Editor’s note: Besides following tech developments and innovation, our author is a musical composer (Juilliard-trained). He has provided a musical composition for you to listen to while reading this column. This piece is called “Innovation Unifies.”
We are living in a time of great change. The current speed of change is already uncomfortable for many people, and the rate of change is actually accelerating, which is likely to challenge even more people. Historically, innovation has been a force of convergence, bringing together people from different fields and nations.
Innovation, acting as a force of convergence, unites diverse disciplines, technologies, and efforts toward a single goal, often with profound societal impact. The creation of the internet emerged from the convergence of computer science, telecommunications, and military needs. Initially developed as ARPANET for military communication, the internet’s infrastructure grew by merging innovations in networking, computing, and data protocols, leading to our vast global communication network.
According to recent estimates, approximately 65 percent of the world’s population has access to the internet, although access is uneven across regions. North America and Europe have nearly 90-100 percent internet penetration, and South America has moderate internet usage, around 75 percent. Yet, Asia and Africa have much lower internet penetration rates, with parts of Africa having penetration rates below 50 percent.
The ability for two people anywhere to communicate instantaneously for free certainly changes the size of the world. Even though representation of different racial, ethnic, and socio-economic groups online through social media, video platforms, and blogs can vary, there has been a significant increase in diverse voices in mainstream digital spaces. And, global efforts to improve internet infrastructure and accessibility are gradually addressing the digital divide between cultures and peoples.
Innovation as a force of conversion has also impacted space exploration. As military and civilian technologies converged, the Apollo space program combined rocketry, communications, computer science, and aerospace engineering advancements. The Cold War competition with the Soviet Union pushed for rapid military advancements, but the program also benefited from civilian applications like improved materials, telecommunications, and medical devices. Efforts and resources converged globally, resulting in the participation in the Apollo program of thousands of engineers, scientists, and astronauts worldwide. This convergence of efforts across national borders led to the creation of technology such as the Saturn V rocket and the lunar lander. This changed industries and led to new scientific understanding.
It was the convergence of genetics, chemistry, and agriculture that drove the Green Revolution. Advances in plant genetics, synthetic fertilizers, and new irrigation techniques have increased food production in developing countries dramatically. Innovations such as high-yielding crop varieties, improved pesticide applications, and scientific management of soil resources converged to prevent widespread famine and improve global agricultural productivity.
The rapid development of vaccines for COVID-19 is another example of how different scientific disciplines converged to produce solutions to a global crisis. mRNA technology, genetic research, virology, and rapid clinical testing came together to develop and deploy vaccines at unprecedented speed.
There are many more examples of innovation as a force of convergence in medicine, transportation, policy, manufacturing, and even the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

Fundamentally, innovation is a fancy term for adaptation, our primary survival mechanism. It is the birthright of every human to adapt and change in response to changing conditions, but we cannot innovate alone on our own. The ability to collaborate must be a core competency for innovators, without which their insights would never be adopted. Collaboration is the real force of convergence. As a former research and development scientist and engineer, I had to learn how to work with others and converge our ideas before any of my ideas were adopted. In short, as a creative outlier, my ideas were useless until I learned to collaborate. All innovators must learn this lesson.
Innovators, not administrators, create tomorrow. Through successful communication and collaboration, innovators wield the force of convergence that society depends upon. Career bureaucrats and middle managers are too busy seeking permission and looking over their shoulders to create tomorrow. Innovators do not ask for permission. They, unlike academics and scholars, have a bias for action. They are generally insightful, impatient, and impulsive multitaskers. They are not uncomfortable with change, even when it is rapid. They thrive on it; they are change agents. They are never content to leave things alone.
Returning to our present world’s situation, do you doubt that the convergence of artificial intelligence and quantum computing will produce game-changing innovations? Both fields are already converging in several ways, and their combined influence could dramatically reshape industries, solve complex problems, and catalyze innovations across many domains.

Although still in early stages, quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize fields like cryptography, optimization, and materials science by solving problems that classical computers struggle with. AI is increasingly being leveraged to assist in this process, especially in the area of quantum machine learning, where quantum computers enhance machine learning algorithms and AI models can then process and analyze larger datasets more efficiently and solve problems faster than traditional computing methods.
The convergence of AI and quantum computing is poised to solve real-world problems across fields like drug discovery, healthcare, and optimization. AI can analyze quantum simulations to accelerate drug development, including treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s. In industries like finance and energy, quantum computing can solve complex optimization problems, while AI interprets the results to improve decision-making. These technologies also intersect with IoT and blockchain, optimizing systems and enhancing security. As quantum computing matures, its synergy with AI will drive new industries, addressing global challenges like climate change and energy sustainability and revolutionizing innovation and scientific progress.