Is There a Contradiction in The Globalization of Innovation?

Innovation is driven by necessity. But the people who are rewarded to be innovative seem to be taking great distance from the experience of problems.

I had a thought about some contradictions that might be hidden in the globalization of innovation. This is very rough, and I do not if it makes any sense. I wrote it to take a 'break' from another thing I am writing. It would be really interesting to hear what you think on this...

Globalization of innovation is taking us to a disjuncture of the innovation process. Real, pressing problems, like world hunger or experiencing the effects of climate change, are being separated from the "problem solvers" of the world: the entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers who live comfortable lives in the West. American innovators are not rewarded for solving real problems (creating sustainable energy), as they have more short term benefits from innovating in 'worthless' problems (such as creating the new facebook) since this kind of products are more easily transformed in cash by venture capital firms. Americans--and most of the world are also loosing the first hand experience of building, manufacturing goods, experience that allows people to come up with smarter ways of creating and manufacturing stuff. There seems to be a contradiction here.

I had this thought while reading these two articles:

• One is about how the world is loosing "the know-how to think of new ways of manufacturing goods"
  when sending all its manufacturing to China.
• The second one is about how kids in Silicon Valley do not have any real problems to solve, so they are innovating on superficial stuff.

But there are certainly counter examples my line of thinking: I have met Carlos, a driven and smart mexican entrepreneur, who has a social media game company. He is doing this for the money. But he wants the money because the next problem he solves is going to be big, maybe creating a solution for world hunger. Apple has all its manufacturing outsourced, and yet they come up with revolutionary devices. But maybe these two counterexamples are just outlayers. I have the feeling that there is a bit of truth on the contradictions that the disjuncture of the global innovation processes poses to us.

Certainly there is a reserch problem here, but I do not know where to start. In which "site" to study the global innovation system? I guess I would have to invite to dinner to George Marcus so he explains me the secret of doing enthnographies in world systems, and Karl Marx so he explains me the nuances of social contradictions. But maybe I will have to have this dinner after I finish writing my dissertation...