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Date Published: 15/06/2022
ARCHIVED - What did Barack Obama say in Malaga that was worth 2000 euros a ticket?
Around one thousand people turned up to hear Obama speak at the Digital Enterprise Show yesterday, some of whom paid nearly 2,000 euros for a ticket
Without a tie and in a casual tone, former US President Barack Obama opened the DES-Digital Enterprise Show, one of the main European congresses on digital transformation, this Tuesday in Malaga. For an hour, in front of an audience of around 1,000 people – some of whom paid nearly 2,000 euros for a ticket – Obama spoke about how he made decisions in the White House, the progress of technology, the jobs that robotisation will both generate and destroy, and even dedicated a few choice words to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Obama is spending a few days on the Costa del Sol, and took the opportunity to unwind and play some golf in Casares. Hotels in the area were booked full, with the draw of a superstar like Obama bringing 14,000 people to the DES and generating an estimated income of 30 million euros.
As if he were a film star, his entrance into the auditorium was spectacular. A large photograph of him on stage and music in the background with songs by, among other artists, Michael Jackson. Despite his supposed relaxation, he has a contract with numerous clauses in which, for example, it was forbidden to take photographs of him on his arrival at the Palacio de Ferias or inside the auditorium where he gave his talk. It was not possible to record his speech or take out mobile phones, but as soon as he came out, hundreds of people took out their phones anyway and began to take photographs and videos of him.
In the presence of the President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, among hundreds of other authorities and executives of technology companies, a moderator asked him questions and he answered in English and without any Spanish translation system.
“I love Spain and I come whenever I have an excuse to do so,” was his opening gambit, which quickly got the audience on his side. He also said that Spanish culture “is unique and I feel the hospitality of the Spanish people”, stressing that Spain is a “great” country.
Digitalisation and technology
Malaga is a hub of innovation in Spain, and while Obama acknowledged that he was not an expert on the technology and digital industry in Spain, he did stress that the key to the success of the United States in this sector was that “we have very strong universities that have created an ecosystem where new ideas are generated”.
Obama stressed that in his country, many millions of dollars are invested in companies that have lots of potential and emphasised that they have “a spirit of risk-taking”: “If you fail, you have to have a second chance and that failure doesn’t ruin you.”
Obama also highlighted the “combination of science and digital learning” as an opportunity for entrepreneurs and for transforming companies in all kinds of sectors, and insisted on the need for powerful universities with large investment capital behind them to enable them to generate an innovation ecosystem.
Speaking about technology, Obama highlighted the strong progress made in recent years “that allows us to have more information in our pockets with a mobile phone than in a library” and underlined the power of connection on a global scale generated by social networks, although he also warned that “the information that flows can be toxic”, using as an example – half seriously, half-jokingly – an alleged video of him made with deepfake technology in which he “said things that I didn’t really say”.
Obama believes that countries need to take action because with deepfake technology “now we can’t tell if something is true or false”.
Automation
In terms of automation in the workplace, the former US president stated that it “is going to reduce tedious jobs that do not require creativity” and gave as an example the loss of jobs that automatic cars will generate, although he pointed out that “we will have to adapt psychologically to seeing how a steering wheel moves by itself”.
In any case, Obama has no doubt that new jobs will be created, as has happened over the last 20 years.
Leadership
Obama, who has a foundation together with his wife Michelle, is committed to empowering talented young people and encouraging them “towards leadership because we see incredible young people”. In this sense, he stressed that in his foundation “we find young leaders in every country and we tell them that we are here to help them”.
Several of them from Ukraine, for example, have been sharing opinions and ideas with others from other countries and have been organising aid. In this sense, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being “a threat to European democracy” and acknowledged the solidarity of the rest of Europe, including Spain, with the Ukrainian people.
Obama called for an “inclusive capitalism that reduces inequality” and defended a “great investment” in clean energy because “we have no choice”.
“It is a great time to move from oil to clean energy,” he said, while explaining that “there is strong evidence that the migration crisis we are seeing around the world has been triggered by climate change and people may have no choice but to leave their homelands.”
Finally, Obama was asked how he managed decision-making in the White House, to which he replied that one of the keys was to set a medium-term goal. “A lot of people get stressed out because they think in the short term but I was training myself to look further ahead and see what steps needed to be taken to get there in a few years.”
From time to time, he joked, it didn’t hurt to have a Martini.
Image: Pixabay
Image 2: DES 2022
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