I had the opportunity to accept an invitation to attend the 2013 Abu Dhabi Media Summit. Speakers from Dean Kamen and Tim Berners-Lee to Dan Señor and Andy Bird highlighted the event. The  Summit is “an unprecedented gathering of the people and companies driving the transition to a fully networked new world. The three-day event features a unique combination of high-profile public sessions, closed-door discussions and private conversations, bringing together top-tier global media players and their emerging-market counterparts”. Targeted sectors included mobile, broadband, traditional television, print, entertainment, news, music, advertising; marketing, venture capital; and equity finance, with special emphasis on the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, East Asia and China.

Here is the video of Dan Senor discussing innovation in Israel, why it has become a hotbed of tech startups and entrepreneurship, and how Israelis and Arabs might collaborate. His book START-UP NATION addresses “the trillion dollar question: How is it that Israel – a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources—produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful,and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? How is it that Israel has, per person, attracted over twice as much venture capital investment as the US and thirty times more than Europe?”

Buy his book on Amazon here. And what a wonderful experience to have a Jewish, pro-Israel Republican foreign policy advisor and author talk to a mostly Arab audience be so well received, with so many provocative and respectful questions.