platform where people can do just about anything in the virtual world. We now have artificial technology, technology able to perform human tasks.  If this is what we are doing now, imagine what we will be able to do in the next ten years. I have no answer for this, but I can only say, I guess we’ll find out. One thing I do know is that now we are progressing way faster than before. If we look back ten years we can see we had the iPhone 4, and so much less advanced things. If we could make that growth in just ten years I can’t comprehend the innovations we’ll have later. 

In conclusion, innovation is the improvement of humans throughout time. If we have accomplished all of this, imagine what we can accomplish in the next ten years. What about the next 100, what about the next million? Now innovation lies in our hands. The world needs your ideas to innovate, so don’t be shy to present them. What would we be doing if Edison didn’t share his idea of the lightbulb? I have no answer for what lies ahead for innovation, but I do know one thing, we are going somewhere with our innovations. And with that, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one!