According to famous inventor Thomas Edison, genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
But IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research Paul Horn offers another explanation.
"Innovation occurs at the intersection of invention and insight," he said.
Horn lectured yesterday to about 50 Penn students, faculty and alumni as part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science's annual Technology, Business and Government Distinguished Lecture Series on "Innovation in the Information Technology Industry."
"This lecture series brings us people from many areas and exposes us to the best minds out there," Dean of the Engineering School Eduardo Glandt said. The series was created to recognize the increasingly significant interrelationship between new technologies, business and the government sector.
The broad scope of the lecture series is what brought fifth-year bioengineering graduate student Julie Ji to the talk. "These lectures are a great way to get exposed to other areas of engineering," she said. "It allows students from one area to gain exposure to others."
Horn opened by using examples from music and art to illustrate his point that "innovation isn't necessarily about invention."
As he displayed Johannes Vermeer's paintings on PowerPoint, Horn explained that innovation is about "evolving something that exists and making it unique in its own way."
The goal of current IBM research, Horn said, is to "channel the rapid flow of new ideas into the marketplace."
In today's environment, information technology is especially important. IT has "the potential to transform business processes through applications to business and social problems," Horn said.
He stressed the importance of IT in the globalization of markets, electronic economies and solutions to societal issues.
Horn focused on two examples of innovations in IT. The first highlighted the pure physics of the technology, while the other incorporated the business aspects of IT. Horn explained that in today's market, the demand for more powerful computers is pushing the limits of technology.
Specifically, air-cooling technology is rapidly developing as the industry competes to make microprocessors and transistors faster each year.
And according to Horn, "IBM is leading in using technical tricks to make transistors faster."
However, IBM isn't alone in its quest to develop speedy equipment.
"The basis for competition becomes what piece of the semiconductor industry can best use this kind of information to make novel semiconductor products," Horn said.
But Horn's talk wasn't limited to the field's technological aspects, like solid-state physics, semiconductors and heat sinks.
"Information technology has become the language of business," Horn said.
Because businesses are breaking into smaller and smaller components, IT can "help businesses achieve operational efficiency and flexibility, as well as sharpen their focus," according to Horn.
At the conclusion of his lecture, Horn noted, "IT has enormous opportunities for countries, companies, communities and the service of science."
Those in attendance expressed similar opinions of the impact IT has in other industries.
"I work in bioinformatics in the Children's Hospital, and I wanted to know more about IBM's involvement in the life sciences," 2003 Engineering graduate Mahesh Narayan said.
