Happy New Year - this could be the year the recovery starts

Last year a group of economists predicted a modest recovery for the British economy. Many of the economic indicators suggested that they might be right. Manufacturing was powering ahead and exporters were doing well. However, I thought they were over optimistic and said so many times in my twitter stream. Several people including one of my best friends accused me of talking down the economy but I am sorry to say that events proved me right.

This year, economists are predicting gloom and doom and again many of the indicators are suggesting that they may be right. Again, I take a different view. I think the pessimism is exaggerated. I believe that 2012 will be the year in which we see signs of recovery.

Why do I say that? The answer is that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and CIVETS (Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) countries as well as other emerging economies are growing so quickly internally that they can lift the world from recession. That was the outcome that I envisaged at the start of the downturn (see The Coming Economic Downturn: How it will affect inventors and what they can do).

I am not alone in anticipating recovery. Neil Mackay, managing director of Advantage Business Angels for whom I have a particularly high regard has said so too in "A First Sighting of Recovery" though for somewhat different reasons.

The only fly in the ointment I can see is that property prices are falling in China. This seems to be the result of government policy but if real estate has been taken as collateral it could affect the Chinese banking system. Then we would all be in trouble.

Innovation in Africa - Bola Olabisi

When I visited Sierra Leone in 2007 I was impressed by the resourcefulness and energy of the people. This was a country that had emerged recently from a vicious civil war (the subject of the film "Blood Diamond"). Though ranked close to the bottom in terms of nominal GDP, 12th from the bottom on the Human Development Index and 8th from the bottom on the Human Poverty Index I found the country boiling with inventiveness.

Take their use of mobile phones for example. The capital, Freetown, had frequent power cuts yet everyone was on line - not with computers but with mobile phones. They were used not simply as phones but for the rapid transfer of funds, market intelligence (the boys on the streets of the second city Bo knew the market rate for sterling long before the commercial banks), the electoral register (the committee rooms for one of presidential candidates in the general election were in my hotel), sports news (all the English Premier League clubs have legions of supporters and the scores are followed miles from the nearest TV set), calculators by schoolgirls from the Annie Walsh Memorial School not to mention traders in Big Market for quite complex maths and stores of vast amounts of visual and textual information.

The reason I mention all this is that I recently watched a presentation by Bola Olabisi to TED (Technology, Education and Design) in which she said that if you want something badly enough you will invent it. This presentation is inspiring so please do watch it. Bola Olabisi has founded GWIN (Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network) which has itself launched the British Female Inventor & Innovator Network.

We have all heard of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as the economic powerhouses of the future but many countries in Africa will be important too. Scroll down to the bottom of the nominal GDP page and you will see forecasts for 2050 based on IMF data showing Nigeria's GDP of US$4,640,000 million as not that far behind our own US$5,133,000 million and considerably more than Italy's US$2,950.000. There are other countries in Africa with at least as much potential - South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Ghana to name but 4. In 40 years time these countries will be major markets but also sources of technology for here.