Wandering Forward: A Sabbatical Across Cities, Cultures, and the Future of Technology
In an age where the pace of life is dictated by algorithms and efficiencies, I took a step back—not away from innovation, but toward a deeper understanding of it. Over the past few months, I’ve been on a sabbatical, a sacred pause in a long career immersed in technology law, leadership development, and startup strategy. This wasn’t a break from my work; it was a return to its roots.
My travels took me across some of the most vibrant and varied cities on earth: Valencia, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona, Pamplona, Cadiz, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Riyadh. Each city unfolded like a chapter in a living textbook—one filled with people, language, and innovation—but also quiet moments of reflection that shaped what I now understand about where we’re heading, and what it means to truly be prepared.
The Journey: A Landscape of Language, Culture, and Contrast
Travel has always been one of my greatest teachers. The way a city breathes, how it communicates in the spaces between people, reveals far more than data or diagrams ever could. In Spain, I moved from the ancient walkways of Cadiz—a city kissed by Atlantic winds and layered in millennia of history—to the modern pulse of Barcelona, where architecture, art, and activism collide in dynamic balance. Pamplona surprised me—not just with the echoes of tradition like the Running of the Bulls, but with its progressive urban planning and civic pride.
Madrid felt like a cultural axis, a place where politics, art, and urban innovation meet. Seville and Valencia, each in their own way, embodied how historical cities can adapt smart technology without losing their soul. Then came the Middle East—Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh—where the vision for the future isn’t speculative, it’s in motion. These cities are building toward what many call "tomorrow," with smart infrastructure, AI integration, sustainability investments, and perhaps most importantly, bold ambition.
Technology: A Mirror and a Magnet
While the initial goal of this journey was personal, my professional lens was never far behind. I paid attention to how technology was being adopted—not just in grand masterplans or flashy headlines—but in the daily interactions of people. What I saw was both expected and surprising.
Technology is everywhere, yes. But it is not everything.
Across cultures and continents, people are seeking convenience, but even more urgently, they are seeking connection. When technology fails to meet that emotional or communal need, we search elsewhere. I noticed an uptick in human-centric experiences: local marathons, art festivals, neighborhood excursions, book clubs, craft fairs. Cities, even the hyper-connected ones, are seeing a rise in analog joy—places where people gather not to scroll, but to speak.
There is a silent rebellion happening—not against tech itself, but against the hollow use of it. This sabbatical helped me realize that the true goal of smart technology is not to make humans obsolete. It is to make them more human.
The Heartbeat of Smart Cities
My passion has long centered on the idea of smart cities—urban ecosystems that integrate data, design, governance, and citizen experience. But my definition of a smart city has evolved. Yes, sensors matter. Infrastructure matters. Real-time data and IoT integration are non-negotiable. But so is accessibility, inclusion, and the psychological health of its inhabitants.
In Valencia, I saw urban gardens powered by community tech platforms that encouraged residents to take part in sustainability efforts. In Dubai, I walked through AI-powered police stations that require no human officers. In Riyadh, I observed vast investments into digitized public services and high-speed connectivity initiatives—laying the foundation for an economy that pivots away from oil and into innovation.
But technology alone doesn't create smarter cities. It creates potential. The true transformation comes when cities use that potential to support meaningful human flourishing—education, safety, health, equity, and empowerment.
Leadership Lessons Along the Way
A sabbatical is often seen as a luxury. I see it now as a necessity—especially for those who advise, lead, and build. In stepping back, I saw forward more clearly. This journey offered invaluable leadership insights:
True innovation is relational, not transactional. The most impactful technologies I witnessed weren’t the flashiest—they were the ones quietly solving local problems with deep understanding of community needs.
Resilience is adaptive. Whether it was an entrepreneur in Seville running a hybrid artisan tech shop, or a civic leader in Abu Dhabi piloting AI-based public health alerts, each person I met who was thriving had one thing in common: the ability to learn fast, listen deeply, and pivot without fear.
Vision requires presence. It’s one thing to predict the future from behind a desk. It’s another to walk through it, city by city, face by face, story by story.
These leadership principles will shape not only my work but how I train and mentor others. Technology without empathy is sterile. Leadership without experience is hollow. And vision without understanding is dangerous.
Where We’re Headed—and How to Prepare
As AI, automation, and virtual platforms reshape our institutions and cities, we must ask: are we designing systems that lift up the human spirit, or isolate it? My sabbatical confirmed what I’ve long suspected—the next revolution won’t just be technological. It will be emotional, social, and relational.
It will be in how well our smart cities remember the soft skills: listening, empathy, adaptability, joy. In how well we preserve cultural nuance even as we automate our transportation. In how thoughtfully we integrate AI into justice, education, and health—fields where dignity must always lead data.
To prepare, we must:
Engage with technology actively, not passively.
Foster global awareness, knowing that innovation looks different in every cultural context.
Build interdisciplinary bridges—between engineers and artists, between lawyers and designers, between governments and grassroots.
And most of all, we must pause from time to time, to walk, to learn, to listen.
In Gratitude and Growth
This sabbatical has changed me. It has deepened my commitment to leadership, to law, to smart innovation—but also to beauty, to language, to presence. I return to my work not with answers, but with better questions.
What kind of world are we building?
What kind of cities do we want to live in?
How do we make technology serve us, not the other way around?
And how do we, even in the most automated systems, never lose sight of each other?
These are the questions I bring home—with dusty shoes, a full heart, and a mind alive with possibility