A Polymath—the Greek word for Renaissance Man—is one who excels in many disciplines. From Leonardo da Vinci to Benjamin Franklin, we have relied on Polymaths to innovate and find creative solutions to the problems of the day. How would these Renaissance men and women manage our current technology bounty? Which disciplines would they choose to focus on? Would they work on the architecture of next-generation green cities, or focus on nanotechnology?

As our challenges have grown exponentially we need to bring together da Vinci, Franklin, and many more. The New Polymath is an enterprise that excels in multiple technologies—infotech, cleantech, healthtech, and other tech—and leverages multiple talent pools to create new medicine, new energy, and new algorithms.

Author Vinnie Mirchandani shares his varied experience as a technology adviser and market watcher to explain in business language the diversity of today's technology palette and to profile a wide range of innovations at:

Large multinationals such as GE and BP

Fast-growing, midsized companies like Cognizant and salesforce.com

The cleantech industry in China, farms in Ireland, and the back roads of Rwanda

This book categorizes eleven "building blocks" for the New Polymath to leverage in its R-E-N-A-I-S-S-A-N-C-E framework, including next-generation analytics, cloud computing, sustainability, and social networks. The author profiles over a hundred innovators and demonstrates how they use these building blocks to solve both their individual day-to-day issues and the "Grand Challenges" the world faces.

Brimming with examples from a variety of industries, countries, and business processes, the book will inspire you to groom your own New Polymath tools, processes, and ecosystem of innovation ideas.

Vinnie Mirchandani, who goes by the moniker of "Deal Architect," coaches enterprises on how to exploit disruptive technology trends. His firm has been recognized in The Black Book of Outsourcing as a top advisory boutique. He is also a prolific blogger, writing about technology-enabled innovation on his "New Florence, New Renaissance" blog and about waste in technology on his "Deal Architect" blog. Earlier in his career, he was a respected analyst at Gartner, the technology research firm, and handled numerous international assignments at PwC Consulting. He has keynoted at many business and technology conferences

and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Financial Times, CIO Magazine, and other executive and technology publications. Read more about the author, advance praise for book and excerpts from chapters at thenewpolymath.com