Where has the world's innovation gone? The internal combustion engine, invented in 1876, still rules our highways. The cancer death rate has barely changed since 1971. Today's Internet was actually designed in the 1960s. Challenging the notion that we are living in an age of technological progress, three of the world's most original thinkers demonstrate that we have become a risk-averse society, hobbled by tort laws and government regulations, short-term financial thinking, and mind-numbing complacency. Eager to end "paper entrepreneurialism" and avoid another financial meltdown, they propose that we expand research and development in breakthrough "disruptive technologies," create millions of jobs through science-based engineering and genuine innovation, shore up our crumbling infrastructure, stop squandering money on misspent "horizontal education," and restore financial discipline. The result is The Blueprint, an explosive manifesto that promises to launch a new era of global prosperity through the untapped wealth of human endeavor.