Our region has a unique combination of innovation assets, yet is 37th in the nation in innovation performance. We are viewed almost exclusively as a political city -- the home of lawyers and lobbyists, feeding off of a federal government viewed by some as the very 
definition of bureaucracy. Perceived largely as a cost-plus, risk-averse business community, we have a job to do to convert a nation-leading $25 billion in research-and-development spending in this region into new innovation-based products, small businesses and jobs.
It is time to rally to a new vision of this region as a robust economic engine built on innovation and imagination. We have the assets to do this:
1. A necklace of robust research universities that extend from Johns Hopkins and the University System of Maryland through George Washington, Georgetown, Howard and George Mason to the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, James Madison and Old Dominion.
2. The highest per-capita concentration of scientists and engineers anywhere in the country.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Government is no barrier to D.C. becoming a leader in innovation
Author: George Vradenburg and Herb Miller
