Great post. If you had asked me 4 years ago I would have said that I wanted to complete a PhD and do research to follow my natural curiosity. However, it didn't take many weeks of thesis writing for me to see that I was not meant to produce papers. :P And with such a pressure to continuously produce, produce and produce, I would not really apply neither my talent nor my passions in practice.
So although data analysis is still part of what I do on a daily basis, I saw no other choice but to start creating things. It was a bit of a roller coaster going straight from University to attempt starting a StartUp company, and then soon seeing the door open to the sector I had always wanted to work in: Space!
Anyways I support your statements a lot. I even gave quite a series of talks on the topic of how radical breakthrough innovations have come when scientists of the past were given the creative freedom of pursuing the questions they most wanted to answer (From Newton to Maxwell). And that we should be cautious to force them to narrow their focus.
Having read your post I see that I should probably share that talk as a post here on steemit. Having just posted my introduction post to steemit yesterday I am looking to get more engaged on this platform. I will give you a follow, and hope we can have some fruitful dialogues on this cool new platform :)
Hello
Thanks for your comment! I agree with you when you say that the academy limits your creativity. It is interesting to find an entrepreneur. Science needs people with the courage to carry out their ideas!
Exactly! Over the last few years I have joined the Space sector now as an economist. I see the potential in having both a business and "builder" mindset, while at the same time being scientifically and technologically literate myself.
I saw the disconnect between how science benefits the world, and how decision-makers view science, and figured I would be that change which I wanted t osee in the world. As a scientifically literate economist working in the space sector, I can be a decision-maker for the projects, while fully understanding what the scinetists and engineers need to flourish.
Hope to see more people with an interdisciplinary mindset in the future, so that we can bridge the gap that currently exist :)
great point about inter disciplinary approaches, the tendency to know more and more about less and less is probably reaching a point of diminishing returns. It would be great if ideas from multiple disciplines can come together to find whole new approaches to solve problems...
Thank you for the kind comment @the-traveller !
There will always be a need for specialists. However, I think we are now in the age of the architect. As AI is taking on more and more simple tasks, the main question will seldom be if something can be built, but rather if something should be built. Therefore it will be the interdisciplinary architect who can see how the different pieces of the puzzle (pieces being different areas of expertise) can come together to produce new innovation.
Anyways I would love this discussion to go on and have you both in my network here. So I have followed you both and resteemed posts that I see overlap with my own topics of interest. Hope to engage more with you both down the line!