Every day, about 4.5 million people travel by air globally. What if all those passengers and all that travel time was used to explore and solve international innovation challenges?
That’s the idea behind British Airways UnGrounded flight,the first Innovation Lab in the Sky, and our co-founder, Paul Gu has been hand-selected to participate. On a flight from San Francisco to London, the group— comprised of forward-thinking founders, CEOs, VCs, and innovative thinkers— will brainstorm through the night on new ways to tackle four critical challenges: meeting U.S. demand for STEM jobs, growing STEM in emerging economies, fostering women in STEM, and expanding STEM in education. Upon landing, the ideas and solutions developed on the flight will be received by the United Nations International Telecommunications Union at the Decide Now Act Summit.
Traveling thousands of miles, looking at the world through the perspective of an airplane window is a symbolic and exciting environment to collaborate and conceptualize new and disruptive approaches to address the global misalignment of talent. As we pioneer new possibilities for crowdfunding, we are excited to see British Airways re-imaging the possibilities of flight time.
Can a single transatlantic flight help change the world? Can Upstart help in the creation of a million new businesses in the U.S. over the next decade? Time will tell, but the only way truly great and innovative things happen is when we are brave enough to set forth ambitious goals in unchartered territory.
One thing’s for sure, this group would definitely pass the “airport test”.