Johanna Skarbek
New Tech High @ Coppell
How Does Innovation Impact Your Community?
I wake in the morning to the sound of my iPhone alarm clock. I eat cereal with the TV
playing as white noise in the background. I get dressed and make my lunch and then leave for
school in my Honda Civic. Sometimes I am stopped at a red light that only turns green when the
sensor notices my car waiting there. It’s barely 9:00 AM and I’ve been surrounded by innovation
all day at all moments. I live with technology that was unfathomable a mere few decades ago.
Each and everyday our community is learning and growing and becoming better, faster, and
more efficient.
Above, I described what a typical morning for myself looks like. Though it may seem
insignificant and ordinary today, it’s something that might’ve gotten me accused of being a witch
in the late 1600’s. All of the things that lead to me being able to have a morning routine as such
were the result of many years of ingenuity and innovation; none of which happened over night.
Before my 2008 Honda Civic, there was a 2007 Honda Civic and a 2006, all the way back to
1972 when the first Honda Civic was made. However, before this, Honda had been making cars
since 1955. But even before that, there were other car brands already in business and this is all
because the first motorcar was made in 1886. Why does the history of my car matter? It doesn’t.
But what does matter is the reason it exists. A motorcar would never have existed if there was not
demand for one. Growth and expansion in the 1880’s brought a need for better transportation,
and thus a car was made. Innovation happens when there is a need for something better or more
efficient than current technology.
A few of the ways innovation are present in my everyday life can be seen around campus
at my school. I attend a project based learning, real world application school. My school
emphasizes self-reliance skills to the point where our teachers are not called teachers but
facilitators. Each student is issued a MacBook instead of textbooks. In addition to this, we conduct
many projects that are open-ended, which allow us to use our creativity and resources to make
something completely different and innovative for our final products. It’s a great learning
environment that thrives on innovation and ingenuity.
When the word innovation is brought up, we may immediately think of MacBooks, iPhones,
and Cars. While all of these are amazing inventions that have pulled us into a modern twenty-first
century, there are many other types of innovation that may not be as obvious. Innovation doesn’t
have to break a major groundbreaking, scientific discovery. It can be as simple as finding a new
way to do things. I recently watched an episode of The Office where the warehouse crew won the
lottery and quit their jobs. This left the deliveries to those who had no idea how to operate the
machinery to move masses of boxes. At first, they were moving one box at a time, but they soon
saw that it would take forever at the rate they were going. What follows is a comical series of
bad ideas such as greasing the floor in order to be more efficient. Though this is a fictional
television show, it represents what happens on a daily bases. It wasn’t a matter of how great the
ideas were but just the fact they were trying out different things. Trial and error is what leads us
to those groundbreaking, discoveries. “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails,
admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Innovation covers such a wide range of things including new products, ideas, methods, and
more. Each and every day, dozens of new ideas enter into the world, striving to make the world
more efficient. Before modern technology, we had to develop inventions to help the world go
round, now that we’ve reached that point, we’re trying to make the world go round faster. From
socks to iPhones and roadways to waffle makers, innovation is all around us and improving every
day. Just watching the TV show Shark Tank gives you a very brief glance into the amount of new
inventions and products are being made on a daily bases. Hopeful entrepreneurs are all across
the globe, hoping their product or service will be the next big thing. Innovation is anywhere and
everywhere in my community. It’s what allows daily commuters to make it to and fro work. It’s
what allows my city to be functional. It’s what keeps us all interconnected and on the go. Without
innovation we would all still be cavemen roasting small mammals on the ends of sticks for dinner.
Without innovation we would have no sense of community, government, economics, or anything
else of this sort. Innovation doesn’t just impact my community, innovation is my community.