on the internet my family was fortunate to have a computer and I remember sneaking up to the computer room in my house and stealing my parents AOL login and it took forever I see some nodding heads that would make all these noises you had to use the telephone line boom you're finally on and you know even then as a 15 year old I recognized that it was worth stealing my parents log in because there was something interesting going on on the Internet and I would be missing out if I didn't have it and I would be raped my sister for picking up the phone and interrupting the line and cutting the connection and what where I'm going with this is to try to say that even in those early days of the digital revolution the digital economy we understood that there was going to be this massive divide between people who were online and people who were not and as a global community we've done a pretty good job of trying to solve that divide the United Nations recently said that half of the world population now has access to the online in digital world which is a pretty good milestone we still obviously have a long way to go but we're here today to talk about on this panel is some of the divides and inequalities that have popped up that we didn't anticipate back in the 1990s and early 2000s so to begin we're going to do what I like to call a lightning round so we're gonna give everybody on the panel maybe it 20 to 30 seconds to tell us in your mind and you're thinking what is the number one top divide that you see from the digital economy that's really concerning to you that's really on your mind I'll start with Keith well thank you Heather look III think we we obviously live in a world where we have massive digital transformation in this fourth Industrial Revolution and this is very different than any of the other Industrial Revolution because the the convergence of all these amazing technologies has created opportunity and divide as you suggested and probably the thing that I think about that is not so much a technology it's society government public sector private sector working together hand in glove to effectively absorb those technology not just provide access to that technology which of course is important because that will drive opportunity and quality and eliminate that divide but how do we absorb this technology so that we make sure that people are Reese killed in the workforce that people are able to embrace that technology that we don't have massive job loss without massive job creation and sort of that transition that's the sort of thing that keeps me up at night it's not any one technology because there will always be new technologies I think we learn them Gail will keep going all right so the Gulf I'm the most focused on is urban rural even in the United States one in four rural Americans will tell you that access to our quality of the Internet is a problem globally about eighty-five percent of households have access to the Internet now that's household so that qualifies a bit larger than individuals but if you break that down in Africa it's on average 18 percent in low in least developed countries it's about 14 percent in least developed countries the biggest gap is in rural areas and that's what those countries rely on the rural economies to develop so if we have no access there we're gonna have highly distorted economies that don't work first of all I would say that there are many reasons to be optimistic and I think there is a great deal of progress that's going on in the world today on this topic the thing that we're worried and concerned about is actually the skill shortage because of the rate and pace at which the world is digitally transforming and that is very much a topic where everyone has to be included because we can't overlook anyone when we deal with the question of how do we create all the skills required for the future I want to double down on what Michael said there's actually a lot of reasons for optimism and we and I want to those panels can be talking about all the challenges but we shouldn't lose the message that we need more technology and we need to grow the pie bigger that said there's some challenges that are getting in the way and I think we'll slow down tech progress if we don't address them and a lot of them have to do with inequality while technology makes the pie bigger there's no economic law that says everyone's going to get a share of that or the even everyone's going to benefit and unfortunately the the challenge that I've been worrying about a lot and we in dramatically and I write in the second Machine Age is that median income has stagnated which means about half of the population in the US and other developed countries has not been participating in this in this bounty that the digitisation has created and that's visible not just in the economic statistics but if you look at the opioid crisis life expectancy in that part of the distribution hasn't kept up and we already seeing a backlash that's resulting from that so we need to work harder to not just make the pie bigger but to make sure that in principle everybody could be getting better offic the rich can be getting richer the middle class can be greater in richer the poor can be getting richer it all adds up but we haven't been doing it and the last thing I wanted to say on that is that it's really not the technology that's doing this it's the way we're using the technology the technology the tool could be used in lots of different ways and I don't think we've been using it as effectively as we could be to make sure that there's more shared prosperity from my perspective I think a digital literacy I think is the the biggest divide right from a digital literacy perspective I think the biggest opportunity and an area where we can make the biggest impact will be in the area of skill development I think some very startling statistics for example 65% of the primary school children when they get into workforce they will be doing things that none of us have heard of right 50% of the work that's being done today can be automated by technologies that are already available that's equalent to 15 trillion of wages right so these are some very very long-term consequences that are there and I think biggest impact can get created by focusing on skill development things I agree with much of this but the divide I'm most focused on is the emerging gap between the data capabilities of the private sector which are immense and growing exponentially and the lack of those capabilities in public civic and nonprofit sector and I think we have an obligation those companies and those of us who are focused on technology and harnessing the power of technology to also create the opportunity for those skills to be applied by the public Civic and nonprofit sector on some of the globe's most significant social and economic challenges yeah that's great there's so many different issues that have come up but the common theme the most common thread is definitely the skills shortage maybe Michael Dell will go to your for you first since you were more optimistic than most perhaps what's your advice to the millions of workers who have lost a job to automation well look I think you know you know if I look at what's going on in the world today you know I don't know if robots per capita is a measurement but if it were you know it seems to me the countries that are most robota sized actually have the lowest unemployment rates so I'm not convinced that and you've written about this quite extensively I'm not convinced that you know technology is necessarily a big part of the problem we do need to develop skills I think you know companies play a big role here I mean you know we've invested 50 million dollars in stem we are you know spending 3 billion plus dollars a year with diverse and small suppliers we have our women's entrepreneur now in its ninth year and so every company will have examples like that I think all of us collectively can do quite a lot to create opportunities so that everyone is included in in this growth and it's going to require lots of new skills lots of new capabilities and you know it's it's a we're we're we're you know from from our perspective we see a shortage of talent and a shortage of skills and the only answer to that is not to take them from the other companies because the math just doesn't work you have to hire them train them and grow them from within the company and you have to retrain and rescale the existing workforce yeah let's dig into how we do that because almost everyone here at Davos has made the point that we need to upscale and rescale and more skill however you want to say it and yet there haven't been a lot of tangible discussion about exactly how do you do that cvk I see you nodding a lot why don't you jump in yeah I think see we are a technology services company right we employ hundred and thirty thousand people and technology is changing at such a random pace so it's hard to get skills that we really need for cyber security analytics and big data and things like that so the biggest theme that I tell my teams I really pick this inspiration from Alvin Toffler it says the Dilla trade of the 21st century is not the one who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn unlearn and relearn I think the emphasis is on continuous learning I think as businesses we're doing a lot of things to to enable and train our employees to to upskill themselves and learn new things I think the biggest opportunity is the people who are getting into the workforce are really not well trained on some of the new skills that are really required that's what I call this digital literacy in some of the emerging areas the academics need to focus a lot more in making the graduate is highly employable and well-trained I think that's where the biggest opportunity is so you see a more of a role for the government's you improvement in the Academy yeah okay I think businesses because it's so compelling on them to fulfill the service demand they will anyway continue to do whatever they need to do but I think it's just again a lot of relearning for people who coming out of educational system to learn new skills I think it's better that we put a lot of focus in training them in the right manner so that they're highly productive when they hit the workforce Keith can you jump in on this in terms of what role private sector should play versus government in this rescaling yeah I mean it's very interesting to hear my fellow panelists talk about this personally I don't think this falls just on the private sector I don't think this falls just on the government in fact I would say that as a model for the future I think that's the world that we live in I think there there has to be this hand in glove situation where there's there was a partnership between both both parts of society to make this work as CEOs and leaders we are keenly focused on rescaling the workforce I think certainly in the United States in parts of the world we're trying to focus on STEM education and K through 8 or K through 12 and I think that's important we also have to remember that we have to think about people who are already in the workforce you know we saw something United States in the last few weeks where we had a large automotive manufacturer whose announced they're laying off thousands of people and you have to wonder or ask yourself what part did the government play in terms of providing an environment providing a process providing programs – or economic incentives to rescale those work forces that have been displaced as opposed to just saying there go those jobs are being eliminated as private corporations you know certainly sales force one of the things that we've done is we have a learning platform called trailhead and as we take our customers through digital transformation we offer rescaling programs as well so it's not just the digital transformation it's also those people who maybe display what does that look like I guess that sort of people go to a two or three week power camp or or is it that's all online but but essentially as Michael said you know the problem isn't the availability of skal of jobs it's matching the the skillsets to those jobs so we have to make sure that that those skills are available because the jobs are there I mean look the net-net is that we have to get into a motion and that a moat that that motion is both public sector and private sector in terms of getting used to this new technology is coming it's coming it's coming so we have to be Reese killing and Reese killing and Reese killing this is not one and done yeah this is something that is continuous Michael I wanted to jump in there is I think the historic model we've had of people being trained for 20 years working for a company for 40 years and then retiring for 20 years is probably somewhat outdated and we need platforms that allow for lifelong learning it's great if you work for that provides you that training and those forward leading companies are are really at the leading edge but for those who are holding down two or three part-time jobs gig economy jobs none of which are providing benefits and at least in the United States there's not a robust a training program for for folks like that having some platform that allows for portable benefits whether it's coming from the government or from employers or philanthropies and allows people to have a lifelong learning capacity is going to be critical yeah that's great Eric I want to jump to you you made a slightly different point than the others you went to the notion of wages and wage and equality and you're calling an MIT David autor has done a lot of work it's talking about how this digital economy has basically eliminated the middle class type of jobs we now have a lot of high paying jobs and a lot of lower paying jobs and what we're really losing out isn't is in the middle I set the stage for us in this fourth Industrial Revolution is that trend likely to get worse it's gonna change I think that the technology continues to advance as we've heard and the sets of skills continue to change and at the same time as there are people and companies that can't find the workers with the right sets of skills there are other workers that have spent their lives and doing one kind of job where machines can now do big parts or even all of those jobs and so this is the essence of the MIS mattress simultaneously have people who finding their jobs automated at the same time technology is creating other new jobs in the past 20 years as David Otter pointed out a lot of that has happened in the routine information processing work you know clerks people doing information processing work that machines can now do and a lot of those are middle wage middle skilled kinds of jobs and those start disappearing in more recent work we've been doing that with Tom Mitchell and others that just came out in science we're looking at the types of tasks that machine learning effects and for better or worse it's a much broader spectrum of jobs and one end you see radiologists and medical imaging being able to identify cancer as effectively or more effectively than highly trained medical professionals at the other end some of the tasks that were relatively immune some of the physical manipulation type tasks that used to be machines couldn't do now machines are learning how to do them as well so there's parts of tests all up and down the spectrum they're being affected at the same time but I think is very important to understand we're very far from artificial general intelligence or what you see in Hollywood where machines can do everything and I think it's many decades away and the folks who are talking about you know a massively jobless future that is not the relevant question for now if it ever will be the relevant question right now is that there's so much work that only humans can do a lot of a caring work a lot of creative work and a lot of interpersonal work and what we've got to do is find ways to to retrain and repurpose the yet the workforce towards those massive problems that we have in those areas even as some of the other jobs disappear yeah I want to stay on the inequality theme for a second there are growing calls to address these inequalities that particularly the wage inequality with more taxes in particular in the United States there's been a call by congresswoman Ocasio Cortes to tax people earning over ten million and a seventy percent tax rate the current top rate in United States is 37% Michael doe do you support this I just want to say I'm thrilled the dirt Wow well look I mean you know my wife and I set up a foundation about 20 years ago and we would have contributed quite a bit more than a 70 percent tax rate on my income on my annual income and I feel much more comfortable with our ability as a private foundation to allocate those funds than I do giving them to the government I'm not supportive of that and I don't think it would help the growth of the US economy oh that's interesting and can you say a little bit more about why why you don't think it was I'll name a country where that's worked ever United States briefly in the eighties no no no for from about the 1930s through about the 1960s the tax rate averaged about 70 percent at times it was up as high as 95% and those were actually pretty good years for growth so I don't have a strong opinion on that proposal a lot but the devil is in the details but I think it's there's actually a lot of economics that suggest that it's not necessarily going to hurt growth and I think we have to examine it more closely there are people Joe Stiglitz and others who have looked at that and argued that the optimal tax rate actually is on very high incomes closer to that level well that's a debate we're gonna be continuing to have I think in the United States but there's another part of the debate and that's the notion of whether companies particularly in the TUC space but across industries are paying their fair share and that calls the United States for and actually in Germany Chancellor Merkel made it earlier today a call for some sort of minimal tax and on corporations so you couldn't find ways to lower your tax by going to different jurisdictions or whatnot that there would be some sort of minimum international tax Keith let's turn to you is that something that you could potentially support obviously the rate would be very important but is that a part of this message of trying to solve some of these inequalities and pay the fair share well you know I can't tell you that how thrilled I am that we're gonna be talking about tax policy on this panel so if it's and I wholeheartedly actually I do align very much with with what Michaels saying look I think the government has to play its part and certainly as a responsible corporation we would adhere to any sort of tax policy that was put in place by money in a country throughout the globe I think the thing that we have to look at is is let's look at the route issue the route issue is opportunity the route issue is equality and that starts with accessibility and you know to the point of providing accessibility to technology technology is the great equalizer if people have access to technology there is so much opportunity to create jobs to create wealth to do the right thing as good corporate citizens to the good citizens of this world so you know it's an easy fix I think for many people to say well let's just tax and I really think the longer more strategic play is how do we provide equality through access to technology that can enable growth and enable opportunity and enable quality and I think that's where we should be really focusing our attention and but how do we make that access happen again that's that that's the tricky part yes I think a lot of that is through education and in it you know I come back to what I said earlier I think there has to be a public-private partnership on this I learned this morning that Canada has allocated a billion dollars the country of Canada is allocated a billion dollars towards education and rescaling now is a billion dollars the right answer I don't know but the thought of a country saying look we're gonna work together with the private sector to re-skill people and make sure that when there is displacement that that these skills are in place so that people can participate people need to be able to participate we need to create create a platform for them to participate and I think that's the answer but it it can't just be the government it just can't be the private sector it has to be together Gail and Michael from but I want to bring you two in on this and this was a point you made earlier Michael and that's this notion of what is the corporate responsibility to work with government and then to see whether it's sharing data or sharing resources or sharing it sharing in this training and in the United States we just had a bit of this debate during the Amazon hq2 search and once those cities were selected people were really asking what obligations to companies have especially in the tech space when they to that community that they decide to locate in and so I'm curious to hear what what you think sort of tech is obligated to do well I I think we very much have to make it possible for the technology and the capacity that the private sector is developing to be made available for public purposes and we announced yesterday a major new philanthropic initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation to build a new field of data science for social impact that'll be about creating leadership and capabilities and tools and focus on policy and governance to bridge to bridge that gap now you have the challenges you take a city in the United States they may have a ton of data but they may not have any data science who can clean the data use the data analyze the data put to good use for Public Policy purposes and I think the private sector we're working with a lot of cities to help them with their data to be able to make better economic development decisions to attract investment into some of the more distressed areas of their town I think that's one example but I would say just to go back to the key point earlier you know Financial Inclusion is a key area this is about inclusion and digital globalization yeah we're working with Queen máxima and a group of CEOs to really drive commercially sustainable financial inclusion efforts and using digitization to be able to digitize the relationship between a micro merchant and its supplier so it can buy more it can get credit I can join the financial system for the first time or helping an individual who's a worker in a factory who's currently getting paid cash and is not safe not secured you know not able to pay their bills being able to put them into the digital economy that's a first step towards financial security and digitalization makes that possible so I think the tools are there I'm on the optimistic end of the spectrum that the digitalization is creating tremendous opportunities for inclusion but we all have to be focused on how to make that happen yeah so like income inequality rising income inequality is dangerous sharp an acute digital inequality will prove very dangerous and it may you can have any point of entry it may be a moral point of view that it is simply wrong that millions and millions of people have no access in the hope of access it may be an economic argument that the sustainability of small businesses medium-sized businesses and indeed some big companies may not be viable if we've gotten that level of acute digital inequality and it may be a security argument because the kinds of tensions we are seeing around the world now that are revolving increasingly about the pie are gonna grow more acute acute when it's a digital pie so what do we do about it I don't think ad hoc solutions as good as they may be individually are going to solve this we've got a think systemically I would throw out two things one is measuring you talked about digital literacy we don't measure where we are on digitization and inclusion in the right way who's got a phone doesn't really tell you what you need to know we got to think about how do we measure in a way that's gonna tell us what we need to know about where to fill gaps the second is and this is where there's great optimism but I think we're missing an opportunity I lived for a long time in East Africa Somalia had digital phones and a network before any country in that region why those are the most entrepreneurial creative people I have ever seen in my life they live in harsh conditions they essentially invented it the use of telephones in markets in rural Uganda was because people wanted to know poor farmers before they went to market what the guy was going to buy their tomatoes for so they could start to influence that price start cutting out middlemen the kinds of not only creativity and entrepreneurialism which are available among the poor are extensive but they're the ones who know what the applications are that they need to change their lives and I think we have a little bit of a tendency I I've certainly done it I know exactly what those people need I have never been a poor rural farmer and we've got to figure out ways I think to go to those who don't have a big enough piece of the pie with basic digital literacy they can invent all sorts of ways that can give them paths towards greater equality so I think we've got to do that also yeah that's really powerful there's anyone else where you maybe you want to stay a little bit more want to jump in on how we do that I think everyone's nodding when you say we want to give that digital literacy around the world I think the measurement is really really important because I think the discussions when I listen to a discussion here or in New York and then in a rural area of the developer they're very different discussions and the assumptions are different about what people need the other thing is we got to figure out how do you cut out the middleman essentially how do you create a space you know there's a the difference between being uneducated and being ignorant and there are a lot of people who don't have a good education but they're very smart about what they need to do to change their lives and we've got to figure out ways to hear from them I mean the creativity I have seen on the ground among some of the poorest people I've ever met in my life about whether it's applications whether it's platforms that have been created I served in the US government with Mike for many years we used a platform in the Haiti earthquake that was developed in Kenya I could use mobile money when I lived in Africa before I could when I moved to Washington DC so how do we not go to them and say it's great we want to do a small fund for entrepreneurs but do the kinds of things that will allow them to help shape what is needed I think the same applies the United States Mike I think a lot of what you're doing in this partnership could do that kind of thing well you sort of touched on this issue and maybe we'll go there and that's the notion that one of the biggest criticisms of the tech world is that it is mostly white men who are sitting in a handful of locations around the United States or and in some cases maybe London or other places and that how can you how can we be more inclusive when that's the people who are the architects of the digital economy right now and so I'm curious I won't put anybody on the spot in particular but if somebody wants to jump in about whether this how we can change how we can change and make the face of Technology more inclusive as well the banner looks quite white I think I think every company every every business is looking at promoting gender diversity and racial diversity I think that's core charter even at HCL we have a 25 percent diversity gender diversity and we want to continually enhance it like there is a mass soup program around localization of our workforce today about two-thirds of our workforce in the US and Europe are locals and rest of them come from other parts of the world so we're trying to see how can we create more awareness on stem how can we be part of the educational ecosystem to get more workforce and just picking up on the point that Gail made about how do you measure digital literacy I think that's a very very important question I don't think there's going to be just one single answer there are many dimensions like phone connectivity internet they're very infrastructure oriented but if you really look at skills the bulb is every business is becoming a digital business so I would say software programming is one very very basic skill that that should be a good measure of digital literacy I think almost half the world should be very familiar on how to write a code I think that in my mind is a big equalizer that'll make you relevant in any scenario to kind of relearn and adapt yourself to the changing demands of the the technology world Eric yeah and this is a place where you know the technology is proposing challenges but it's also creating a lot of solutions I mean this tool is giving access to people around the world to digital information you know a child in East Africa can have more real-time broader set of information than the president United States could have 20 or 30 years ago and we were delivering a lot of courses there are MIT is making their courses available for free online Udacity Coursera others there's a kid in Mongolia who took one of our circuits courses a hundred and forty thousand people took it we got a perfect score on that he was 16 years old he would not have been able to have access to that kind of information before these tools were available I think we're still in the early stages of making that kind of knowledge and information available one of the next stages is not simply making it available but personalizing it with artificial intelligence so that different people learn at different rates or of different strengths and weaknesses and we can customize it in a way I think that has is going to massively accelerate the learning and the last thing is it's a two-way learning that we can not only simply you know broadcast it from MIT or wherever but there are billions of brains out there that know a lot of information like what it's like to be a poor rural farmer that I don't know about and they are able to share that information with each other and how tips and tricks' these tools for creating marketplaces in commodities and cutting out the middleman have had a huge effect there but a number of economic papers about that so we have it we have a set of tools that have the potential to change things a lot I still think we're in the early days of it and what's needed is not simply the technology but reinvention of some of the way we think work markets and the skills and the way we do education yeah I think you know inside our companies many of us are doing quite a lot you know on this front and have been for you know decades or more right to improve I also think we shouldn't overlook the role the technology's playing in enabling small businesses and medium businesses to scale up much more rapidly and those are tending to be far more women-owned and diverse and you know we're certainly quite involved in a number of programs to do that as as are many others okay if I may jump in on this because I think it is very very important I mean look this this whole issue around diversity inclusion there's no end of job on this and I really think it has to become part of our culture's it's corporations and it has to be a part of everybody's consciousness and that that's just a reality and it's something that we have to focus in on everyday and it's not just talking about it you actually have to take action I mean one of the things that you know I would applaud a self applaud to Salesforce here is that you know when we looked at equal pay you know every year we go back we look at our pair when we say equal pay for we're doing it and and we will continue to do it until we stamp this out but that just of course and we're raising the level of consciousness inside our corporation and outside the corporation so it's one thing to talk about it and a lot of good stuff is happening here and I applaud everything all the actions that everybody's taken but we have to actually take action it is and we did the same about a decade ago right hey there just one more way tight Orton I think one point which we are all missing is technology can really solve some of the problems at very very large scale I think that's something which we should not undermine yeah and one brilliant example that I can give is government of India implemented a unique to t4 citizens for 1.2 billion people which is simple and secure and I mean which is biometric which is more advanced than any other ID system that's there in the developed world and it's just open shorts technology which enabled it and we had a big role to play in implementing that error arm so in most challenges can be can take we can take a shot at solving them with technology at the core I want to touch on one more thing before we do can wrap up question and open up to the audience Michael Froman maybe we'll push this to you Michael Dell had brought up small and mid-sized businesses two years ago on this stage at Davos Jack Ma had brought up the point that he thinks that the digital economy is controlled by a small number of companies and it actually makes it very difficult there's a divide where it's really hard for small and mid-sized companies to be able to break in and to be able to to take advantage in the way that we all thought they would be able to once they get online and get access I guess do you see that that believe that is a problem is one of those companies Alibaba or look I think what we're saying is that digitalization is creating a lot of competition as well I'm able to talk about the payment space which I'm closest to but certainly there are some incumbent players but there's a slew of new FinTech players and of course Allie Pei and WeChat who are dominance in their own in their own markets for a number of reasons and I think we're seeing more and more competition and that's and that's good as people move from cash to digital and electronic payments we're gonna see more and more people come into the area with greater innovation and that'll be to the benefit of the consumer and to small businesses in the in the ecosystem and we partner with FinTech all the time and you know we look forward to working with more and more entrants into the market yeah all right we're gonna do another lightning round to give everybody a chance to weigh in and and then we'll open it to the floor up to questions and comments we're eager to hear from you and we'll try to be a little bit more uplifting so we'll go with this lightning round what gives you hope what gives you the most hope that we can bridge some of these Digital Inclusion problems and since we started with Keith on the hot seat we'll start at the other end with Michael you know I I'm very hopeful I we're very focused right now on digitizing the base of the pyramid and if people at the the very lowest end of the economic spectrum we committed a few years ago to bring 500 million new people into the financial system and 40 million new micro merchants into the financial system we're about two-thirds of the way there on the individuals and we're well on our way there on the merchants and it's only possible because of digitization and so for us to work for example with with with Gavi to digitalize a parent's relationship to the vaccinations of their children to keep track of their vaccinations or to work with UNICEF on helping parents pay school fees in a electronic way and manage their school fees so that kids can stay in school and graduate or to bring farmers into the global market through our farmers network or as I mentioned bringing micro merchants into the financial system so they can get credit for the first time all of that is only possible because of digitization and I think there's great opportunity there and the challenge is digitalization is transforming the global economy but I'll put my old hat on we also see new forms of protectionism coming up new innovative forms of protectionism with countries jumping to ideas around nationalizing the Internet creating a vulcanized Internet and I think governments very much have legitimate concerns around privacy and and and data and how to properly manage it and protect it I hope we'll get more questions on that but there may be ways of getting there without actually creating barriers to innovation that will be against their interests in the long run cvk yeah I'm very optimistic that digital divide can be bridged relatively easier than the physical divide like for example today we have access to Internet for half the world population but we still don't have access to safe drinking water for 30% of our population and even safe sanitation for 60% of population so the physical divide divide is lot more complex and lot more difficult to solve and digital divide while Internet has been a need in the last couple of decades or three decades we bridge the gap significantly so I'm really optimistic about solving some of these challenges you know if you look at the arc of history we are fifty to a hundred times wealthier than our ancestors a couple hundred years ago and the reason for that is because technology not cuz we work so much harder it's because technology has given us much better tools we now have the most awesome tools ever in these digital technologies and artificial intelligence so you have to be hopeful that we are able to change the world in a bigger and better way than ever before but also I want to temper that with what I say the outside there's nothing automatic about these tools leading to more prosperity or more shared prosperity it's going to depend on our choices it's not the tools that decide is we that decide and those choices are going to depend ultimately on our values so it gives us hope it gives me hope is that we're having a panel discussion like this where we're grappling with what kind of a world do we want to build and I don't know maybe I'm naive but I'm ultimately optimistic than we we think carefully about what our values are we're going to decide to make the right choices and use these tools to create not just prosperity but shared prosperity yeah i i'm also very optimistic i think if if you look at the last 30 years the general state of the world and the outcomes for most people have improved far far more than anyone would have expected so i think of it as the digital opportunity and i think we're just at the beginning of that as we look out toward a whole new wave of technologies that are just arriving the other thing it gives me great hope and optimism is that the rising generation doesn't see it the way the you know the old folks you know may have seen it enough I guess I guess we can we can include ourselves in that so in our own company for example the rising generation is far more diverse than ever before and all of that gives me great hope so I would certainly echo that because I think it's also a generation that's more worldly and it has had more access to more things um I'm always optimistic because I find that pessimism I don't know what job I would pursue if I was a pessimist um but I think there are two things that give me hope that are things I think pages we can take from the development field on this and what is one of these we've learned is where's there as a model of success people want to follow it and we've seen that consistently so that when you are doing what you're doing on income inequality making it public and setting the example when more companies are doing more things like that there will be companies that want to follow and there will be companies that will be urged to follow by this rising generation that's a good trend yeah I think the second is something we've learned from the health field which is where we've probably seen some of the greatest also the most measurable gains in global development and that is that additives were good at topping up the numbers but what really changed the game was when there was enough capacity building that meant that people could start to own and then manage their health systems and I think there's an opportunity to bridge this huge and I think growing divide digital divide around the world if we figure out how do we build the capacity so the playing field is a bit more equal going forward we know how to do it and I'm an optimist so I think if given the choice we'll do it well look I think that technology is setting the table for our future and I very much echo what Michael said I think we have to look at at a younger generation who have used things through a very different lens they're more community minded they care about how they live they care about their environment they care about other people in a different way and I get very optimistic when I get to spend time with these people because they they just bring a different perspective and you know it's a cliche but it's perfect you know everything is in their hands they understand technology they understand the implications of technology and you know we all have made decisions some of them have been good decisions some of them are opportunities to to make better decisions but when you sit down and you work with these people people in the YPO others entrepreneurs founders you know they have a lot of great ideas and I think that they will figure out a way to leverage this technology to improve things and it's more of a stakeholder Theory play than just a you know a classic what's good for the corporation play so I think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic on that note let's open it up to the floor please state your name in your organization or affiliation we'll start over here I think there's some microphones yep this gentleman here hi everyone and I'm um Sofia a global shaper from San Francisco and I lived in a tech capital of the world where there are more than 7,000 people living on the streets and it's a kind of digital divide data field we haven't really spoken of here do you think that there's a role for your companies to play in bridging that digital divide well you're the Silicon Valley person take that one good look absolutely I live in San Francisco we see the situation every day if you're familiar with proposition C some of you may not be familiar with it but there is a terrible homeless situation in many cities and certainly in San Francisco and you know you can go through many of the streets in San Francisco and you'll see people living in it in a terrible condition sales force is very values based as a company we've taken a very strong position with Marc's leadership on this and proposition C and in getting the homeless off the street and providing for them and giving them opportunities and I think that is step one and that is part of corporate responsibility and giving back to the community which is very very much in line with our values these are human beings they cannot be ignored a lot of this is is not within their control and we have a responsibility to do something and you know in that particular case we led from the front and I think that's a good example for other companies and organizations to do as well I think there's a question up front over here hello and that Clayton Schneider Electric CEO of North America he my question you talked about artificial intelligence but what about quantum computing does it increase the digital divide where I mean where does it where does I just word to my esteemed colleague we were worried rehearse that backstage so it simultaneously here and not here but but but the the the truth it has it has profound implications for the for a lot of things that most particularly cryptography and what's happening there and it's an area where some of the investments in China are very far ahead than what some of the things we see and even some of the best laboratories in the United States I think it's something that it's an example of an area where more basic research would go a long way towards opening up some of those possibilities and also from a defensive point of view if our seyh cryptographic infrastructure became obsolete the good news is that there are other ways of doing it while still being robust to quantum computing the bad news is requires major reorganization and re-engineering I think it's one of the many places where we haven't been keeping up with the fundamental the basic R&D and the United States for a long time was such a leader in so many of the different fields and the West was more broadly I think that it's something that is it poses a real challenge to or to the society there was a question here yes thank you the microphones coming Kanako from my DB a president and my question is as Eric mentioned the technology have developed the country countries and our life much better than 100 years ago and people enjoy it Vasia and better life but it is not just by happening it is by designing so we adopted income tax instead of just real estate tax and tariffs and we employed universal health care and health systems and a public education and also other ways of reallocating resources and so on so we need a new design for new technologies new systems so but that there is no trust in the government today so who can start designing new world which can be adapted to the new frame our core technologies this is tremendous change and wipe up wipe out so many jobs and so on and we need a reaction what can the private sector alone do that that's a deep question that many of us are asking here in Davos can the private sector alone do it does anybody want to jump in with some thoughts all right I don't think so because a private sector has play which is somewhat limited I would think today there are many policymaking bodies whether it is WTO or European Union g20 all of them are trying to they're all working in silos to look at how do we bridge the digital divide how do we handle data a lot of countries want data to be resident in their country I think some of that are actually a retrograde step I think some of this policymaking bodies will have to look at this a little more holistically and build some standards which are common across the globe otherwise we are reinventing a lot of things we are creating a lot of hindrance to bridge the digital divide yeah I would think there was a question in the back professor University of Maryland d.c you know as Eric Gayle mr.
Vidya Kumar you know talked about that digital connectivity is pretty much becoming universal and I think we can also probably agree that technology leads to more innovation leads to more productivity and leads to economic growth so is but the the the question perhaps on that the answer is not so obvious and I'm curious which is that thus this did you ubiquitous spread of digital connectivity does it reduce economic divide have no impact on it or does it increase economic divide the answer is yes and I mean that it can do all those things that you know digitization networks the automation of different tasks these forces are all happening simultaneously but as I've said before I want to re-emphasize the same tools can be used in lots of different ways they can be used to concentrate wealth and power to disenfranchised people to violate privacy can be used in lots of lots of ways to create a surveillance state they can also be used to share knowledge to get more people engaged to make it easier for people to start new businesses and innovate which way it's used it depends a lot on how it's implemented and we've seen this with earlier technologies as well different countries had the same set of technologies available to them and they've many cases throughout the 19th to 20th century chose different paths and had very different kinds of outcomes so I want to very much change the conversation from what is technology going to do to us and what does technology do it technology doesn't do things if we are the deciders we are the ones who decide how to use it and the fact that we have more powerful technologies now than we ever had before actually means that we have more power to decide what kind of world we want to live in and so I want to put the agency back on us which comes back to the point about you know let's make conscious choices about what we want to do whether it's with homelessness or inclusion or other areas and I have zero doubt that we can use these technologies to address and solve those problems if we choose to do you want to joke yeah I just I've been in the development field for a long time and about every five years there's a new silver bullet and now it's it was innovation now technology is the silver bullet to your point it's a tool and it doesn't unfold in isolation so there are choices to be made I agree there's a there's a loss of faith in government but governments have to provide some sort of legal regulatory framework governments have agency with respect to equality of access and some of those things need to happen also it also doesn't happen in isolation with respect to sectors so is it applied to health is it applied to education is it applied unto the business sector so I think we've got to look holistically it's a really powerful tool and it's a tool I mean look at some of the greatest gains in the most creativity in this space have come from people who are operating in the illicit market right I mean it's so so unmanaged it's a powerful tool and sometimes a very dangerous tool but I think this point about it being a tool and not the answer is really really important because again I've lived long enough to see about 15 answers and the fact is that it's got to be a systemic holistic approach that's gonna bring about the Equality then I see some more hands let's say I think there was one at the front and then we'll go to the woman here can you say your name my name is AJ I'm from India I have two questions one is will you everyone talked about rescaling the population is there any effort by the industry to scale those governing us policymakers and I'm not and I'm not referring to politicians and presidents I'm referring to the bureaucracy because in the developing countries I don't think so they are capable of taking informed decisions so is there any effort to rescale them I mean scale them first and so they can take better informed decisions and second is what about taxing data for generating revenue to help the really poor people I mean if I use a Dell computer and you could answer that Michael you want to address the first part you know taxes you get all the good questions you know look I think that's absolutely right I think because the capacity hasn't always exist in governments – the government's are by definition operating much more slowly than the private sector and so now the private sector can sit back and say well that's the government's problem and you know they've got to do this they've got to create trust we're just gonna wait for them to regulate but I think that's the irresponsible thing to do one I think with governments more and more looking inward and being less and less functional and this isn't just a comment about the US I think it's a comment about a lot of governments around the world at the moment the role the private sector is even greater to step in and to try and address some of these societal issues and to try and create ecosystems that are built around trust otherwise you don't have a permission structure to really take advantage of the technology and to harness the the technology so that's why whether it's creating capacity for government officials to understand these issues training people you know the 50 years ago I went to law school not fifty years ago I went to law school fifty years ago the Ford Foundation decided to invest in creating a public interest law regime the courses internships career paths and so that people would go to law school with the idea they want to serve in the public interest now we need to do the same thing when it comes to data scientists and technologists training people to go into government we're doing some work on cyber creating cyber fellows that will go into government and then come back out into the private sector or create cyber readiness Institute's I think that's just one piece of a much larger puzzle but the private sector it's in the private sectors interest to play a proactive role in trying to address this gap otherwise I think we're gonna find ourselves with a backlash against the use of technology and AI and data and that's that is not in our interest I can't help myself here so I completely agree with this I look I think this is a leadership moment this is a leadership opportunity typically experience dictates policy and that can be very reactive as you suggest I think this is one where we have to get it ahead of it and that is working again very very closely with the government making them aware making them understand I think we all as citizens have enough of a hard time keeping up with technology now think about how we have to do that to educate policymakers so if we're not working closely with corporations together with government decision makers we will find ourselves in a situation where innovation could be stifled and that's not going to be good for anybody so we have to get ahead of this there's no question about that everybody says ok we gotta work closer together but well I think it starts with education I think it starts with awareness I think it really sits down with responsible leaders in our government and responsible leaders in the in the private sector talking about policy together as opposed to being reactive and lashing out and trying to band-aid solutions like tax policy quite frankly I'm all for tax policy it just should be responsible tax policy that promotes growth for the future and access for many people so III think people have to be proactive we can't just wait private sector can't just wait and the public sector can't sit back and chest judgment it has to be done in a thoughtful and the fawful collaborative way alright Michael Dell you're up again on taxes escape taxing of data a little bit different way well look the the the rate of data growth is really quite tremendous and you know if you want more of something putting a high tax on it is not a good way to get more of it you know so I I would come from the approach of if you want less of something put a high tax on it if you want more of something put a low tax on it and certainly you know data is the fuel for all the artificial intelligence the progress the machine learning and the amount of data you know is doubling at you know some people would say every 12 months some people say every 18 months so trying to sit from a legislative standpoint and taxing something that is growing at that sort of rate I think you know a lot of mistakes could be made let's get one more voice in yes let's see if we can squeeze one more in thank you Karen Van Bergen Omnicom I'd love to go back to education but at schools mr.
Vijay Kumar you talked about coding learning coding I learned this morning that machines are already writing software so I'd be really interested in what you think the curriculum of middle school and high school and maybe even before that needs to look like thank you if the point is even to create those machines and programs you need to know how to code right even to write a program which develops code automatically it's it's very important for people to understand the software as a technology so I think it's it's like it's like learning alphabets right I think programming or coding should be asked common as that for for really bridging a big gap from a long term perspective that's what I've heard so maybe do we need sort of a global test like we the students around the world on math or on reading do we need a coding test I'm sure you can do that and now also I think I think data analytics yeah and be able to actually use the data in a way that can create better outcomes and whatever it is you're endeavoring to accomplish final thought Eric well I'm I'm teach at MIT so I'm a huge fan of more data analytic and I like the idea that in Congress we had you know with all due respect all the lawyers in the audience here more of data scientists and more people familiar with the technology and not not just legal scholars but I also want to say that well as much as I'd like to see more people with those technical skills we shouldn't forget that humans have a lot of skills that machines are not very good at interpersonal skills empathy creativity that at least for now and for as far as I can see machines aren't going to be doing those sorts of things and and teamwork persuading these are things that will be in great demand in the work force and we could do more all the way from K through 12 afterwards to encourage people kids love to be creative if you let them and a lot of our schools have actually been trying to stamp you know creativity out of kids for a couple hundred years and I think we should we let them flourish that'd be better they like to work with each other and play and and interact and those are the kinds of skills that the workforce of the 21st century is going to need just as much as the technical skills that's a great final thought we're going to be Swiss and end on time thank you so much for being here [Applause] you you you you [Music] [Applause] good afternoon everyone and welcome to our very important session taking action for the ocean and Francine Lacroix of Bloomberg now we're trying to do a little something different this year for the first time we will be broadcasting the panel live on tick-tock our social first global news network now this panel will seek to engage viewers of course our audiences so please ask your questions and remember to hashtag hashtag with 19 hashtag tick-tock Davos now our oceans are really the basin's of life and cover 3/4 of our planet think about that as vast and powerful as they can be they are also very fragile they suffer from overheating and acidification fish are being pulled out plastic is being poured in a very few of oceans are protected habitats so discuss this panel today world leaders philanthropists and activists but most importantly it's a panel of people like you and like me who are acting but are we too late let's welcome our panelists today Al Gore environmentalist Nobel laureates and the former vice president of the United States of America he's a chairman and co-founder of generation investment management and investment manager with a focus on sustainability michelle betty was a political prisoner in her home nation of Chile where she would later serve as price but as president twice she has devoted her efforts to human rights activism in UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Marc Benioff an entrepreneur phil entrap philanthropist and the founder chairman and co-chief executive of salesforce he also founded the Benioff oceans initiative which runs a crowdsourcing platform to identify problems and fund solutions for ocean conservation Nina Jensen a marine biologist she's the chief executive of re the ocean whose mission it is to explore and better understand the ocean and in Rick's ala a marine ecologist and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence dedicated really to restoring the health and productivity of the ocean so thank you all for joining me how bad is it do we actually understand the reality what we're faced it's a harsh reality vice-president I don't think there's a widespread understanding at least not a sufficient one of how bad it is we have a true full-blown global emergency and if that phrase sounds too hyper I'm sorry it just reflects what the scientific community tells us the fact that their predictions have been spot-on from what they've said in the past should lead us to listen to them about this it's connected to the climate crisis by the way as you said we're taking fish out and putting plastic in we're also putting heat in the global warming pollution that has the man-made global warming pollution that's accumulated in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy as would be released by 500,000 Hiroshima class atomic bombs exploding every day 93 percent of that heat energy goes into the oceans and with all due respect to Las Vegas what happens in the ocean doesn't stay in the ocean the stronger storms the disruption of the water cycle it's being acidified and and there's more and I look forward to this panel because we've got some real experts here what's the reality ISA well the same I mean I believe that majority of people are not really understanding the problem I mean not everyone is and even though I would say that you have seen a trend at particularly in young people would you understand that climate change is a terrible threat and you understand also the role that oceans play on it that can be a very positive one or a negative one as we all know we all know that of course temperature of the of the seas are rising acidification is happening and that means a lot of consequences and we already seen in the video the positive side of oceans and so so many people it's like 30 percent of the population that live on coastal areas and live in their livelihood depends on the possibility of ocean so we have lots of issues that needs to be addressed because not only on climate change but also on illegal fishing fish on overfishing because of a lack I would say of understanding sooner of how important this is mark do people understand what acidification is I can barely pronounce it well I think that now is an incredible time for everyone to decide that they're going to do one thing for the ocean certainly we also have to decide we're all going to do something for the environment but let's specifically talk about the ocean about 18 months ago we started here at the World Economic Forum our Friends of ocean action which I'd like to invite everyone here to join this was started out of our Benioff ocean initiative which is led out of the University of California Santa Barbara and it's been an incredible set of learnings for us but also a very optimistic year because one year ago Justin Trudeau was here who went through briefings on the ocean for the first time with us at the World Economic Forum and that's why you saw prioritization in June with the g7 for the first time saying that oceans is one of their top five priorities the g20 is it's not too late it's not a little too late I'm an I'm an optimistic person and I believe that you know we can take change and great change right now there's very specific actions that we can take and we can talk about some of those things as well but I think having the g7 and g20 start to prioritize oh oh Sh in health this is extremely important to sometimes the ocean is out of sight out of mind it's so big everyone will say oh that's fine well let's I don't know you know looks like it did six months ago but things are changing it is getting hotter we do have overfishing we do have things going on that we need to directly address a coral bleaching we have seabed mining I'd like to talk about that at some point but there's many things that we all can do right now to make the ocean much healthier so you know in 2021 you want to launch the world's largest research an expedition vessel to acquire more knowledge why don't we have that knowledge now well we do have a lot of knowledge that we should act on already now but I mean people on this planet seems to be more insistent on exploring outer space than what is actually here which is also kind of surprising given the oceans importance for our mere existence I mean all life on this planet originated in the oceans at the same time we're treating them as a waste dump which is awful and I think if everyone knew how serious the situation for the oceans actually are everyone would be activists and to put it in perspective in my lifetime our lifetime over the past 40 years we've lost more than 40% of life in the oceans and it's accelerating as a result of climate change ocean acidification pollution and the like so what we want to do is obviously improve our knowledge and understanding of the oceans bring that knowledge to decision-makers in a much better way and make it more understandable but then most importantly turning that knowledge into very concrete solutions and act now and read I think we know enough right it's difficult to overstate the the problem and just some examples more than half of the surface of the ocean is targeted by industrial fishing that's a footprint that is larger than Agriculture's 90% of the large fish in the ocean sharks tuna Cod are gone we ate them in the last hundred years 90% of the Fisheries of the world are either fully exploited or overexploited by 2040 and I went to the press everybody now by 2040 there's going to be no sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during summer months coral reefs are going to be a thing of the past by 2050 if we continue our ways etc etc etc but this not only affects marine life it affects people to think about the humanitarian crisis when we have fleets from industrialized countries fishing of the coast of West Africa for example and the legally and illegally and depriving those local people from food security and these people then have to go to Europe know that we have a real problem and it's only going to get worse and the economic implications are huge right now twenty three billion dollars every year are lost because of illegal fishing and we subsidize the over-exploitation the ocean with 35 billion dollars per year etc etc etc so it's really bad we don't know how many species are in the ocean we only know 20% of what's there but we know enough to know it's bad and we need to do something now if I could add just a couple of brief points so first of all you said is it too late earlier I would like to briefly make the point that none of us has the right ever to say it's too late it is never too late but back to this you know the statistic that by 2050 at current trends the weight of the plastic in the ocean will exceed the weight of all the fish in the ocean and we are still taking out of the ocean each year the the human weight of China in fish and the illegal fishing pirate ships now another point the oceans and the atmosphere are very tightly coupled and as the oceans warm all the way down to 2,000 metres the capacity of the oceans to absorb co2 diminishes and up until now the oceans have been a sink for co2 that's caused the acidification unfortunately which contributes to the core to the loss of corals but as the oceans warm we will not have that buffer so it makes it more difficult to deal with climate but the good news is with satellite tracking and with all of the new digital tools we have if we decide as a world to protect the oceans we can do so we need governments to be activated we need policy changes and those of us who are privileged to be alive at this hinge of history moment need to make a decision that we will protect the oceans and protect our planet mm-hmm well I've heard hear that 18 months ago the World Economic Forum started thinking on those issues and then the g7 g20 but lets us remember that in the Paris agreement I mean made a long time ago like three or more years ago there versus the because the ocean declaration that many countries committed to so even though I I understand when I'll says its name is not never too late and you never have to give up because I have the same attitude at issues I think we are we have to we're only going to accelerate actions because you know Paris agreement was many years ago and cut over check up 24 last year they approved a plan of action or many issues from climate change also on oceans so that's possibly but it has three years afterwards and if we continue doing business as usual we're not gonna get there I'm gonna we're not going to meet the objectives is a sustainable development goals and well they're not going to be able to stop this so I'm I'm fine to say it's never too late but I'm a little concerned because I think we countries and companies had not taken enough understanding and efforts on changing and doing the right things Nina I agree I think there's every reason to be concerned but at the same time the problems that we're seeing in the oceans are caused by humans which means we also have every opportunity to do something about it and what really gives me reason for optimism is seeing how high the oceans are actually on the global agenda at the moment they I don't think I've seen a single issue like plastics where companies business leaders governments have come together to really try to solve this and even seeing all the commitments from the World Economic Forum and what's happening here I think cause it's great cause of optimism let me give you one specific case for optimism for those of you know we have the fourth Industrial Revolution underway and it's one of the major topics here at this conference we also have the World Economic Forum's fourth Industrial Revolution Center in San Francisco that studies and also articulates that on global policy issues that that's things like autonomous vehicles artificial intelligence all these incredible new technologies well currently underway there's quite a few companies that are assembling these incredible new 4ir technologies to create vehicles that will do seabed mining seabed mining is the pursuit of all of these kind of precious stones and minerals and gases and all the things they'd like to go find in the ocean and they're assembling these vehicles now you know you all seen what autonomous vehicles look like but once they disappear under the water nobody's gonna exactly know where they are well they're all about to go under there and as they're digging and grinding things up and chewing up the bottom of the ocean also we're gonna go to all these plutoxin that are gonna be coming up and sufficient to get it being absorbed into all that and it's all gonna come into our ecosystem and in our food chain it's gonna be one of the most devastating things that's ever happened to the ocean seabed mining well guess what hasn't started yet so we need everyone here to start becoming an expert on that to think about that to get to your local politicians we have Peter Thompson here who is are you an ambassador for the ocean he's working on that but we need declarations around seabed mining that are gonna protect the ocean and and make sure that as that happens it's gonna need we're gonna need to have you know authorities and auditing and proper governance around that but it has not yet happened so that's a case for optimism that we know that there's things today that have not happened that we can stop or manage better than we would without knowing about them that's an awareness issue on the second on the second point we also know that when we look at plastics in the ocean we heard about more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050 and nobody wants a plastic ocean right so but we also know that it's 9 rivers that really contribute the mavs vast majority of that plastic and that River management is needs to become a critical part of policy and work and we're seeing River machines getting built and generated to get that plastic out of the rivers before they start that's something that we can do now who's causing plastic pollution is it certain regions in the world is it business and are they willing to trust you the nuclear waste of our generation it has been generated and it is not going away all of this mythology about biet being recycled is crazy well you know it's not really getting recycled that I can find and we need next-generation materials which we can do great companies who are experts in this area like Dow DuPont Honeywell and others who create plastic need to create biodegradable plastic and they are but we need that we need that now so that's another thing that will get the 4ir you know I hope that innovation technology risk-taking entrepreneurship the Cummings that have you know that we know you