Chris Anderson is a magazine editor, a father of five kids, and the grandson of the inventor of the automatic sprinkler system.
He also is the founder of what he says is the largest manufacturer of unmanned aerial drones in the United States.
It's that last point that Anderson believes has enormous implications for U.S. manufacturing -- and our economy as a whole.
Anderson, delivering a keynote address Wednesday at the 2012 Front End of Innovation conference in Orlando, Fla., said there's "a new industrial revolution" underway.
Thanks to the web -- which has enabled a digital, community approach to innovation and sourcing -- and the availability of "desktop-manufacturing" technology such as 3-D printing, "regular people can do what only factories could do before."
"This is how we're going to create the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs in manufacturing," Anderson said. "This is how we're going to regain our role as the world's manufacturing powerhouse.
"Not because we have cheaper labor or cheaper electricity or more land, but because we have a better innovation model, and we have digital tools that are democratized in the hands of everybody."
"We're going to use the web's model to recharge manufacturing, because manufacturing increasingly looks like the web."
