CKGSB hosted an online workshop on April 3, 2024, featuring a distinguished panel of experts from academia and the business sector. The event, which attracted a worldwide audience, spotlighted CKGSB’s innovative Global Unicorn Programs and its critical role in helping founders and leadership teams to scale their ventures and make positive societal impact through technology and social innovation.
Dr. Xiang Bing, CKGSB’s Founding Dean and the chief architect of the Global Unicorn Programs, explained that CKGSB is the first school globally to offer unicorn-specific programs since 2015. With the aim of building a global ecosystem for the next generation of unicorns with a focus on global responsibility, social purpose and long-term perspective, CKGSB has been partnering with top institutions such as Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, Stanford, Columbia, UC San Diego, Johns Hopkins, and SDA Bocconi, to offer Global Unicorn Programs across the world.
During the workshop, Dr. Hau L. Lee, Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business, underscored the significance of leveraging ecosystems for companies seeking to innovate and scale. Highlighting examples from major tech players like Microsoft and Boeing, Professor Lee pointed out how strategic collaborations across the value chain could expedite innovation and enhance scalability for startups aiming for unicorn status.“We’re thinking about moving innovations beyond a single company. Companies should not rely solely on themselves, because the power of having a whole value chain can help you accelerate and scale more effectively,” he explained.
—Dr. Hau L. Lee, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Marek Stawinski, CEO and Founder of NaviParking, as well as a former participant of CKGSB’s Global Unicorn Program in Dubai in 2023, shared his journey of scaling his smart parking solutions company. He attributed his company’s growth to strategic partnerships and embracing digital ecosystems. “It’s about collaboration and innovation through exchanging data and standardizing APIs,” Stawinski remarked, highlighting his company’s integration with KETOP’s technology to digitalize parking solutions.
The webinar concluded with an engaging Q&A session, addressing key inquiries about the upcoming unicorn programs and the challenges faced by startups in scaling their operations.
CKGSB is set to launch Frontiers in Digital Innovation: AI, Future of Tech and Data Science in collaboration with Columbia Engineering in New York on May 20. On May 22, CKGSB will partner with ESCP Business School to offer the Global Unicorn Program: Future Tech in Paris. Numerous other Global Unicorn Programs are scheduled to take place throughout 2024 at Stanford and UC San Diego among other locations.
