Silicon Valley is these days not only the epicenter of exponential technologies, but the place where companies set an outpost to start their own journey to business transformation. 

C-level executives from established companies or start-up founders have something in common: the future of their companies won’t be a linear extrapolation of the past. There are too many potential scenarios, with too much complexity and volatility to deal with. Corporate longevity has become a main issue for CEOs, top executives and founders, as the probability for any company to be disrupted in the upcoming few years is extremely high these days. 

Moonshot Thinking, a mental model based on setting ambitious goals for relevant problems, can be a great tool for companies to address their future challenges. Esade has designed a three-step methodology to give companies a clear roadmap for business transformation: 1) moonshot thinking and unlearning to gain a new perspective of your industry and your business; 2) launching your own moonshot to anticipate change; 3) landing your moonshot in your company to start a relearning process.

The Journey to Business Transformation (next edition Nov.12-16) is the flagship program supported by the moonshot thinking methodology: a 5-day intensive and immersive learning experience in Silicon Valley, in partnership with Singularity University.

According to Ivan Bofarull, academic director of the Journey to Business Transformation, “this is not a program for those looking for an answer; this is a program for those looking for relevant questions and new frameworks to reset their own operating system as a company; those who benefit the most from this learning experience are those who believe that the age of AI is not only about digital transformation but about boldly rethinking your processes, business models and the way your entire organization operates. Moonshot Thinking is an extraordinary tool for this endeavor”.

Along these lines, 15 start-up founders will immerse in the same learning journey in Silicon Valley next July 23-26, in a program exclusively curated for them in partnership with Caixabank and Singularity University. Instead of a journey to business transformation, this will be a journey to scaling up their business. The participants were recognized with The Entrepreneur XXI Awards – given jointly by CaixaBank, through its venture capital arm Caixa Capital Risc, and ENISA – as innovative companies less than three years old with high growth potential.

The winning companies in the five categories were Immunethep (Life Sciences), Genially (Digital Businesses), Sheetgo (Information Technologies), Bound 4 Blue (Industrial Technologies) and Visual (Agricultural-Food Production). The finalists were MJN Neuroserveis and Peptomyc (Life Sciences), Aervio and Indexa Capital (Digital Businesses), Heptasense and Jump TV Solutions (Information Technologies), HydraRedox Iberia and Solatom (Industrial Technologies), and CoolFarm and H2Hydroponics (Agricultural-Food Production).