I was extremely humbled to be invited and proud to participate in the British Airways Ungrounded flight from SFO to LHR. It was certainly the craziest 11 hours I’ve ever spent above the Atlantic Ocean.
The UnGrounded concept began as a partnership between the United Kingdom Trade and Investment council, British Airways, the G8 Summit and IDEO. The goal was to spend the 11 hour flight brainstorming about how to encourage the pursuit of STEM careers in emerging markets. Obviously, quite relevant to Appfrica given our role in accelerating the growth of Africa’s technology sector.
The participants literally spent the entire 11 hour flight running up and down the plane, scribbling down their ideas on how to address increasing women participation in STEM careers, STEM in emerging markets, Western companies and their relationship with talent in emerging markets, and STEM in education. The end result was around 20 ideas for companies and projects that can address these issues that were presented to attendees at the G8 Summit.
How did the UnGrounded flight come about?
Participants were nominated by global technology leaders in both Silicon Valley and London, with primary input from the UnGrounded advisory board. The advisory board is made up of senior representation from RocketSpace, Silicon Valley Bank, Andreessen Horowitz, Stanford University and Innovation Endeavors. All participants have been hand-selected to participate based on their experience and passion for driving the acceleration of innovation within developed and emerging communities across the world.
Upon landing, the ideas and solutions created on the flight were received by the United Nations ITU Secretary General at the DNA Summit, in association with the G8 Innovation Conference, in London.
You can find out more at ungroundedthinking.com
