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MO GAWDAT

Former Chief Business Officer for Google [X], a serial entrepreneur, author of Solve for Happy, and founder of One Billion Happy

Former Chief Business Officer for Google [X]
He has cofounded more than 20 businesses in fields such as health and fitness, food and beverage, and real estate
Through his 12-year research on the topic of happiness, he has created an algorithm to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life
In 2019, Mo co-founded T0day, an ambitious project that aims to reinvent consumerism for the benefit of consumers, retailers and our planet
Solve for Happy is the pillar for a mission Mo has committed to as his personal moonshot, a mission to deliver his happiness message to one billion people around the world
Author of “Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy” (2017) and “Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World” (2021)

Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer for Google [X], a serial entrepreneur, author of Solve for Happy, and founder of One Billion Happy.

Mo has an impressive combined career of 27 years, starting at IBM Egypt as a Systems Engineer before moving to a sales role in the government sector. Venturing in to the UAE, Mo joined NCR Abu Dhabi to cover the non-finance sector. He then became acquainted with the consumer goods industry as Regional Manager of BAT. At Microsoft he assumed various roles over a span of seven and a half years, in his last role at Microsoft he headed the Communications Sector across Emerging Markets worldwide.

Mo joined Google in 2007 to kick-start its business in Emerging Markets. He is fascinated by the role that technology plays in empowering people in emerging communities and has dedicated years of his career towards that passion. Over a period of 6 years, Mo started close to half of Google’s operations worldwide.

In 2013 he moved to Google’s infamous innovation arm, Google [X] where he led the business strategy, planning, sales, business development and partnerships. [X] does not attempt to achieve incremental improvements in the way the world works, but instead, it tries to develop new technologies that will reinvent the way things are and deliver a radical, ten fold—10X—improvement. This leads to seemingly SciFi ideas such as: Project Loon, which aims to use high-altitude balloons to provide affordable internet access to the 5 billion people on every square inch of our planet, Project Makani, aiming to revolutionize wind energy generation using autonomous carbon fiber kites as well as Self driving cars, Google Life Sciences, and many more. The business team under Mo’s leadership has designed innovative business models analogous to the disruptive technologies [X] creates, and has created deep partnerships and global deals that enabled [X] to thrive and build products fit for the real world.

Alongside his career, Mo remained a serial entrepreneur who has cofounded more than 20 businesses in fields such as health and fitness, food and beverage and real estate. He served as a board member in several technology, health and fitness and consumer goods companies as well as several government technology and innovation boards in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He mentors tens of start-ups at any point in time. In 2019, Mo co-founded T0day, an ambitious project that aims to reinvent consumerism for the benefit of consumers, retailers and our planet. In 2020, Mo launched his successful podcast, Slo Mo: A Podcast with Mo Gawdat, in which he conducts interviews that explore the profound questions and obstacles we all face in the pursuit of purpose in our lives.

Mo Gawdat is the author of “Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy” (2017). Through his 12 year research on the topic of happiness, he created an algorithm and a repeatable well engineered model to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. Mo’s happiness model proved highly effective. And, in 2014, was put to the ultimate test when Mo lost his son Ali to preventable medical error during a simple surgical procedure. Solve for Happy is the pillar for a mission Mo has committed to as his personal moonshot, a mission to deliver his happiness message to one billion people around the world (#onebillionhappy).

Mo tailors his talks to a particular audience upon request and is not limited to the topics we have listed below. His priority in delivering talks is, unsurprisingly, to ensure everyone leaves happy!

Happiness
Technology
Innovation
Business
Organizational Health
Public Health
Artificial Intelligence
Men and Women in the Workplace
Resilience & Wellbeing

Finding Silver Linings in the Face of Crisis

We all want to be happy, but life can be hard. What can we do to stay positive and find hope even in the face of loss and adversity? As Chief Business Officer at Google X, Mo developed “moonshot” ideas to help make the world a better place. Following the tragic death of his son Ali, Mo began a mission to help people become happier. At this unique event, Mo will reflect on the challenges facing our world and share his secrets for finding silver linings even in a crisis. Mo has discovered that happiness follows a predictable equation and has distilled this into practical actions which are relevant to all of us.

Video: Finding Silver Linings with Mo Gawdat (Virtual)

Solve for Happy

In this seminal talk, Mo Gawdat aims to offer an Engineering approach to happiness based on his international bestselling book, Solve for Happy. The talk dis-cusses the biggest myth we believe about happiness in the modern world and how to overcome the reasons for unhappiness. It offers a solid model to work with, the 6-7-5 model, and takes the audience through practical actions they can take then and there to start their journey on a path to uninterrupted happiness. At the end of the talk, attendees are left with a much clearer understanding of the steps they need to take in order to find happiness even in the harshest of circumstances; and with a clear call to action to invest in their own happiness and the happiness of those they love.

Video: Solve for Happy at INBOUND 2018

Solve for Happy at Work

In this talk, Mo Gawdat offers solid research on how happiness affects productivity and performance at work, the difference between employee happiness vs. satisfaction, and how managers and HR managers can build an environment that promotes employee happiness based on his international bestseller -Solve for Happy - and his 11 years of experience as a Google executive. At the end of the talk, the attendees will be left with a much clearer understanding of the value employee happiness brings to company performance and the clear steps to take in order to create a work environment that promotes happiness.

Video: Solve for Happy at Work

One Billion Happy: The Future of Technology, AI & Robotics

In his One Billion Happy talk, Mo Gawdat openly discusses – through the lens of a former executive at Google [X] - the current rate of advancement of technology and the expected technological innovation that will follow in the next 10 to 20 years. The talk will openly address the ethical question this impending science fiction-like reality will bring. Mo uses the insight gained from his nearly 30-year career across the world’s major tech companies to offer unexpected yet agreeable solutions to ensure
the continued success (and survival) of humanity in this brand-new world. At the end of this talk the audience will be given a unique, accurate insider’s view of the incredible wave approaching so they may clearly understand the role each of us has to play to ensure our success as it materializes.

Video: One Billion Happy at UNLEASH AMERICA 2018

The Illusion of Control (Solve for Happy)

Control is a pervasive modern-day illusion. Among professionals, it leads to work related stress that blurs our judgment and leads to wrong decision-making in the work environment. It also goes home with us to cause suffering and unhappiness. Mo is a former control freak who learned the hard way the truth about control. In this talk, Mo uses a variety of methods - from a scientific mathematical approach to ancient philosophy – to bust the myths surrounding our concept of control. He clarifies the downsides of our constant attempts to achieve such an elusive target and lays out simple rules to help audiences progress further in life and at work through calculated prioritization, attention allocation, and committed acceptance.

Video: Mo Gawdat | The Illusion of Control | Talks at Google (Virtual)

Innovation at Scale: The Principles of Moonshot Thinking

In this talk aimed at decision makers, innovators and policy makers, Mo openly shares the secrets of Google’s innovation factory, [X], through a look at what worked and changed the world and what needed improvement. With a critical in-sider’s eye, he shares a systematic approach to building an innovation factory that can transcend the restrictive guidelines of any organization. By the end of this talk, Mo leaves the audience with an understanding that the difference between the most and the least innovative organizations is a matter of commitment, mind-set, and process. He clarifies, at a top level, the details of these differences and leaves the audience with the confidence that they too can foster an environment of innovation, along with a call to action to make it happen. Mo accepts only a handful of requests for this talk each year, which he gives exclusively behind closed doors for select groups of executives. His insights have been instrumental in affecting directional change for several major organizations and visionary governments since 2017.

Video: BusinessBoostLive 2017 in Ahoy Rotterdam

Scary Smart:
The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World

'Technology is putting our humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree. This book is not for engineers who write the code or the policy makers who claim they can regulate it. This is a book for you. Because, believe it or not, you are the only one that can fix it.' Mo Gawdat

Artificial intelligence is smarter than humans. It can process information at lightning speed and remain focused on specific tasks without distraction. AI can see into the future, predicting outcomes and even use sensors to see around physical and virtual corners. So why does Intelligence frequently get it so wrong?

The answer is us. Humans design the algorithms that define the way that AI works, and the processed information reflects an imperfect world. Does that mean we are doomed? In Scary Smart, Mo Gawdat, the internationally bestselling author of Solve for Happy, draws on his considerable expertise to answer this question and to show what we can all do now to teach ourselves and our machines how to live better. With more than thirty years' experience working at the cutting-edge of technology and his former role as chief business officer of Google [X], no one is better placed than Mo Gawdat to explain how the Artificial Intelligence of the future works.

By 2049 AI will be a billion times more intelligent than humans. Scary Smart explains how to fix the current trajectory now, to make sure that the AI of the future can preserve our species. This book offers a blueprint, pointing the way to what we can do to safeguard ourselves, those we love and the planet itself.