Creating Smart Cities and Replicating Silicon Valley

He suggests that the innovation and success of California's Silicon Valley could easily be replicated in other cities or regions.

"There can be many Silicon Valleys. It is absolutely a reproducible model; it's not something in the water. You know, the history starts in the '50s. What basically happened in Silicon Valley is that you had strong research universities, a relatively liberal and creative culture, lots of reasons for young people to stay in the area -- and young people are the ones with the new ideas. Then you had the development of the venture capital industry.

What's interesting is that every 10 years someone writes an article about how Silicon Valley was responsible for the last innovation wave, but it will miss the next wave. Yet Silicon Valley has now been at the forefront of four or five successive tech waves and has proved itself remarkably resilient because of the combination of the universities, the culture, the climate, the capital. My point is that if you have all of those elements, you can have your own Silicon Valley wherever you want."