2018 QSTP Silicon Valley Innovation Mindset Tour @qstpsv2018 - Tumblr Blog

When inventions provide unintended solutions

Google glasses, Coca-Cola, Post-It notes, WD-40, Rogaine, 7-up – diverse products, yet they all have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?

Today it’s hard to imagine a house without a can of WD-40 stored somewhere in case there is the sudden need for emergency lubrication. In fact, one study indicates that 80% of US households own a can (according to an Adweek report). WD-40 has become the go-to product for loosen tight screws and solving a wide variety of issues where metal is jamming against metal, but WD-40 was initially created by the defense industry to be used during the Cold War era, specifically to remove water from metals to prevent rusting. The initial use led to the name we all know – after 39 attempts at getting the right chemical formula to get rid of water, the inventors found the one that worked best: the 40th water displacement (hence WD-40) attempt.

Coca-Cola was first invented in the 19th century to cure morphine addiction, anxiety, headaches, and impotence. The inventor, pharmacist John Pemberton, himself suffered from morphine addiction and he wanted to produce a drink that could help him and others escape their drug dependency. This led to the birth of a sweetened drink containing coca and cocaine and sugar that sold for five cents per cup. As the brand Coca-Cola grew, it was gradually honed with carbonation and non-narcotic sweeteners to give the world its most famous soda we know today.

Another liquid invention produced in 1929 by Charles Grigg under its initial not-exactly-catchy name of “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda” was created to treat bipolar disorder (known then as mood swings). The drink proved popular with a wider market, and in 1936 the name was changed to 7-up.

Later, in 1968, Spencer Silver was working for 3M trying to create an especially strong adhesive for use in the aerospace industry. His journey to explore different compounds that would help airplanes to not fall apart instead produced a very weak substance that could barely stick two bits of paper together. One sticky thing led to another sticky thing when another employee of 3M called Arthur Fry took Silver’s adhesive to create Post-It notes, which came to the market in 1970.

So why give all these examples?

Recently, I was visiting Google offices in Silicon Valley as part of a tour of some of the world’s most famously innovative companies, such as Apple, AJ+, and AirB&B. After being welcomed, I was given a quick presentation about Google’s products. I was surprised to see Google Glasses among the highlighted products as I thought that the technology behind Google Glasses, which are worn like conventional eye glasses but project information onto a small glass surface directly in the user’s field of vision, had been removed from the market. So, after the presentation, I asked Why Google Glasses were mentioned in the presentation?

The answer came like a rain storm in the middle of the desert.

The answer I received was as follows: Google decided that the technically advanced Google Glasses had been released too early into the consumer market, so, as is often the case in the field of innovation, pivoting, tweaking and changing the innovation slightly took place and a new non-consumer use had been identified.

Just like with the products mentioned previously, the market for Google Glasses may well be found in a place quite different to where the innovators originally looked. In the case of Google Glasses, a focus on the doctor and the patient interactions may be an ideal starting point for the reintroduction of the product back into the market.

A recent study in the US and Switzerland showed that doctors spend 28% of their time directly with the patient while the rest of their time is spent between looking at the computer to get patients details and looking at health records. Google believes that they can help patients and doctors by providing them with Google Glasses, the technology within the product helping to allow doctors to spend more time looking at their patients while receiving their health record simultaneously.

As the makers of Coca-Cola, Post-it notes, and Google Glasses have shown, re-aligning innovative ideas is a natural and healthy way of helping ensure the continuity of businesses, while also responding to actual issues rather than perceived issues.

#google #google glasses #innovation #invention #coca-cola #7-up #WD-40 #startup

Silicon Valley

This trip was an experience I hadn’t had before. Starting from the beginning when Ms. Wadha brought us all in and just said “Talk to each-other” - I thought it would be quite awkward but it would exactly the opposite. When you choose the right people who all have the same dreams of creating something, they connect straight away. I’ve made great new friendships and have learned a lot from them.

The long plane trips sitting next to the people you’ve only met once before made us connect even more. We had 17 hours (x2) to get to know each-other better - and by the end of it all we became like family. We went out together, learned together, ate together, and took care of each-other.

Like all families, there were up and downs - but at the end of the day we got along. We learned how to cooperate and make the best out of everything. In my opinion, I think that was the most valuable thing I took from the trip. The friendships. To know that there are at least another 29 other passionate people like me back home, some of whom are already started with their businesses, gave me a sense of motivation like no other. I began to believe that it’s possible. It’s great hearing stories of people who are abroad, but it’s even better seeing people in the same country as you making their dream come true.

The best part of the “official” part of this trip, where I learned the most, was Levi Stadium (technology in sports), AirBnB (design), the hands-on workshop (team-work and creativity), and Hekaytna (wisdom from the experienced).

I have compiled some quotes that I thought were most important from the Hekaytna segment:

1) Culture affects the way you think.

2) Value is in people, not the idea!

3) Get a good paying job in your resume before going into a start-up.

4) Is the idea bothering you in your sleep?

5) Study the psychology of people and see where things are going in the future.

6) No does not always mean no. Get on top of the stack. Make the phone call. Make the effort.

7) Never quit - learn how to communicate.

8) Use YouTube and all resources available to you and learn.

9) Get to know the person who will get you the right contacts.

10) Genuinely get to know people - don’t try to be interesting to the person, BE INTERESTED in that person.

11) There’s a lot of value in yourself so work on developing your skills.

12) Don’t change even if life slaps you in the face multiple times - you are who you are.

13) Trust no-one.

14) Dream as big as you can dream.

15) You are in the drivers seat of who you want to become.

16) GPA’s, School names, and Letter of recommendations are door openers. It’s great to have a door opener.

17) Don’t look at your name, look at the impact you’re making.

18) Invest in talent.

19) Learn everything you can from every employer you have. Move from company to company when you stop learning from an employer.

20) Entrepreneurship is not the only path.

Looking Back

I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted to make my last blog post about. This trip was so amazing in what it had offered to us while we were in the valley; the people we met, the success stories we heard and the knowledge we gained was just priceless. But with almost a month now since our arrival back to Doha, I’m starting to realise that the true value in this experience, is what it instills in you after you come back.

Honestly speaking, as a soon to be mechanical engineering graduate, It never crossed my mind that I’d be eligible to be do some of the things these startups in the valley are doing. I’ve always thought that people that work at Google and Youtube or even open their own startup are simply people with mental capabilities that are beyond me. Turns out, all the people we met working in these successful companies were simply people like you and I, that just didn’t stop believing in themselves and didn’t give up till they made it. The fact that all the people we met on this trip without exception were all Arab also created this stronger bond between us, simply because they came from the same places we grew up in and faced the same struggles we face. That in my opinion was the biggest and best motivation for all of us to go back and just re-evaluate what we aspire to be in the future.

Another major eye-opener on this trip was that it never occurred me that despite the fact we went to visit the home of startups in Silicon Valley, Qatar is very embroiled in starting a strong a entrepreneurship movement of its own here in the middle east. It was very nice to see that we do actually have a taste of Silicon Valley back home and that its in our hands to carry its legacy forward. There were a few people with us on the trip that are currently working on startup businesses in partnership with QSTP and I’m glad we got the opportunity to interact with them in the way that we did. There is one particular startup that I’m interested in, ‘Subul’ and may begin an internship with them within the next couple of weeks!

Although I mentioned just a few, I’ll never forget some of the things I learnt on this trip, this was by far the best trip I’ve ever been on. None of this however would’ve been possible without the help of one very special person, Ms. Muyasser. I really don’t know how this women is able to pull off a trip of this caliber, year in and year out. On this trip we were able to meet with some of the most prestigious figures in the tech world; opportunities that many could only dream of having and the fact that these figures themselves look up to her and respect her in the way they do, speaks volumes. She is a role model that everyone on this trip must aspire to be like in the future for her willingness to give back and bring pride to the name of Arabs. I really hope she’ll continue to do what she does for many more years to come because her work is honestly untouchable.

-Nasser Atiyah

QSTP Student Innovation Trip San Francisco 2018: Takeaways

One of the first questions to ask when evaluating an experience is “what did you learn from it?”, and how can you/have you applied that to real life? After all, a group of 30 students from 10+ nationalities from Qatar going to San Francisco for the sole purpose of visiting some of the world’s largest and most influential IT companies/startups is not something you hear about every day. Some might say that it was vising Airbnb and examining their work environment, an amazing QnA session at Youtube, or going to a startup workshop at Stanford University. There are excellent blogposts below about such experiences; so I won’t go into detail about those. Instead, I will write about the takeaways I had from the trip, and I how have used such takeaways when I returned to life in Qatar.

First and foremost was the background. What I mean by that the experiences from the trip has given me the realization that there are so many more things than what just meets the eye; and that analysis helps me in getting a better, more comprehensive picture of the message that some of these companies are trying to convey. For instance, AJ+ recently made a 2-minute video about South Korean pop stars performing in North Korea, getting over 350k views in 36 hours. The clip is short and to the point: only subtitles, no politics, and to the point. Before the trip I would see the clip on my facebook newsfeed and move on. However, I remembered from the AJ + QnA session that it keeps the videos punchy and to the point so that viewers would not skip them. I also remember them saying that one of the hardest challenges from online media/news is the viewership, and on average a 2-minute video would take hours to produce, and that the notes were scrutinized for their accuracy and the phrasing is double checked. This “background” that comes from vising the AJ+ office and seeing the people at work might not sound like much, but subconsciously influences the way I perceive online news. I know that the subtitles are phrased in that specific way because it is the best way to phrase it, the cuts of the news are formatted that way because it works. Adding these little things up gives me a better perspective about online news reporting and the work getting done behind the scenes. Once you understand that AJ+, Youtube, Google, and etc do things a specific way for a specific purpose, it gives one not only greater understanding of their intentions but also gives one the autonomy to interpret the displayed content in a much more fundamental fashion.

The second takeaway is that you become more familiar with the startup scene, and you near familiar names when you read the news. When I read the Sun-Sentinel and read about 500 startups planning to set up a branch office in Florida and investing in Kairos, I remember the eccentric VP from 500 startups that answered our questions in the most frank way possible. I get interested in what got him to make that decision, and start reading about Kairos and the startup scene in Florida. Half an hour later I am 500 startups’ website, and an hour later I’m looking at their portfolios of companies in the Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence sector, and comparing why they would invest in facial recognition technology (Kairos) and why its similar to the portfolio of companies that 500 startups invest in. The QSTP trip gives you context of the startup scene, and connects that context with experience, and results in intriguing the person to the level that he/she voluntarily reads up about what is going on whenever they see a familiar name in some article. This is a skill you cannot teach; this thirst for knowledge and desire to find out exists because I remember being at 500 startups, and I want to know how they are doing by looking at what investments they are making.

Finally, and probably the most important, is the incredible friendships and connections I made in the trip. The most notable of such is knowing that Qatar Science and Technology Park has some of the most dedicated people that WANT to provide such an opportunity to the students here, and how their resources has given me an experience that I would take away long into my life. After this trip the other efforts of QSTP such as the Innovation Academies, the incubation, and their workshops are put into context and made more relevant for me. It gave me confidence to know that there is a body of people dedicated to innovation and creating startups, and that QSTP offers excellent resources and an environment to pursue such ideas. Moreover, the group became a close knit group of friends that you meet for dinners and end up taking 3+ hours talking about memories from the trip. (looking forward to that reunion dinner next week)

Overall, the trip to silicon valley gave me so much; the background, the intuition, the inspiration, the interest, and most importantly, a group of friends and mentors to go down that path together.

Yoonsuk Choi

I have thought long and hard about a dedication post for the sole reason that I have met some truly inspiriting and real people during this life-changing trip. I am fortunate to have met each and every one of you!

All of us have inspiration, heroes and people we looked up to, whom we aspired to be like. Muyasser being one of the most resilient personalities I ever had the honour of meeting, I could not resist but ask who inspired her? and what she said struck a chord with me. She shared a very personal and touching story that left me speechless, the story was about her Father, who passed away during the same time the Silicon Valley trip takes place. After losing her father she wanted to carry his legacy of spreading knowledge and in his memory, she inspired individual like me every year by giving back to the community. I dedicate this post to your Father because I too believe if necessity is the mother of invention, then giving back is the mother of Innovation.

This trip and especially the Hikayatna panel has redefined the meaning of innovation for me. Having had the pleasure to meet five of the most successful Arab entrepreneurs and an opportunity to listen to their stories was one of the most humbling experiences. All these admiring personalities such as Belgacem Haba, who has over 1300 patents under his name talking about how his success is a contribution of so many people. Similarly, Sharif El-Badawi, Nagi Salloum, Iyad Uakoub and Mounir Zok all emphasised on how everyone’s contributed to their success and for them giving back is one of the most important things we can do as human beings. They strongly believe in starting a chain reaction of positivity and selflessness by helping individuals without expectations, without asking anything in return.

Through this trip, I was fortunate and blessed to discover such an incredibly giving culture. Everyone we met on this trip was eager to share with us as much of his experience, knowledge and advise as possible. What I have taken from these great experience is respect for each individual I had met and a incredible culture of giving back through experience, knowledge and failure. I am grateful to QSTP for organising such a powerful trip, to the mentors who make it happen, to the organisers and individuals who pour their love and generosity in inspiring minds to put positive energy into the universe as it will always come back.

Mohammad Jawad

#findyourpurpose #giveback

Designed Environments foster innovation (Caution: Designer Bias)

After much thought and reflection, I can clearly establish my decision of declaring my favourite working spaces and environments all exist in the heart of San Francisco, Silicon Valley. Topping the list is Airbnb followed by Google and the red hug slide in YouTube (that none of us got to try). All these places had something in common but it was not until I reflected on my brain’s subconscious storage that pointed out the value of design thinking in the creation of the immersive, collaborative and productive spaces that master the art of fostering innovation.

Airbnb has the ideal work environment that bleeds designed environments. Touring through an entire four-story building that I casually use on my phone or PC as an app was mind-boggling. Neji did a splendid job at explaining the history and redesign of the warehouse structure into a four-story building, each story taking a different city as inspiration, while the offices meticulously recreated real listings around the world. It was the very first time I had walked from Brooklyn to Cuba in 50 steps, which was impressive and impactful.

This young startup that has disrupted the hospitality industry by allowing anyone to rent out their homes has really mastered the value of design thinking as a core component to its significant growth and in gaining the trust of its users. Design thinking is an important aspect that I have been taught as a designer, It is about empathizing with your employees, customers and users by spending quality and effort to understanding the needs of the person awe design for in order to create something that is valuable to them and can sustain itself through the value created. Airbnb has certainly aced it!

To me, Airbnb’s environment is an epitome of spaces design that aims to engage employees, increase collaboration, induce productivity, foster innovations, reduce stress by appealing to the senses and putting forth positive environments for employees to choose where and how within their office they want to work. I strongly believe that companies like Airbnb, Google and YouTube have all at different levels created the ideal millennial workplaces. Today’s workplaces no longer revolve around repetitive routines or processes, but something more variable and I hope to take this learning and apply it to optimize environments within education institutions to foster innovation.

#Hiremoredesigners #Designfortrust

“Compliance does not foster innovation, trust does. You can’t sustain long-term innovation, for example, in a climate of distrust.”

— Stephen R. Covey

Mohammad Jawad

Friendships

The Silicon Valley trip changed my perception on friendships. I used to think friendships take time to develop. To become great friends with people that were strangers just one week ago, these people that are each inspiring in their own way.

“Silicon Valley isn’t about the tech, it’s about the people”

People in the Valley live the “innovation mindset”, A mindset that instills constant learning and the acceptance of mistakes. I feel one aspect that plays a major role in cultivating and maintaining this mindset is the people. People that you surround yourself with will always be the biggest influences in your life. Imagine being a visionary surrounded by nothing but pessimistic people, the potential you possess will never be realized. The land of opportunity is what it is because of the people, creating ideas and opportunities. These people that want to help not just in the valley but back home and because they posses this way of thinking, opportunities appear everywhere.

I have an amazing example of the ideal friendship at the trip. Two people that one would think are polar opposites of one another. One likes to live in the moment and take life as it is while the other would plan and list and organize so that they don’t leave their lives to chance and get stuff done. I took the names out on purpose (You already know) so that you can put yourself in the example. The reason why this friendship stuck with me so much is not because of its difference but because of how complimentary it is. A coin with its two sides, the yin and yang that would be unbalanced without its counterpart. The point is to surround yourself with people that not only help you now but help you in your growth.

Finally, to truly bring the innovation mindset to Qatar we not only need to indulge in learning and accepting the mistakes of ourselves but others as well. I am grateful to all the friends I made for not only believing in themselves and their potential but helping me in believing mine.

Zaid Mughal

Take What You Can

Something that stuck with me throughout the trip was at the night that the official program was begun and its a quote from Myassar.

“No doesn’t have to mean no”

To me this was able to capture the essence of what this trip was all about, how we should not just dream and instead grasp every opportunity that takes us closer to our goals. In a way Myassar told us that if you truly want something there is nothing that can stop you. It made me think how everyone I met on this trip had one thing in common. Perseverance, from the amazing individual life journeys of some of the most inspiring people I have ever met at Hikayatna to the individual stories of all the friends I made, I discovered that the only reason that these people are where they are today is because of their perseverance. Their internal drive to not only dream but to achieve.

We spend our lives waiting for the “right” moment but fail to realize that the only true moment is now and how we choose to spend it. Do we sit around and let it pass us by until we’re too old to function? Or do we stand on our feet and chase after our dreams. We should not be concerned about the “oops” but the “what ifs”. A man like Mr. Belkasim that grew up in the humble and simple life in the Sahara Desert could’ve easily spent the rest of his life there, instead he chose to be a man with a thousand patents under his name, or a man like Mr. Sharif who could’ve easily given up after his 6th failed attempt at a startup. Or a woman like Ms. Myassar who could’ve abandoned her ambitions from the constant disregard and contempt. But every single one of them chose to be different, they did not stay idle, they continued.

You don’t have to be smart, rich or any kind of perfect to make you mark all you need to remember is No doesn’t have to mean no.

Zaid Mughal

Sports and Technology

In preparation for the 2022 world cup, Qatar is investing heavily sports, specifically advanced smart technologies with return on individuals’ lifestyle, athletes and the fans. Last year I visited QITCOM and saw many companies that talked about their plans for 2022 world cup, and I thought what they were planning to do was crazy and impossible for Qatar to achieve within the short period that we have. However, walking around Levi’s stadium I started to envision everything and started to realize the reality of it. I started to see the role that data plays in creating a unique customer experience for the attendees as well as a way to monazite this experience for businesses.

Another visit that was very interesting is the Stanford University visit where we had the opportunity to visit the sports startup showcase exhibition and attend a session on Football from a technology perspective.

At the startup showcase exhibition we got to see how smart technologies, augmented and virtual realities are changing the sports industry. An interesting showcase was the smart bat. This business was specifically very interesting because it combined many technologies and served a great purpose. The idea is to have a smart bat and a virtual reality immersive experience where the user/player can play against the biggest players in baseball. This tool can measure the accuracy and strength of the shot and therefore be used for training as well as identifying young talents.

Another idea was using deep learning to analyze games. I later realized in the session that we attended that this idea was actually very important since it will help in saving a lot of money. Money saving comes from replacing the current game/coach analysts that each team employ. I was shocked when they mentioned that they had more than 300 game/coach analysts that keeps watching and rewinding the games just to understand the strength, weakness, fitness and performance of each and every player. Having such tool helps them move from operating in the dark to making better decisions, planning and evaluations. Having a computer do that is actually much more accurate, fast and less costly.

These visits were specifically very interesting and I learned a lot from them in terms of the future role that artificial intelligence plays in shaping and changing our lives. It also gave me an idea on the future of sports and the sports industry in general, which is something that I knew nothing about. It made me realize that technology is moving really fast and made me glad and appreciative of the efforts that Qatar is putting coping with such fast-paced changes.

- Noora

#qstpsvtrip2018 #qstpsiliconvalley2018 #silicon valley #qstp #siliconvalley #svtrip2018

Giving BACK: The Silicon Valley Culture

The phrase “Silicon Valley culture” was one that I heard all the time but never understood its uniqueness. Through this trip I was fortunate and blessed to discover such an incredibly giving culture. Everyone we met in this trip was eager to share with us as much of his experience, knowledge and advise as possible. One phrase that got stuck in my head was “just give back.”

In this trip we met many successful incredible people. One of the people we met who is truly an incredible, down to earth, and literally intelligent was Mr. Belgacem Haba. Mr. Belgacem is an Algerian/Arab inventor who took the time to teach us, sit with us, and talk to us about his unbelievable journey. From spending 13 years of his life in the Sahara desert with no electricity to being an inventor with more than 1300 patents under his name some of which were enabling to most breakthrough technologies used Today. His incredible story was so inspiring and made me realize how blessed we are today to have such an incredible education and support here in Qatar.

Another person who I really admired his giving back was Mr Bassel who opened a University in Syria hosting more than 4500 students.

Also the time, advise and inspiring stories that all the panel members shared with us were priceless. This was such a great day where we met Mr Shareef, Mr Naji, Mr Iyad who took us through their roller coaster life journey and taught us that nothing comes easy we just have to keep trying and follow our dreams. They all gave us really useful career, entrepreneurship, self-identity and discovery advice, and attitudes that we should embrace to become successful in our life.

I really appreciate the time, information, tips and advice that they gave. I also admired their determination to get to where they are today despite all the political obstacles in their journey.

Also, despite their current position today, all of these incredible people made a huge impact by giving back and made me realize that giving back is actually an integral part to the Silicon Valley culture that we need to adapt and embrace here in Qatar.

-Noora

Women in Tech and Engineering

Gender discrimination in work place was something that I heard about but never believed it existed until I started my job as a recruiter. I work for an engineering company where in every meeting I hear line managers say “please no females.”

I have always had passion for technology and always wanted a role in IT. However, the opportunity for me as a woman was very limited until I met all the amazing women in this trip. In this trip, I learned that reaching your goal and aspiration and proving yourself in the technology and engineering field is not easy but definitely possible.

After hearing the stories of all the women form Meyyaser being the only woman in the board of Tech Wadi and the way she was treated but withheld, fought and proved herself. Marwa the engineer who defeated the odds and overcame the cultural and gender discrimination barriers. The founders of Augmenia and their journey from Egypt to their startup in silicon valley being one of the 2% total females to be granted a VC. Zainab being a Hijabi Arab woman and her unbelievable career journey from Lebanon to Apple.

All of those women affected me deeply and made me realize that opportunities exist we just need to be determined enough to fight for what we believe in and pursue our dreams to turn them to reality.

-Noora

Being Humble

So the people we met in San Fransisco were freaking amazing! There was someone with around 1300 patents in his name and there were many others with senior positions and I would believe if someone told me they were millionaires or at least somewhere close.

So imagine this, if someone told you that an Arab guy moved to the United States, started a business and become wealthy. What kind of personality would you expect from him/her? Rude, arrogant, full of him/herself.

The arabs we met there were extremely humble and down to earth and were willing to share their stories, hardships and extremely personal stories and they are all volunteering to do this. Its not like QSTP is paying them, they want to give back and help us reach where they are and more even though they have full time jobs and have families

They were literally upset if they didn't have time to talk to us after the panel or workshop and they ask Muyesser to apologize to us , they shared with us their emails and linkedin profiles and answered all my questions I sent through email.

So what I am saying is that, when you make it and become successful, know that you didn't become successful by yourself someone out there helped you in one way or another. Either you received advice, tips or you were connected to someone who could help. When you have the chance to help someone out don't be rude, be humble can help that person out. You will feel great afterwards.

Ahmed Abdulmalik

Learn from EVERYONE

I believe that most us on this trip believed that we would only learn from the investors and the entrepreneurs we will meet in Silicon Valley. But there is one other group of people I learned a lot from and those people are my fellow participants and chaperons which I have the privilege to call my friends.

I connected with people of different ages, cultures and disciplines. Listening to how and why they applied to this trip was fascinating. I initially thought this trip was for people who wanted to start there own businesses but I was wrong. This trip is for people who what to innovate in their respective fields, whether its business, engineering, journalism or medicine. Listening to their ambitions was really inspiring and interesting cause these people are basically where I am now and they have the same opportunities as I do and listening to what they plan to do with the opportunities they have has really changed my mindset.

These people have been through a rigorous screening processes and they are the best Doha has to offer. Making a connection with them benefits everyone. Its been almost a month since San Francisco and some of us still meet and discuss of how can we help each other reach our ambitions and if they could connect us to someone who shares our ambition.

Remember it takes six steps to connect to anyone in this world!

(Six Degrees of Separation )--> Google it :D

Ahmed Abdulmalik

I'm not better than anyone, but no one's like me.

"Leaving San Francisco is like saying goodbye to an old sweetheart. You want to linger as long as possible." — Walter Cronkite

The unforgettable moments, inspiring people, future entrepreneurs, humble souls, determined individuals and hungry spirits to learn more each and every day, this is how I will always remember the beautiful San Francisco.

Growing up in San Francisco must have a great influence on people as you can see the great diversity whether on specialties, expertise, nationalities and beliefs. You can feel the spirit of humbleness as people there sit down together and share their thoughts and ideas; I never felt how networking was that important is important and not only that, the power of listening to other person and paying attention to them, making a connection with him, that is indeed the best way to feel connected to others.

What I really found great the most in the Silicon Valley is how women in tech can shine and show up their strengths. We had the pleasure to meet with some of the aspiring women; Rania (with her daughter Hania), the founder of Augmania, which is an AR company to create tailored experiences to customers. Kim from Youtube, the sweetest engineer who gave us some details on how things work on you Youtube and how she got there. Finally, Zainab, the strong civil engineer who digged her way through to Apple. I can never forget what she said at the end of her talk:

“I’m not better than anyone, but no one’s like me”..

That I should say the most important lesson I learned from that trip. You can be whoever you are, you can be wherever you want to be, you can share your ideas no matter how silly you think they are; you never knownl, someone else might have the same thoughts and together, in the right time and at the right place; you can definitely make it come into reality. I also learned that whenever you meet someone new you would learn something, no matter how tiny that thing is. I should also mention I learned a lot from the amazing students whom I met at this trip, some of those became good friends of mine. Not only the students, but also the cool photographers, Khalid and Yahia, they were truly inspiring.

This whole trip was to have the innovation mindset, which now I can feel and appreciate every day. This wouldn’t have been accomplished with the great QSTP team and their amazing partners Myassar and Omar at the Silicon Valley. Again, you guys Rock.

Love,

HA♡

It is all about the people

Be it in a startup or a study trip, it is clearly the people who determines the success. I had the privilege to travel with 30 enthusiastic and smart students from Qatar last week, in the QSTP annual Innovation Mindset Trip, with the goal of widening perspectives and to instill the confidence and mindset required to venture into entrepreneurship, be it now or later, be it in a startup or within a larger organization.

For me, it was a great learning experience, despite having some humble experiences within the area of innovation and entrepreneurship during most of my professional life. The first key learning that was reinforced is that it is all about the people. It is pretty obvious in Sweden, in Qatar and in Silicon Valley that it is people who are the key ingredient. People who are passionate, skilled and with ample amount of time and willingness to make economical short-term sacrifices that are, by and large, able to produce the companies we all know and use. For an ecosystem to suceed, this translates to the ability to attract and retain key people with the right incentives, which is why educated emigrants represents a disproportional amount of these startup founders. Case in point, the Asian community in San Francisco have tripled the past 50 years, and its presence is sensed everywhere including finding Chinese newspapers on the streets and general signs in Chinese. In addition, we met many people from the Arab community in Silicon Valley, which speaks not only to the vast personal network of Muyesser, our wonderful program partner, but also that every possible community is represented in the bay area, which I personally found very encouraging.

The follow-up question to this observation is why does people flock to Silicon Valley specifically? Without being able to back it up with data, I am leaning towards an environment that is famous for being open and welcoming, but also the reputation of being one of few areas where a startup has better chance of success. The later claim is actually backed up by data, according to a recent publication by MIT, the chances of equity growth is 4X moving to Silicon Valley, which is a massive higher chance of success given that odds are stacked against all startups at inception. https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/0e8650_412b9d15a78947c0aa4b09b6a6f826fe.pdf

So, while contemplating on moving west, let’s also acknowledge the fact that increasingly, regional Silicon Valley’s have been shooting up around the world able to increase the chances of startup success; Boston, Stockholm, Shanghai, Berlin, London and soon Doha. Everything is possible in this increasingly global movement.

No blog post is complete without a huge thanks to my colleagues at QSTP, Muyesser and Omar who managed this trip masterfully, and of course all the students that chose to participate . A huge thank you.

Pontus

San Francisco has only one drawback: It is hard to leave. The trip is extremely effective and fun at the same time. Here is the glimpse of it in V log. Bisma Munawar

You don't have to leave any part of your identity at home

California is a magical place and Sillicon Valley feels like a slice of heaven. This trip was one of the best trips I have had in my lifetime. San Francisco seemed like a perfect fast paced city which celebrates a lot of diversity. And when I say diversity, I mean all kinds of diversity. In San Francisco, anyone can be who ever they choose to be and I was there in the midst of the city, a girl with Pakistani nationality with traces of middle east in her, with little eyes filled with big ambitions and dreams. I stood underneath the skyscrapers with my head held high trying to fathom in all the great knowledge I was learning every day in my trip.

Needless, I learnt a lot of new and great concepts, ideas, tips. In this blog post, I will mostly focus on the new concepts I learnt about company and office culture by visiting one of the biggest companies in the world. I will specifically focus on 500 Startups, Google and Airbnb. The first day when we went to 500 Startups, we were surrounded by the startup spirit and I learnt very important and new ideas from Mr. Shariff, partner at 500 Startups. He introduced us to the idea of finding the best job ever after graduation and to stabilize our resume so in case our startup fails, we would still have potential and experience to get a job within short time. He emphasized on the importance of gaining job experience and making our CV stronger so when we dive in the risk of being an entrepreneur, we do not put everything on line. He also shared with us the importance of working in the middle management of startups and how efficient it could be when you learn and grow so much without putting so much on the line as a founder.

Talking about Google and Airbnb, I really admired their company culture. It was very open so employees can share ideas with each other openly. Most importantly, I absolutely loved the colors incorporated in the infrastructure and the furniture of the offices. It felt very alive and very bright to walk in there, I felt it was a commendable environment to be working at. Given that, it is my dream to work at Google, so I am slightly biased. At Google, I learnt a very important point. Rayman, who was our host, talked that how at Google, you do not have to leave part of your identity at home, you can be whoever you are at Google.

As a wrap up of this blog post, I would mention that one of the fascinating part of Silicon Valley and California is that yo can be whoever you choose to be and want to be. Most importantly, you do not have to leave any part of your identity at home.

Bisma Munawar

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2018 QSTP Silicon Valley Innovation Mindset Tour