Academia works on nearly everything, so it's no surprise that successes come out of it. Especially if you are willing to squint your eyes a little and describe something which has a few elements of the final useful innovation (but noticeably not the secret sauce) a precursor then anything can be traced back.

That does not mean academia, nonetheless academia in its current form, is the optimal system for producing innovations. How much effort is being wasted on things that will never pan out? How many great potential innovations are not being researched right now because the system does not prioritize them? How many needed to start in academia vs how many just happened to?