Thought Leaders

As founder and CEO, I lead an engineering company with my business partner Bruno Dejaeghere. Over the last 10 years I made it my ongoing mission to make this sustainable human-centric approach part of our organisation. I envision Absolem as a company that puts people and society first, without having...

My journey as a mission-driven entrepreneur began right here in Maryland where I led a youth service demonstration program in Baltimore. After graduating from the Yale School of Management, I returned to the state determined to build businesses that aligned profit with purpose. From launching Honest Tea out of my...

When we chose Oeiras to settle in 16 years ago, we aimed to keep up with the innovation and development that this municipality witnessed since the turn of the millennium with the creation of office parks until then never seen in Portugal. Besides offering the perfect conditions for Portuguese and...

Life moves at a whirlwind pace, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s the importance of passion in what we do. From the constant relocations of my childhood to the improvisational challenges of running a kitchen, my journey has been about finding joy in the present and embracing change...

It seems only yesterday that I was sitting in an empty office at the Bath Innovation Centre having just left an amazing role, a talented team and great stock options and benefits at Microsoft to satisfy my burning desire to create a startup. I felt that if I didn’t do...

How can startups scale up? What are the key drivers of innovation? On the flip side, what are the pitfalls? For answers to these questions, we spoke to an expert in the vibrant ecosystem. Sunil Padmanabh works with startups in Bengaluru and Indian cities at various stages of growth, from founders...

EARLY INTERNET – SAN FRANCISCO, CA (1994 – 2003)As a kid in the early 80’s when I was obsessed with my Apple computer, my eyes were opened to the power of software. After an early start at IBM, I became an entrepreneur and moved to San Francisco. While my first...

Adelaide has a decades-long history with games. Ratbag Games opened a studio in the 1990s and had success with its Powerslide games before it was acquired by Midway Games in the mid-2000s, and then closed quite suddenly. Krome, an Australian based game developer picked up where Midway left off, lasting...

Be Your Own Boss Growing up, my dad always told me to be an entrepreneur — to “be your own boss.” He believed in taking charge of your own destiny, and that message stuck. His belief carried me through Clemson University, where I majored in marketing and minored in entrepreneurship....

Stockholm’s startup scene – and ecosystems everywhere – love to celebrate the one percent: the global successes, the polished founders, the big exits. But that’s not the story that matters most. What really defines an ecosystem are the founders you don’t see. The ones grinding at kitchen tables. The ones...

My ideal future for this industry is one rich in diversity and equality, from developing games and the content within them to more comprehensive professional representation in gaming and esports for minorities and gender minorities. It will take all of us working together to make this reality, and there is...

I grew up in a family of musicians and in a township like Langa that has been home to many legendary artists, but unfortunately for most of them, life was challenging and didn´t bring the rewards one would expect from a successful career. When I was in my late teens...

Jeff Citty ED.D. UF Innovation Academy Director One of the strongest competitive qualities we possess as Americans is our ability to innovate and develop creative solutions to complex problems. The University of Florida’s (UF) Innovation Academy (IA) facilitates innovative student thinking, creativity, and the creation of student partnerships with start...

In marketing, the Engagement Economy is defined as the competition for the valuable attention and cognitive bandwidth of a target audience. It’s a very real and valuable asset that is becoming more complex and harder to attain with each passing year. But, this is not the Engagement Economy I’m talking...

It might be odd to hear this from someone who leads incubation at a university, but not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur and not every startup will succeed. Our success has come as a result of embracing this experience, and how it develops students and innovators. Leveraging startup and...

Nashville has always been a great place for members of the creative class. It has more than its fair share of the spirit of innovation and, as I was told when I moved here, more recording studios than bars and more microphones than people. And while the artistic creativity is...

English: Greater Montréal, Québec’s economic heartland, definitely beats in tune with digital innovation. We have one of the richest tech ecosystems in terms of knowledge, know-how, and creativity. A source of great pride for Québec and Canada. We stand out on the global scene with our world-class academic institutions and...

For an activity (like playing video games) to turn into a publicly-observed competition (like esports), first there needs to be a demand to know who is best. Then, for the competition to grow a mainstream appeal and audiences to expand beyond the initial enthusiasts, it needs to have entertainment value....

Looking back on Atlantic Canada’s fintech sector, I remember being impressed by the stark resilience of the entrepreneurs in the region. Incredible innovation was happening across the four provinces to revolutionize and digitalize under-developed technologies, particularly in back-end solutions of all industries—from banking and aviation to communications and human resources....

Several years ago, a member of my team asked me a question. “Dan, when is the last time you had a day when you did absolutely nothing that involved Aflac?” Without missing a beat, I said, “When was the pager invented?” The responsibility of my job means I must be...

Having served as KPMG in Canada’s National Energy leader for 12 years and working in the Calgary marketplace for the past 30 years. I see Alberta uniquely positioned to foster and lead innovation at the intersection of sustainability, energy, and technology. Businesses are presented with opportunities for growth as the...

We are on the threshold of a creative renaissance powered by GenerativeAI—technology that frees us from specialized skills and speeds up the path from idea to execution. In mere hours, what once took months can be accomplished, fueling rapid experimentation and bold innovation. By automating tasks like image generation, software...

As the founding director of Georgetown Entrepreneurship, Jeff Reid is passionate about educating, mentoring, and infl uencing the next generation of entrepreneurs to use their new business ventures to serve the common good. “Common good entrepreneurship involves creating and operating businesses that not only aim for fi nancial success but...

Melissa Bradley is a professor of the practice at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where she teaches impact investing, social entrepreneurship, P2P economics, and innovation. Since graduating from Georgetown McDonough in 1989 with a B.S. in finance, Bradley has remained passionate about preserving the strength of the American financial...