Something We Don't Hear in All This Iran News

In case you haven’t heard yet, the U.S. and five other nations reached a historic agreement lifting international market sanctions in exchange for nuclear limits over a decade.

There’s been plenty of analysis of the news already, and the President has hit the interview circuit in defense and the pundits and political opponents have equally come out swinging against it.  But regardless of where you stand, what’s being missed in all the excitement (or despair, depending on where you’re coming from) is one key thing:

The new generation there -- nearly two-thirds of Iranians are under 35 -- is looking at the world through a different, tech-enabled lens.  Pretty much every one has a mobile device and half have smart devices -- super computers on their person.  The ramifications, as I recently wrote in Politico, could not be more profound.

All of this means Iranians have unprecedented access to the world around them. It means they have much of the same knowledge at their fingertips that we do, practically for free. It means that an entirely new demographic is sharing ideas and digitally collaborating with each other. They see nearly everything about the United States and the world, and see economic opportunity and empowerment in part of the world more broadly once dismissed as “third.” They have less fear of centralized authority, of anyone telling them to “wait a generation” to solve problems they see others like them solving right now. They are, thus, aggregating new truths. Not western truths, but their truths, and in their own context.

There is no substitute for hearing those truths in the words of those who live and speak them.

Here are two podcasts hosted by Andreessen Horowitz with some of the new generation of tech and start-up leadership in this complex country:

This conversation with one of the great ecosystem builders there provides a wonderful global context overview:

Mohsen Malayeri is a leading university engineering grad and has hosted dozens of “Startup Weekends” in Iran recently, bringing together hundreds of young people with local investors to pitch and form their innovations at vibrant gatherings on university campuses. Malayeri co-founded Avatech, one of the largest business “accelerators” that offer resources, mentorship, and money to fledgling entrepreneurs—much like Y Combinator or 500 Startups in Silicon Valley, 1776 here in Washington, D.C., or TechStars around the United States.

Avatech, in fact, is one among nearly 100 accelerators and incubators in Iran—31 of which are backed by government to help address infrastructure challenges in agriculture, education, and healthcare. One minister told us that Iran spent $4 billion in tech infrastructure last year alone and plans $25 billion more in the next three. They believe that eHealth will revolutionize care for its citizens by the end of the decade. They expect debit cards to be replaced by mobile payments in the same timeframe as well—an ambition faster than we are seeing happening here in the States.  What he has to say will be familiar, but stunning at the same time.

 Nazanin Daneshvar's story is equally inspirational:

She’s an entrepreneur building Takhfifan, a Groupon-like retail offers site in Iran. Not three years ago, in her mid-twenties, she and her co-founder and sister might have been surprised that their dream would today become 60 people crammed into a larger fourth-floor office. Except that little surprises her. She is accustomed to do what it takes to build.  Over 50% of engineering grads in Iran are women, and many of the startups.  Her journey navigating all the challenges all entrepreneurs navigate, with the unique aspects of being a woman in Iran, will also resonate and surprise.

These are early days of what I believe will be a very new narrative across emerging growth markets we, in the west, rarely consider for all the challenges that co-exist.  But co-exist is the operative word. 

We see and consider the political challenges in the Middle East, Iran, Turkey, Africa, Asia and beyond because they are real.  Equally real is something new happening in these societies bottom up we have all experienced in our own lives.  I cannot tell you what Syria or Egypt or Iran will look like in a year, but have no doubt by the end of the decade two thirds of their populations will have smart devices -- super computers -- in their pockets.  This means that their are tools of problem solving and innovation in the hands of billions we could not have considered even a few short years ago. 

Time to consider how the next five years will be truly different than the last five.

Photo: An Iranian fan uses a mobile phone to record a show by Iranian pop singer Sirvan Khosravi during the 30th Fajr International Music Festival at the Milad Tower in the capital Tehran on February 14, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ATTA KENARE