I am a child of Jules Verne, the "Father of Science Fiction" and his voyages extraordinaires. I loved his bold adventures, his amazingly visionary ideas, his futuristic mechanisms. However, his work is not only an icon of scientific prophecy. It is the elegant way Jules Verne wrote; the romantic, ingenious and always noble characters, the optimism, the enthusiasm of the adventure.
On the other hand, I am a mother.
I watched my girls growing and turning from cheerful babies into young ladies, keeping some core elements of their characters and changing habits and ways of expressions, adding touches of colors on the basic color palette of their attributes; those long, wonderful journeys, progressions that vary from person to person: the very life-journey, the adventure of discovering our own selves, of learning, of experiencing. No matter where we grow up – in a sky-scraper flat in densely populated New York or Hong Kong, or under a jacaranda tree in Kenya, by the sea on an isolated Greek island, or on the Siberian tundra – our journeys stem from our dreams and hopes, our emotions and our discoveries when delving into books, the internet or listening to stories and the wonders of the universe. Physical journeys may or may not happen but our whole life is a fascinating journey!
Inspiration came one summer day; the very first day of our summer holidays on the island of Skopelos.
“Look at the sun!” said Nick, my husband “So wise, the sun! Every day, a new journey among the stars and planets. Indeed! The sun gets wiser every day….”
It was around 6am and the two of us were enjoying the golden sunrise as we sat comfortably drinking our morning coffee on the spacious hotel terrace, which literally hung over the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The cool morning breeze together with the iridescent colors of the sun-light refracting on the sapphire waves had already taken away any mood for sleep. A long conversation started about travelling, about spiritual and imaginative wanderings, emotional journeys and physical adventures.
My daughters, Helen, aged 10, and Stella, 8, were sleeping quietly in their room. A sudden noise made me go there. Helen was curled up like a kitten, holding her favorite book tightly in her arms. Stella, again, had her hands up, in the "I surrender and leave myself in your hands, my God" attitude, and she was smiling.
"They're both so special!" I thought like a proud mother... “And they’ve just started their epic journey through life!”
And that's when the idea entered my head: Four different kids and a challenge.
And another ... challenge... Jules Verne, what are you doing inside my head?
Adventure in an unknown place – for everyone: for both the heroes and the author!
I took Helen's map in my hands (oh, yes! she always carried a world map with her and she has one now in her student house), I closed my eyes and put my index finger on it. I found myself in Indonesia.
"Challenge accepted!!!" I shouted triumphantly and grabbed my laptop. Nick had already dived into the cool, transparent water.
At first, I had literally no idea where the story would go. But then, the Dutch East India Company, the corporate pioneer that has shaped the way modern business is conducted in a global economy, came bounding into it. I think it was due to my professional obsession with entrepreneurship and innovation and the kind of people that become innovators and entrepreneurs: brave, self-assured, open-minded, imaginative, pervasive. Once the Company was there, the Academy and the valuable share certificates were born in my mind and drew the whole story together. And I think it will draw many other stories with my four heroes around the world.
India, later, came to take its place in the story…
Is it nostalgia? It certainly is! A kind of retro-innovation; bringing back the 19th century classics but in an updated way that today’s children, the children that have grown up in a digital world, will love. It is a journey back to the future, a future of innocence in parallel with the digital new world.
A dreamer? Certainly, that is what I am. However, most times, out of dreams the most beautiful things occur. Things that work. Things that count.
