Of all the things in life that I know to be true, it’s that there is nothing more powerful than an idea. It’s a concept that’s so obscure and amorphous that I decided to take it upon myself to explain to you, the reader, the importance of ideas and why I believe one in particular will be the driving force behind the advancements in today’s society.

The founding of our nation was based off an idea that was summed up in a declaration written over 200 years ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What was soon to follow — and not without trials — was a nation that launched a man to the moon and fostered the world’s largest economy.

It birthed some of the greatest minds and was a leader in technological innovation.

All of this, all of these amazing advancements came from one place — an idea.

It can be clearly seen that the past few years have been a struggle but this isn’t the first time the United States has fallen into a rut. The stock market crashed in 1929 which led to the Great Depression. After the passage of The New Deal and a boom in the manufacturing economy due to World War II, we recovered and were on the track to great economic prosperity. But what followed in the 1950s was one of the biggest growths the American economy has ever seen. The building of our interstate highways and public school systems launched the economy forward and put America back on the forefront of innovation. These new ideas welcomed some of the most prosperous times we’ve ever seen in the United States, but fast forward to today and it appears we’ve let it slip.

The world’s largest economy has gone into a recession. Obama is now proposing cuts to NASA, and our highways and bridges are crumbling as we speak. The byproducts of the American idea are falling apart and we need to fix them. People are constantly looking for solutions to make things better and one of the many solutions that has been proposed has been to increase taxes on the top 1 percent, create more room in the federal budget for NASA and to start investing again in our infrastructure.

While I think those are great ideas, there’s more to be done. We need a revolution of ideas and innovation. The biggest leaps forward in society all started with an idea. The Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries changed the way we think and completely revamped our manufacturing processes.

Today, when you look around we see green companies with newly developed green technologies. A green revolution has started and I think that can be what takes us to the next level of innovation.

It’s the wave of the future and within the past few days, I’ve been researching all the amazing ideas that people have come up with. One in particular struck me and I instantly thought to myself that this is it. A prototype by a company called Solar Roadways has been developing solar panel roads that convert the sun’s energy into power and can change the way we experience driving and how we power our houses. All around, green companies are trying to change the way we use and consume energy.

If companies like Solar Roadways continue to innovate and inspire, then I think this green revolution will give our nation, and society, the push it needs to overcome the burdens we’ve been facing.

The idea is real and the demand is there. Ideas have birthed nations and fueled the innovation that makes them so great. Investing in green technologies, like the Solar Roadways and electric cars, will once again put the United States at the forefront of technological advancement.

It’s time we take action and create the next big thing that will move us to the next level of innovation.

Matt is a freshman in LAS. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @matthewpasquini.