Since 2012, we have been exploring the hotbed of innovation: the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, East Bay, Silicon Valley). This region is home to some of the world's most impactful organizations and the birthplace of next-generation technologies that challenge our society and impact every industry, from education to construction, health to mobility, and money to energy.
Why Silicon Valley?
Silicon Valley is on the forefront of AI. In San Francisco, 10.000 AI startup founder are connected in a community. Some of the world's biggest players in the world of data companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley. While you can find sub-categories of innovation well represented on many places in the world, no where like Silicon Valley you will find this density of game changers and "architects of the future"
The City of Awe
When exposed to the updates from the San Francisco Bay Area, the usual response is equally weighted in worry and excitement – which are exactly the incredients of Awe. Into a future with curiosity and respect.
Wouldn't you want to know?
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The Money-Can't-Buy-Experience
We will connect you with people working on future scenarios of your industry or on technology that will possibly impact the future of your industry. You will talk to senior leaders, TED Speakers, Stanford Professors, successful Venture Capitalists and more.
New York • London • Helsinki • Tel Aviv • Dubai • Mumbai • Singapore • Hong Kong – You name it. Exploring the world of innovation broadens your spectrum, your personal network and the range of opportunities that lie ahead.
"There must be more waiting for us out there." In 2018, the gravitation of our curiosity led us to expand the program to exciting, vibrant, and significant innovation hotspots outside of Silicon Valley. This world tour of innovation spans North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The journey has just begun...
Your Journey starts here.
This program is designed to dive deep into
• Exponential Technologies (AI, Spatial Computing, Robotics, Additive Manufacturing)
• Autonomous Decisionmaking (Mobility, Construction, Retail, Health)
• AI Strategies (AI on your Org-Chart)
With a focus on
• Automotive
• Life-Sciences (Health/Medical Innovation)
• Energy
• Financial Services / FinTech
• Retail
The Anatomy of this experience
The Design of the program
• Daily Exponential Briefings
• 4-5 in-person meetings, talks & interview per day
• personal intro-email to every speaker
• Executive Summary of every meeting
• Playbook of Innovation: Individualized summary and possible action items for every participant.
• Certificate of participation
You know how people go to conferences –
and the day after the conference
looks exactly like the day before the conference.
What is it then? An intellectual buffet?
We think these are amazing. But what is even more exciting is an experience that you can scale in your organization. Just think about it: you might consider sending your leadership team to a 5 days factfinding mission to SIlicon Valley or any other hotbed of innovation.
Most of the people in your team, will not have had the experience.
The big question: now what? needs to be answered. Here is how.
Be right. A lot
The big question that is looking for an answer is: "What needs to be done right now – and how can we align this with the grand vision of the future in our business?" The stretch is complex and requires trust. Trust that the decisions you are making are probably right (even if your team do not understand them at the time). To gain this level of trust, you have to be right, a lot. The difference between people with a strong opinion and people who are actually right is the fact that the latter are informed on a level, no one else is: the more you are familiar with different hypothesis about the future, the more it is likely that you are actually: Right. A. Lot.
This is what this program is designed for.
The Five People You Should Talk To
In November 2012, the co-founder, Niki Skene, was invited to pitch a business idea in Silicon Valley. The Austrian—familiar with the culture of resistance (5 reasons why you will fail)—met 5 great individuals, and each of them connected Niki with more people (5 people you should talk to to get smarter in your space). At the end of the week, Niki met 21 individuals in Silicon Valley and radically pivoted his business idea: "This is what I want to do for people: give them the exact same experience I just had." Together with Mario Herger, they founded Silicon Valley Inspiration Tours (Today: Conference on Wheels).
In 2018, the program expanded to "Global Inspiration Tours" in New York, London, Vienna, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Mumbai, and Hong Kong/Shenzhen. About 200 tours and over 2500 participants later, the "Inspiration Tours" graduated to a next-level experience with custom curation, AI-generated executive summaries, "the world's most relevant futurist" (Forbes) co-host Jonathan Brill—and in full swing to keep on elevating leaders, founders, business consultants, and individuals who are on their next professional chapter.
"This week has changed my life"—many participants in the past have expressed the magnitude of this experience—which has become the standard for this program: we want to be known as the guys who change the lives of ten people, every week.
Niki SKENE
Curator & Co-Founder
Mario HERGER
Co-Founder
Jonathan BRILL
Co-Host
Florian BRODY
Mentor
Anything we forgot to mention? Shame on us! Let us know and we will get back to you faster than the speed of light.