A profound shift has taken place in the way new technology products are being developed. Not long ago it was reasonable to expect a company to possess virtually all of the resources necessary to support its new product development. What unique intellectual capital (the combination of pre-existing intellectual property along with newly developed technology in the form of know-how, patents, trade secrets or processes), it did not possess, it could develop using its own internal resources.

But those days are gone. The sum total of human knowledge, primarily technology, has inexorably been doubling approximately every 20 years or so since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Today, when individuals might make a career out of understanding a single algorithm, even the largest companies are forced to turn to the outside to remain competitive. Technology has grown so complex that it is neither practical nor cost-effective to retain - even under one corporate umbrella, much less under one roof – the critical mass necessary to develop a steady stream of leading-edge products.

This is not to say that the requisite intellectual capital does not exist. It does, but it is rapidly spreading out into countless "pockets of knowledge" located all around the globe. A software engineer in Bangalore might have the very compression algorithm required by chip designers working in Silicon Valley and Paris for a cellular telephone conceived by a design team spread between Espoo, Finland and Irving, Texas. The answer is out there.

The problem today is: neither the buyer nor the seller knows that each other exist.

HelloBrain has introduced the world’s first intellectual capital exchange, an Internet-based virtual marketplace for the exchange of technology solutions, to help buyers and sellers find each other.

There are three functional components:

• A clients section - where buyers post the details of their projects and specify the technology they need.
• A contributors section - where sellers post the solutions they have to offer.
• A community section - where technical professionals can discuss technologies and exchange ideas.

EXAMPLES OF INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL

Here is how the exchange works in practice:

• A client submits a technical specification or problem, using a HelloBrain template.
• HelloBrain editors review the proposal to make sure it is legal - i.e. does not include requests for bomb-making materials, violate copyrights, etc.
• The client submits a purchase order or down payment for the requested intellectual capital. HelloBrain holds the payment in escrow.
• Registered contributors, who have specified their solution offerings, will get e-mail regarding the proposal if it matches their profile.
• Client and contributor then use HelloBrain’s chat rooms and message facility to interview each other and negotiate an agreement.
• Client and contributor enter into a collaboration with the option to use HelloBrain tools to validate and verify the technology and manage the project.
• At the end of the project, HelloBrain releases payment to the contributor from the scrow account.

HelloBrain believes that, with an efficient exchange to bring together technology buyers and sellers, the pace of product development as well as design efficiency will rise dramatically. No longer will companies and entrepreneurs be limited by internal intellectual assets.

HelloBrain sees social impacts in three areas:

Companies will no longer need to maintain large physical and human infrastructures to promote technology development for new products. Individuals can find an economic outlet for their specific expertise. They will no longer need to become "employees" to gain value for their work production. Countries with significant "brain drain" will see a decrease in this trend as individuals will find economic outlet for their work within their own country.