I’ve been asked countless times if it is worth to still enter the startup hype – or will it be gone sooner or later. Yes, in the developed nations, where legal structures, capital markets and production gets ever more complicated, it may fade away. If the is is good or bad is a very important […]

Despite all the political shifts and changes in the US, Silicon Valley will continue to lead. China is following very fast. And the rest of the world looks no longer only to Silicon Valley but also to China – with only little attempt to compete. The gap remains to be wide We participated in pitch […]

The economic development problem There are roughly 3 Billion (3,000,000,000) people living in poverty. Over 4 Trillion Dollars have been invested to help develop – with virtually no success. Wars, the gap continues to widen. Many NGOs, humanitarian workers, philanthropists began to look for alternatives? It was assumed that helping the small businesses to grow […]

As an organization, who has INNOVATION in its name, obviously we are diving very deep into the topic and getting a large variety of perspectives and insights. Innovation tightly connected to entrepreneurship. As a consequence, we asked ourselves, what can we do to bring economic development in developing countries to an all new level. A […]

Can’t hear about climate change any more? Here is maybe a way to end it. An amazing example how innovation and disruption is not only about technology. It may not look like an innovation, because we simply never understood desertification (land turning to desert) in the first place. Allan Savory shows disruptive ways out of […]

I was wondering what are the biggest problems we have on earth today. I know there are thousands, millions or even billions of problems to solve. I get asked so often on Quora or at startup events what problems do actually exist that could be solved, that I compiled this list of 100+ global problems […]

Pretty much every car manufacturer on the planet are testing their autonomous cars here in Silicon Valley. Resources are plentiful, rules and regulations, as innovation friendly as possible without going overboard. And again the accumulation of knowledge is unparalleled. We spoke with a few test drivers and physically sensed the excitement, the community and the […]

I’ve been asked so many times that I felt it would be good to write a blog post. Obviously there are many consulting services, software developer and others who could built your MVP in a rather short period of time. Then you get what you asked for and can enter the market. If customers report […]

I have been asked countless times, what it takes to be a good entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur and so forth. Questions came from Quora, in meetings, on events and is one of the most asked questions from young people who are interested in building a startup. As a precursor let me try to define success, […]

Help from the GROUND UP Getting 3,5 Billion people out of poverty is a daunting task. But 150 years ago most developed countries were seriously poor too. We think we found a very different way to get countries out of poverty. We are supporting entrepreneurs in emerging countries like Vietnam, Ghana, Peru, do – what […]

Quite a lot of the readers of this blog actually are one of the top 1% wealthiest people in the world. But because the majority of our readers lives in developing or emerging countries, they are not. There have been countless discussions why or why not, what we can do to stop the rapid widening […]

Meeting with the ITP leadership team of the University of Ho Chi Minh City. An impressive presentation where Vietnam is planning to go what innovative businesses concerns.  We also had some great meetings with students, who are very ambitious and eager to learn everything possible about innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs Workshop with roughly 20 […]

One week with great teams, jar dropping innovation spaces and top notch universities. Our work in South Korea, with our ambassador and team was very exciting. South Korea is certainly no longer an “emerging country”. It bypassed many of the developed countries. Startup ecosystem of the superlative. South Korea’s brand new Innovation hub is certainly […]

A week with very promising teams, brilliant people from the local universities and amazing supporter – less amazing government actions. Our work In Nepal was a great finish for our five week Asia Tour on one side and a disappointment at the very last day, at the investor summit. After an impressive pitch event, the […]

Do you really need a vision for your business? You don’t NEED anything, it’s YOUR business! But here is what a VISION can do for you. You don’t “create” a vision for yourself Hopefully, you already envision where you want to take your business. And if you don’t have one, ask yourself why you are […]

It’s one of the very often asked questions at startup events. One of the unique skills of an entrepreneur is to create something with nothing. If you would have capital you would probably become an investor, not an entrepreneur. One day a young entrepreneur asked me: “But I have to live and eat and I have […]

You already started very very well – togetherness. Yet this is one of the biggest challenges of first time founders. Hence the long and detailed answer. It takes teamwork to make a dream work. People all to often simply focus on the act of “finding”. That doesn’t get you anywhere and you end up with […]

DEVELOPMENT AID OF THE LAST 70 YEARS Trying to help 3.5 Billion people in 75 of the poorest countries getting out of poverty seems to be a daunting task. In the past 75 years it failed, despite staggering 4.7 Trillion Dollar donations. Even if we try to be fast and complete the job in the […]

One of the most often asked question from young entrepreneurs who don’t really live in one of the startup epicenters: “We don’t have enough investors in our region. How can I get funded?” LIVING OFF THE GRID Well, if you want what’s not available in your village, you need to do one of two things: […]

Instead of trying to help 3 Billion people from the 75 poorest countries to survive, we decided we want to focus on 1,500 innovative minds, the 20 best from each country to build their own self propelled economy. PAST DEVELOPMENT AID EFFORTS Since more than 50 years, the developed world is helping less developed countries […]