What Is Innovation? - Famous Innovators.

What is Innovation? Before beginning to try to answer a question as vast as this, I have put together some examples of famous innovators.

Famous Innovators:

• Steve Jobs: Co Founder of Apple Inc, http://www.apple.com/

Jobs is known mostly for the introduction of the iPod around 2001, iTunes, and the iTunes Store. Jobs is also responsible for Apple entering the mobile phone market with the introduction of the iPhone around 2007, which contains not only mobile phone capabilities, but also an iPod, and internet connection abilities. This is just a mere scraping on the surface of the work that Jobs has done with innovation. Jobs has been known to say the likes of ‘Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.’ And through innovation he hopes to have ‘put a ding in the universe.’

Cited from: (http://www.macstories.net/roundups/inspirational-steve-jobs-quotes/)

• Mark Zuckerberg: Creator of Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/

Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, from Harvard University. In 2010 it was stated that there were 500 million users of Facebook around the world. Zuckerberg at only 27 is one of Vanity Fair’s most influential icons in the world. However the innovation of Facebook came from the simple idea that people want to ‘communicate more efficiently with their friends, families and coworkers.’ Through Zuckerberg’s innovation, this small idea has, in effect, permanently changed the way that people around the world stay in contact.

Cited from: (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?execbios)

• Sir Isaac Newton: physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian. Also creator of the reflecting telescope, http://www.newton.ac.uk/newtlife.html  

Newton attended Cambridge University, which is where he had his first thoughts about the concept of Gravity. After attending Cambridge it was then that Newton began his research on the composition of light where he found that ‘white light is composed of the same system of colours that can be seen in a rainbow’ and therefore establishing the ‘modern study of optics,’  thus creating the reflecting telescope. This shows that even in the 1600s innovation was thriving. We accept the fact that a rainbow is a certain composition of light, and when we drop something, usually it will hit the floor. However it is because of Newton that this concept is so acceptable. His innovations of these concepts are some of the reasons that we live the way we do today.   

Cited from: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/newton_isaac.shtml)

·        Salvatore Ferragamo: Creator of Stilettos, http://www.ferragamo.com/ 

In 1919 Ferragamo opened his first shoe shop in New York. Within the 1920s to the 1940s was the time in which Ferragamo used innovation to turn the bog standard shoe into the likes of the sandal, wedge heel and the stiletto. Thinking about the vast amount of different styles of both men and women’s shoe that are available today, or any shoe that has been created since the early 1900s, all of them have been created using the ideas that were first formed by Ferragamo. It was through the innovative ideas that came from Salvatore Ferragamo that any of this was possible.

Cited from: (http://www.ferragamo.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Top%20Categories_30151_%2035051#/celebrities/11428/13002)