It really is a small world!

As I boarded the shuttle bus at Sharm el Sheikh airport I realized the truth of this statement right away. There was a lady in the shuttle whom I said hello to – Salam Yamout who is a Program Manager at Cisco in Lebanon and also part of an organization called Partnership for Lebanon.

As we chatted and she told me what a crazy day she had had before she left home that morning, I told her about my day and the MITEFP BAP program, I mentioned that Ken Morse had presented the Keynote, she said “Oh do you know Ken? He has been working in Lebanon as well.” Apparently Partnership for Lebanon runs a Business Plan Competition for the whole of the Middle East that attracts over 1000 business plans – and Ken Morse is very much the driver of that initiative.

Salam Yamout said “Ken is very good, isn’t he, but he is expensive”.

I told her about the BAP program and she was really very interested. She said that it was a program that was needed in Lebanon too. She said she would speak to people in Lebanon about it and may talk to Ken about trying and starting it there.

This reminded me of some of the gems that Ken had come up with during his keynote at BAP which I thought I would share here:

• Definition of innovation is invention + commercialisation to achieve global domination.
• Teaming up of an inventor and entrepreneur is essential for innovation
• CFIMITM – cash flow is more important than your mother
• Message to engineers: sales people are not lower life forms
• Women are better, more effective, more reliable and do what they say they will do
• Projections are usually the result of hallucination drugs
• An A team with an A idea is more likely to succeed than a brilliant business plan
• Smart boys fishing in the right pond are what VCs are looking for