At the Ashoka-Lemelson Tech4Society event in Hyderabad, India, I hosted a session on “The Information Explosion.” The basic premise was – I’m quoting myself here – that “inventors once thrived in a world of information balkanization. Those who had access to the best information, won: If you had a technology no one else knew about, or exclusive market intelligence, you enjoyed an advantage. In an increasingly open-source world, that sort of advantage is disappearing. So what’s the new paradigm for invention? (And not least, how do we pay for it?)”

What followed was a remarkable discussion – remarkable because it so closely tracked the anguished breast-beating that the news community has engaged in for the last several years. The dissolution of historical barriers to content production and distribution, and of the historical economics of information, is having exactly the same effects in the world of technological invention. Arguably, more efficient flows of information have enhanced social problem-solving, and better information has created more efficient marketplaces — more informed buyers and sellers, fewer pricing dislocations. Just as arguably, when information is so freely available, there’s the potential for everyone to be an inventor.