Announcing the 2015 GSV Pioneer Summit, October 7–9, 2015

A Global Gathering in Silicon Valley at GSVlabs

6 min readJun 9, 2015

Interested in speaking or presenting your company? Get in touch: pioneer@gsvlabs.com

GSV stands for Global Silicon Valley. We are a family of companies that invest in, accelerate, and advise entrepreneurs who are working to make an important contribution to the world.

GSVlabs is an entrepreneurial community of 100+ companies centered around a physical campus in the heart of Silicon Valley. Through its programs and events, GSVlabs serves as a global crossroads for startups, talented individuals and corporate partners.

GSVlabs is a portfolio company of GSV Capital and part of the broader GSV family of companies. Since its creation in 2011, GSV Capital has invested in the growth of Facebook, Palantir, Twitter, Lyft, Coursera, Spotify, Dropbox and other companies transforming industries and societies.

This year GSVlabs is hosting the GSV Pioneer Summit to focus more broadly on a wider range of digital technologies.

The Global Silicon Valley Pioneer Summit is a global gathering of game-changing entrepreneurs, corporations and investors.

At GSVlabs, we have hosted events featuring technology leaders including Bill Campbell, Donna Dubinsky, Aileen Lee, and Peter Thiel. In addition to celebrating the Pioneers & Mavericks who move our world, we aim to find and foster the rising stars of tomorrow at our summits and events.

The GSV Pioneer Summit aims to accelerate and scale transformative companies.

We aim to gather a global community of the entrepreneurs working on tough challenges, shaking up existing industry or creating new industries and connecting them with leading growth investors and global corporations who can help scale their efforts.

We don’t want to build technology just for our amusement. We want to use it to tackle the wicked challenges facing the world.

Companies presenting at the GSV Pioneer Summit are working on bold creations in areas including resource sustainability, knowledge and education innovation, machine learning and artificial intelligence, connected devices, virtual reality, financial technology, robotics, digital health and moonshot ideas including space exploration, nuclear energy, and more to solve global challenges.

We are a different kind of Summit.

Our goal extends beyond just building a great technology conference. We aim to form a strong tribe of technology leaders who share our purpose. Participants at the Pioneer Summit will have the opportunity to connect and cultivate relationships with this community of leading doers throughout the year for the support, collaboration, and inspiration to achieve their goals.

What sets us apart.

1. Transformative.

Silicon Valley has been criticized for making inconsequential apps to the point that it has become the subject of a satirical show on HBO. But we believe that narrative glosses over the genuine inventive work done by entrepreneurs. Our purpose is to accentuate the most ambitious people in the Global Silicon Valley who wake up everyday to work on solving serious problems that could indeed change the world. The GSV Pioneer Summit brings together scalable, high growth companies that we believe can transform industries and societies.

2. Global

Most Silicon Valley events focus primarily on Silicon Valley. In effect, our local community reinforces the notion of a cultural and idealogical “bubble”. Through the GSV Pioneer Summit we aim to build the most globally-minded event in Silicon Valley by actively inviting companies and leaders from around the world.

3. Inclusive

The GSV Pioneer Summit recognizes the importance of including and supporting a diverse entrepreneurial community. The coming decade of global innovation will be built by founders with a variety of life experiences. By bringing women and minority entrepreneurs together at the Summit for a broader perspective, we can achieve breakthroughs.

Differentiated Programming

Keynotes, Firesides, and Debates: hear engaging discussions from technology pioneers on the issues that will shape the next era of innovation.
20/20 Vision Talks: meet the people building the future. 20/20 Vision Talks are forward looking talks with entrepreneurs and executives leading transformation in industries.
Company Presentations: meet over 100 of the leading high growth companies in the Global Silicon Valley. The average presenting company has raised $5 million of venture capital funding and have moved from idea stage to strong scaling phase.
Immersive Experiences: explore the latest technology firsthand including virtual reality, drones, robotics, and more.
Workshops: experience team building and innovation workshops led by Smallify Rapid Innovation Lab and other partners. Workshops are a fantastic way to meet people and let the best ideas collide to generate new insights.

Our goal is to leverage the best technologies and ideas to make entrepreneurial change in the world and we are very excited to do that this year October 7–9th in the heart of Silicon Valley at GSVlabs.

GSVlabs in Numbers

Select GSV Capital Portfolio Companies

Global Silicon Valley, a vision and an action plan.

To us, the idea of Global Silicon Valley is both a vision of the near future and an action plan to achieve it.

The vision is to unleash the global potential of more entrepreneurs, meaning that anyone, no matter where they come from, can create a transformative company through enough work, tenacity and ingenuity. The next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk may come from a country you can’t point out on a map.

The action plan to achieve that is through the GSV Pioneer global community. The Pioneer Summit is the chance for this global community to get together at least once a year to help each other accelerate their respective companies.