The Raspberry Pi is a great idea but at the end of the day it is just a computer in a new form factor. I hope it does meet its goals of igniting an interest in computing in young people but some of the other things on there are genuinely new and offer potential to change the world for the better. Sorry I voted for the eye gene therapy.

Wow, you’ve got some great competitors. Graphene, the Higgs Boson, various medical applications …
No doubt you will win this competition though (you always do, and you deserve it).
The fact that you have a large community/fanbase around you, and the fact that you have a tangible product (unlike e.g. Higgs Boson) that is already available for everyone to use (unlike e.g. graphene) will be a huge advantage I think.

I’d like to vote for the Pi however it just really does not deserve to be short listed. Its nothing more than a re-formatting of existing technology. It is not anywhere near as world changing as the other short listed inventions.

Don’t get me wrong I love the Pi and what it is aiming to do. I truly hope it does inspire a new generation to take up computer science.

that your post triggered enough response (within minutes) to crash the innovation prize site is a bit of a give-away

The Innovation Test can only be determined through hindsight. You can invent something but if it’s sitting on the shelf only to be lost in the Indiana Jones Warehouse, then it hasn’t accomplished anything. Innovate means it’s being used by the world, and changes the way people do/make things, and simply not a fad. It seems to make more sense to vote for past innovations because we can see what it has accomplished.

The Raspberry Pi and this blog is a testimony of the possibilities of what can be done, and shows the potential of it being a true innovator. Higgs Boson, as amazing and high-profile as it may be, seems to be just a discover that may lead to other things, but I’m skeptic about how it will ignite anything. (Same with black holes and theory of relativity, and all those other things they figure out in space).

You can choose by the “greatest good”, “affecting the most number of people” or “coolest/favorite”, but overall seems to be a popularity contest.

I think the “Department of Business Innovation and Skills” may be trying to confuse us by creating a contest to bring attention to engineering in the UK.

But then after all that, and thinking about it, I do think the Pi has my vote. It is rather down-to-earth (not Pi in the sky, pardon the pun), possibly very ubiquitous in many areas, and useable by the common man, fitting nicely in the “internet of things”.

A difficult one I agree, I need time to think about. as others say a cheap computer vs some of the other amazing entries

My vote has been placed. The Raspberry Pi has been the only thing to keep me up until the early hours of the morning since I got it last year. Thats got to be a good thing :D

According to the site, the vote is for the “recent [innovation] most likely to shape our future”.
Considering the tinkering, have-a-go, shed-based environments in which most of these innovations (and the past ones) have been created, I think the Pi will have the greatest impact on future UK innovation, because of it’s educational impact.

I caught an awesome BBC program here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r9tww
BBC2 educational programme, titled “Cracking the code”. Lots of brilliantly presented explanation of code, applications of code and many, many excellent uses of the Raspberry Pi.

I think it’s supposed to be an innovation with highest future potential – printing human organs for drug testing (->fewer animal experiments) and future implantable organs – got my vote.
But the competition was initiated by Cambridge Uni and RaspberryPi is based in….

The vote was for the 20th century.
The Raspberry Pi is a 21st century development. So I voted for one of the others . sorry. there is an integrity to maintain.

It’s difficult to say what is the invention of the 21st century when there are 87 years left of it.

Not that the Pi is unworthy or anything, but how can you vote for an innovation of the century when there’s still more than 85 years of it left to run?

Ah, the ever-present zero-based computing Off-By-One Error … in all the confusion I lost track … was it 20 centuries, or was it 21? Do ya feel lucky today, punk? Well, do ya? :D

Wooh! Raspberry Pi is beyond mainstream and going into the history books.