Innovation

Entrepreneurship is a way of life. For me, entrepreneurship has always been about being a builder. Whether it's about undiscovered artists or working with companies pre-launch, the build process is what attracts me.

Music executive and manager, founder of Meadows and Q&A platform

I'm always searching for that black-swan, what is that project, or who is that artist that feels specials, and feels counter-culture. Who is that artist that feels interesting and has a bold, unapologetic point of view? That's what pulls me in- and you know what, if you find that and put the right strategy around it? You can disrupt culture.

Music executive and manager, founder of Meadows and Q&A platform

To follow your dreams and imagine the unimaginable. Everything man-made that we see and touch on a daily basis has been invented by someone, by an entrepreneur. Life is exciting and you can create your own destiny, just as long as you believe in yourself and step outside of the box.

Founder and Chairman of Graff Diamonds, luxury jeweler and gemstone merchant

We adopted in Portugal a National Strategy for Entrepreneurship: Startup Portugal. A strategy that aims to make Portugal the ideal space to create, test, fail and try again.

Prime Minister of Portugal (2015-2024)

The fear of loss is real because it is based on perceptions of reality. It cannot be wished away by education. The idea that education can reduce resistance to innovation is often informed by the misguided view that people oppose new technologies because of ignorance. This is not the case.

Leading African innovation and development scholar at Harvard Kennedy School

There are no people called entrepreneurs but people perform entrepreneurial functions at different times. Edison performed great entrepreneurial acts. But he was also fierce opponent of innovation when it threatened his business interests.

Leading African innovation and development scholar at Harvard Kennedy School

People really don't oppose new technologies but they question the way they are used so the challenges are more social than they are technological.

Leading African innovation and development scholar at Harvard Kennedy School

With Foursquare, our original app was a good idea but it wasn't a hundred million users good idea. The data behind the app, and what we do with the data? That's our good idea. That's our hundred million dollars in revenue idea.

Co-Founder of Foursquare, Location-Based Social Networking Pioneer

While most people are uncomfortable with change we have a business built on analysing it. Our business takes advantage of challenges and the opportunities they provide.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007

Playing chess, I learned the dramatic effect combining humans and machines. Humans have intuition, can recognise patterns and positions, and machines have brute-force of calculation and memory. By bringing these capabilities together in other walks of life, we can achieve incredible results.

World Chess Champion & Political Activist Against Russian Authoritarianism

Kodak had been living in linear-time, something which is intuitive to most of us, where we think in days, weeks, months, years… The world had already started to shift when people like Steve Jobs started to take-advantage of the fact that you could connect the dots.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

Here was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates- two young guys, under the age of 30, talking about their noble cause of empowering knowledge workers with tools for the mind, making them incredibly productive, and helping them to change the way things were done in our world; creating entirely new industries in the process.

CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

Humans often come together by believing in ideas that may only exist in our imaginations. 50 years ago, talking to somebody on the other side of the world with a device that fits in your hand, walking on the moon, or sending a rocket to Pluto would have been beyond our realities and could only have been possible with magic.

Illusionist & Street Magician Known for Endurance Stunts & Television Specials

We need to change our hearts and minds, not just our behaviours. Forget even the moral argument, discriminating is such a waste. It is from our diverse cultures and communities that we could find the cure for cancer, where we could find all of the solutions for some of our most pressing problems.

British TV Presenter, Diversity Advocate & Commonwealth Games Federation Official

We believe people don't have to fear the innovation age as being victims of it. They can actually embrace it by saying 'okay, I've got to have some additional skill sets I can go back to'.

Mayor of San Francisco (2011-2018) & First Asian-American Mayor

People who are building don't want to simply test their ideas in a microcosm, they want to be successful in the real-world, and San Francisco is an international city with real world connections.

Mayor of San Francisco (2011-2018) & First Asian-American Mayor