Entrepreneurship and innovation are everywhere, in every country, across all people, around the globe. During my time working with Boomtown Accelerators on finding, selecting, and supporting seed-stage entrepreneurs, I’ve had the opportunity to get involved with innovation around the world – interviewing founders who have applied for a Boomtown program, discussing emerging technology and investment ideas with my team and our partners, attending and speaking at conferences, and immersing myself in innovation, technology, investment, and entrepreneurship every day.
Description
This project is a 4-year long blogging project covering innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship in every country on earth. I’ll leverage my experience and insight, as well as my excitement to uncover and catalog the most interesting innovators, coolest innovations, and centers of innovation around the globe.
- I’ll be writing an individual article on each country in the world, sticking to a general format for each article.
- Countries will be published alphabetically, once per week on my blog at JeffreyDonenfeld.com.
- I’ll use the list of UN Member States as of 2020-05-12. I’ll also include non-member permanent observer states Holy See and Palestine. That’s 193+2=195 articles.
- It’s likely that I’ll be covering countries by region, rather than alphabetically. This will allow me to really immerse myself in one region at a time, and ideally pick up on some regional trends along the way.
- In addition to publishing an article, I’ll also make a best effort to get in touch with the parties discussed and referenced in the article.
It’s also worth noting that this project will be mostly focused on innovation by startups and entrepreneurs, and will be heavily subject to my own personal interests and whims. Evaluating and ranking global innovation and innovators is nothing new, and there are a number of prominent indexes from large organizations that exist. These include the Bloomberg Innovation Index, the International Innovation Index (put out by The Boston Consulting Group and the National Association of Manufacturers), and the Global Innovation Index published in installments by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The key differentiator here is that my focus will be mostly on smaller businesses, early-stage entrepreneurs, and emerging fields. I won’t be looking at entire economies, large, established corporations, or broad sectors.
Objectives and Key Results
- Objective: Gain an in-depth understanding of the breadth and scope of innovation and entrepreneurship around the world. This objective will be first satisfied by the production of each article, and furthered by my pursuit to achieve objective #2, since connecting myself with the people I write about will inherently tie back to this first objective.
Key Result: 197 Articles published – 1 intro (this post), 195 main articles, 1 wrapup. - Objective: Connect me personally with interesting people and organizations around the world and forge new relationships, embark on new adventures.
Key Result: 1 person per article located in the country the article is about reached out to about the publishing of my article (this is in addition to anybody I need to contact while researching for the actual article) - Objective: Explore career and life pathways, and keep me vigilant in exploring the world, trying new things, and always pushing ahead on pursuits.
Key Result: Publish a final wrapup article that includes a section on how this project has affected my life in general, which new pathways I uncovered, including which ones I chose to follow and not follow.
Background
I think of this snippet of President Kennedy’s 1962 Moon Speech when considering projects and motivation, and I’d like to think that this sentiment continues in me with this project. “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
I want to stay sharp, interested in my world, and constantly pushing things forward. In the past, I’ve used both external projects and well as blog projects to focus and unite my skills and interest, as a way of constantly staying interested in the world around me.
Back in 2008, I made the big decision that I wanted to live in Antarctica – a lofty goal that I had no idea how to achieve – but I decided to make it happen no matter what. That goal turned out to be a great unifier of my skills and interest and focused my time on something I was passionate about. During the years I was pursuing my dreams to go to Antarctica, I became deliberate with how I spent my time – both in working at my job at Morpheus Media, my personal life, free time, and time spent working on my Antarctica project – it was great. In parallel with Antarctica, I also decided to pursue a blogging project whereby I would publish a blog post every day for a year – on any topic, of any length. This was also a great focuser, and kept me on track with staying interested in what was around me, and provided additional focus to stay on the Antarctica project.
This global innovation blogging projet is my next grand focus project, which will hopefully lead to and couple with many future adventures, and possibly even new life pathways.
Standardized Article Outline
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Intro
The name of the country the article is about, including a small map.
Introduction to the country in general – where it is, what language the people speak, etc.
Introduction to their recent history, and key factors that have added or subtracted from innovation productivity in recent years.
Thoughts on why this country is interesting. Th
Key Innovators
Notable people, organizations, and groups who are driving innovation, supporting innovation, or innovating themselves.
Key Innovations
Something interesting that has come from this country, been developed inside it, or other items of interest in the theme of this article.
The Hotspot
The place in this country where the most innovation is happening. Or multiple hotspots?
SWOT
-Considerations on the state of the country, potential, detractors, and other factors to consider – both from a founder’s perspective, as well as an investor’s perspective.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Upcoming Events
Relevant events happening in this country that may be of interest – as indicators of progress, state of affairs, or future attendance.
Countries
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas (the)
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cabo Verde
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Central African Republic (the)
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros (the)
Congo (the)
Costa Rica
Côte d’Ivoire
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czechia
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the)
Democratic Republic of the Congo (the)
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic (the)
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Gabon
Gambia (the)
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao People’s Democratic Republic (the)
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands (the)
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia (Federated States of)
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands (the)
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger (the)
Nigeria
North Macedonia
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines (the)
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Republic of Korea (the)
Republic of Moldova (the)
Romania
Russian Federation (the)
Rwanda
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan (the)
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syrian Arab Republic (the)
Tajikistan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates (the)
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)
United Republic of Tanzania (the)
United States of America (the)
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Viet Nam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Holy See (the) *
State of Palestine (the) *