About This Issue

Since the time of Benjamin Franklin, when he harnessed electricity using a simple kite and a key in the 1700s, Americans have embraced the power of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity. Each year the United States issues more than 180,000 patents to scientists, students, corporations, and everyday people so that they can protect and build on their idea and introduce it to the world.

There is no typical American innovator. Innovators come in all shapes and sizes; they might work in large office buildings, laboratories, or even the smallest garages attached to their homes. What unites these innovators is the knowledge that the road to innovation might be long and checkered with failure, but success will come to those who believe in an idea and have the passion to follow through.

The pages that follow are merely a sampling of the many innovative ideas and people that are making this world a better, easier, more interesting place to live. What is most fascinating is that innovations can affect something as simple as the way you play or as life altering as curing diseases that each year harm millions of people. What is most encouraging is that everyone, from students to scientists to you, the reader, has the ability to innovate. Ask yourself: What don't I like about the world? What could work better? Why hasn't anyone thought of this? What can I do? Then go out and dream, build, and innovate.

—The Editors