Lessons From Silicon Valley

A team of innovators from the UAE government participated in an internal innovation acceleration program, and recently took a discovery trip to Silicon Valley and San Francisco to learn about the highly dynamic innovation environment. The trip proved to be a highly transformative experience that changed the way participants understand how innovation works and challenged all their assumptions. The five key take-aways our group of innovators gained from the trip included the fact that Google's famous work environment requires more than just nice perks, the importance of the power of the network, the fact there is no such thing as an innovation culture, the hype over AI and the realities of data, and the importance of not ignoring start-ups.