Tech's best and brightest minds tackle STEM challenge

• Innovators%2C VCs%2C academics%2C execs tackle STEM problem in flight
• Ideas generated -- including mobile hot spot in a backpack -- presented at conference
• Initiative is to get more women involved in science%2C technology%2C engineering%2C mathematics

Somewhere over the eastern United States, in business class on a 10-hour flight overseas, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark was giving one group of entrepreneurs a pep talk.

Several feet away, USA Networks founder and media legend Kay Koplovitz marinated over how to inject women more into the tech field. "We need to highlight many more women, make their stories known," she said.

One compartment over, the owner of Buck's restaurant, where Silicon Valley movers and shakers often make megadeals over the restaurant's granola French toast with grilled peaches and berries, ruminated on a do-it-yourself retail spot. "I feel like Zelig of the tech world," said Jamis MacNiven.

The scene had the tapestry of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover: A blend of old and new faces, some more famous than others -- from startups to Google -- had convened to solve problems on a special flight to London.

Consider it a transatlantic incubator at 30,000 feet or so.

It sounds like something Sir Richard Branson would conjure, but it was British Airways that conceived of UnGrounded, an innovative lab in the sky that brought together an eclectic mix of more than 130 executives, venture capitalists, futurists and government officials to tackle such problems as fostering women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and expanding STEM in the U.S.

"We're uniquely leveraged to tap into the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley," says Leor Stern, who recently left Google to become head of business development at IFTTT, a web tool that lets consumers automate the Internet. Stern is part of an advisory group that helped develop the "lab in the sky" concept in March 2012.

Huddling in clusters of 3 to 8 people throughout a Boeing 747, 22 teams drew up plans ranging from Tech Team Idol to hosting a Burning Man-like event for kids, ages 6 to 12. Four concepts were chosen, including a mobile hot spot in a backpack and AdviseHer, an online community to accelerate and advocate women in STEM at companies and universities.

"This has the feel of Southby (SXSW, the confab in Austin where technologists network)," says Wesley Chan, a general partner at Google Ventures. "It's a serendipitous occasion. It's about time we presented engineers to kids as role models -- not just firefighters, cops, doctors, detectives."

"Who knows? Maybe (the Google-friendly movie) The Internship changes that," Chan said.

The winning campaigns were presented Friday at the G8 United Kingdom Innovation Conference in London. The hope is that some of the ideas are put into action for real-life solutions -- maybe from the same individuals who came up with them. "Maybe we create something lasting," says Simon Talling-Smith, executive vice president of the Americas for British Airways. (The United Nations says it plans to back Advise Her.)

Branson and British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at the innovation conference here, underscoring the importance of innovation to the UK economy. "We need a culture of a little bit more of risk taking (in tech)," Cameron said.

In other words, a cultural and business ethos that pervades the U.S.

"I feel for the first time in 40 years, there's a mass movement of women in all fields, including technology," Koplovitz said. "Women are more willing to accept risk (in starting a company)."