The Foreign Service Journal, June 2013

58 JUNE 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS Unreasonable Continued from page 54 The Dean Acheson Audito- rium was full. “Unreasonable@State was a convening of global startups, policymakers, investors and development practitioners who explored how entrepreneurship and design-thinking can be leveraged to solve pressing global challenges. The main event showcased technol- ogy startups with innova- tive development solutions; highlighted the State Depart- ment’s efforts to support entrepreneurs; and offered insights from Unreasonable at Sea’s global experiment as a startup accelerator having sailed over 25,000 nautical miles and into 13 countries. Workshops on the second day allowed the diverse group of global influencers to further explore challenges to reach scale and to rethink the future of diplomacy, educa- tion, healthcare, capital mar- kets, poverty and the planet.” (source: www.state.gov) The young entrepreneurs who presented had just returned from a voyage on Semester at Sea, bringing Daniel Epstein, founder and driving force behind all things unreasonable, full circle. Reflecting on the voyage, Epstein said, “We welcomed 20 mentors to sail with us for stints as long as a month— from the Prince of Saudi Arabia, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the founder of Word- Press and Time magazine Heroes. We collaborated with executives from some of the largest multinationals on earth, including Microsoft’s Innovation Studios and the innovations team at SAP (a multinational corporation that makes enterprise soft- ware). And most notably for me, we set sail with a mix of more than 630 undergradu- ate students from over 250 universities.” The Unreasonable Insti- tute’s mission statement: We exist today to support and accelerate the growth of the world’s most unreason- able tech-entrepreneurs (i.e., those hellbent on solving the hardest problem-sets of the 21st century and who will settle for nothing less than global scale). Sounds pretty reasonable to me. n For more information, see unreasonableinstitute.org, semesteratsea.org and unrea- sonable@state.gov W eb sites.