Featured Image shows USA Science and Engineering Festival 2014, SAMSUN, Credit: S Pakhrin from DC, USA via Wikimedia Commons
Politics, historicity and tourism may be among the most talked about features of the District of Columbia in the national discourse. But for several years Washington D.C. has also been priming up to be a magnet for highly skilled professionals in areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This week, Washington D.C. has been projected to remain a place to be for innovative minds, according to a study which ranks the nation’s capital as the most innovative part of the United States.
In the metro area, Maryland has been determined to be the second most favorable place for tech innovation, while Virginia also make it to top ten with a seventh place, according to WalletHub’s 2017 rankings.
But the District’s innovation-friendliness draws on a ranger of factors including highest projected STEM jobs demand, highest share of science and engineering graduates aged 25+, a large share of technology companies, highest research and development per capita spending in the country and fastest average Internet speed.
Based on these factors, the District bags 70.87 points, followed by Maryland (69.82) and Massachusetts at the third place with a score of 69.65 points on the list.
Innovation has long been the distinctive hallmark of the United States’ technological superiority but its importance has grown manifold sinc the advent of digital era.
“Innovation is a principal driver of U.S. economic growth. In 2016, the U.S. spent an estimated $514 billion on research and development — more than any other country in the world — helping the nation rank No. 4 on the Global Innovation Index,” WalletHub, a company providing advice on peronal financing, said releasing its list of top tech places in the country..
The Global Innovation Index sees knowledge and technology outputs as America’s particular strengths, the company notes.
While discussing its own ranking of the top tech-innovation places, Wallet Hub says certain American states are due more credit than others for America’s dominance in the tech era. These states continue to foster innovation through investments in education, research and business creation, especially in highly specialized industries, it explains.
