A sci-fi homage to Catalonia

The rapid pace of technological innovation is increasingly changing the way human beings connect with each other.

A trip this week to Barcelona, Spain’s Mobile World Congress, one of the great annual events to understand the transformations technology is causing in our lives, provided a glimpse of a future which looks uncannily like the utopian and dystopian visions painted by science fiction writers swinging between the extremes of optimism of those behind Star Trek to the pessimism of, say, George Owell’s 1984 (although his Homage to Catalonia was more reportage).

The hope is we can head towards a better place because of technology’s rapid advance, but this is definitely in the balance. We believe corporate venturing should and hopefully will contribute to technology making the world a better place, by providing a link between the world’s most forward-thinking established companies with visionary entrepreneurs.   

On Tuesday night, search engine company Google’s Eric Schmidt gave a thought-provoking speech preaching the power of technological advances to change the world, causing sweeping political and social change. He described how there was a technology gap between the rich and poor, which will only get greater. Yet he added expanding technology access will be "life changing" for those who receive it, even if they will lag the huge technological advancements enjoyed by the most advanced consumers.

He described how consumers would soon be able to go to rock concerts virtually, one of a number of glimpses of the future which Schmidt provided, which were eventually challenged by one audience member as dystopian. Schmidt responded by saying: "You can choose to go to a concert or not. You can turn a phone off if it is bothering you." However, Schmidt then joked he preferred to always leave his phone on. Schmidt’s view was that human beings were more interconnected than ever because of rapidly advancing technology – yet it was unclear how many audience members agreed with him.

One thing is certain, some corporate venturing units are taking these events mapping out the future very seriously. Perhaps most tellingly, the world’s largest corporate venturing unit Intel Capital took 46 portfolio companies to this year’s event in Barcelona in an effort to network them with many of its other large corporate peers in attendance.

Lee Sessions, Intel Capital managing director for portfolio business development, said the entrepreneurs are spending so much time networking, they hardly have any time to eat, grabbing snacks at meetings.

He added Intel Capital has organised six technology days this week where portfolio companies pitch to individual corporate links at the Barcelona conference.

Sessions said: "These technology days are the golden goose for us, a tremendous advantage to help our companies grow. Attending CEOs are raving about the quality of the meetings and the prospects for sales growth.  One of our companies just reported that they now generate 80% of their revenues through these days, and many of the companies here will have a pilot, sale, or  ‘proof of concept’ agreed with a major corporation faster than expected."

He added: "I believe I have the best job at Intel Capital. Our global portfolio business development team organises these days to help entrepreneurs find business and our key corporate customers find emerging technologies to save costs or give them a competitive edge, so it is a win-win for everyone involved."

Others have attended the event for the first time, such as GM Ventures’ Jerneja Loncar, who says she has found a lot of technology which is useful for automotive makers at the event. Loncar said she had been impressed by the level of innovation in the Israeli cluster, while representatives from huge countries like China to small ones like Belgium eagerly marketed their countries’ latest innovations.

Also in Barcelona, Bill Ford, chairman of the eponymous carmaker set up by his family, argued self-automated vehicles could be a means of making cars better for the environment and safer, as he warned if technology did not improve things we could face "global gridlock".

In a happy coincidence in the same week Intel Capital, again, has launched the latest of its specific technology focused funds, this time targeting the connected car – one of the few areas where advanced consumers do not find it so easy to use their smart-phones. This is likely to change rapidly, if Intel is right. Bryan Wolf, managing director responsible for the Intel Capital Connected Car Fund launched last week, said: "This market segment is generally very large and is growing. We believe it is on the cusp of disruption, with all the innovation that is going on… Consumers bring a lot more expectations to the in-car experience than they did ten to 20 years-ago. They are looking for seamless connection to information."

Grappling with this incredibly fast transformation of the world is what corporate venturing units attempt to do. There are many unforeseen, uncomfortable but also miraculous changes likely to happen as technology lurches forward. In an effort to understand how to make this future as good as possible for corporations and consumers.

Global Corporate Venturing will be tackling similar issues at our symposium on May 15. Do let us know your thoughts on what corporate venturing units can do to ensure corporations and society channel technology forward in as positive a way as possible.