Traditional societies in equatorial Central Africa created innovation by encouraging highly skilled individuals to quest after knowledge throughout their entire lifespans. These individuals sought to reside continually along the cutting edge of expertise in their chosen professions. Society, when necessary, mobilized these innovators to cooperate in projects that benefited the community as a whole. A tradition developed that engendered social innovation by fostering individual creativity. The people comprising the society constituted its repository of knowledge and the seat of its originality.
