Andreas Wil Gerdes, an entrepreneur (world citizen #8), and a passionate father   –   “I know that I don’t know – I love to listen, to ask questions, to learn and to grow.” 

He sold his first business at the age of 20. Working out of a garage, he then successfully built what would become part of Orange PLC. Andreas has been at the forefront of the mobile telecoms revolution empowering lives for over 25 years.

Infecting friends and colleagues with a startup culture where ever he lays his hat, from Indonesia to New York and Malta, Andreas has been steadily spreading his unique business insight to all those who have taken the time to listen, and quite a few who have not!

He has inspired hundreds of entrepreneurs – creating a supernova effect through the power of his vision in motion – through iWorldGroup, the pioneering accelerator which launched out of Malta in 2000, 15 years ahead of its time.

Growing restless, meeting passionate people, learning from anyone (children and animals included), traveling between Europe, Asia, USA and the Mediterranean, bringing people together, being challenged (rather than patronized), valuing intuition, studying NLP, practicing Yoga, asking questions, not buying into established norms, respecting those who’ve had the courage and imagination to carve their own paths.

Andreas Wil is a member of the World Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He co-founded the pan-European Business Incubation Association (BIA Europe) that focuses on promoting business incubators as the key platform for next-generation entrepreneurship. Moreover, Andreas Wil is an advisor to leading business schools and universities. Andreas Wil was nominated as a member by the distinguished World Technology Network, an international think tank focused on networking, new ideas, new relationships, and new business opportunities.

He was one of the seven winners of the European Award “Elite of the Future” (Elite der Zukunft), the nominators of which include Egon Zehnder International, BMW, Deutsche Bank and Bertelsmann. Andreas is also a sought-after speaker on Entrepreneurship and TIME (Telecommunications, IT, Media, E-commerce). Andreas co-founded the non-profit foundation Startup Malta that boosted entrepreneurship within young people. Andreas has also been prominently featured in the Financial Times publication ‘101 Leaders of the New Economy’.

He discovered Malta in 1995 saw its potential to become a UNITED Nations Hotspot and the natural capital of the digital transition of the Greater Mediterranean ‘country’ aka the world’s second-biggest economy after the US in terms of GDP.