I was in London yesterday to join Huawei’s “Trust in Tech” conference. Meanwhile, in Turkey, inflation rates were released. As the rates turned out to be as expected, I would like to write about the current focus points of the world today.
Delivering the opening speech of the conference, Huawei’s CTO Paul Scanlan mostly expressed the importance and the deep meaning of the event. The moderator of the conference, Marsha Collier, on the other hand, is a celebrity lady in the world of innovation and she is the voice of the reason, a talented expert reaching to people through her distinguished books and her social media posts. Prof. Kevin Curran, who was called upon stage after Scanlan, is a capable scientist and a cyber-security specialist. His speech involved some very interesting facts that both surprised us and incited us to think. I noticed that the audience was taking note of every slide on the screen as Curran was explaining the right and the wrong approaches to cyber security.
Having wrapped up his speech with gusto, Prof. Curren invited Huawei’s CSO Jeremy Thompson on stage to co-deliver the top 10 cybersecurity trends to look out for in 2020. The panel was followed by Huawei’s Andrew Williamson’s speech on the Global Competitiveness Index. As I was looking at the slides on the screen, something engaged my attention. Though not surprised, I felt rather concerned to see that Turkish economy, which is the world’s 18th largest economy, ranks 46th in the index. The index showed that the late starters in technology and innovation like Bulgaria have been gaining momentum lately.
Then it was my turn to deliver my speech at the panel. An admired speaker of Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon world, Elise Quevedo is among the top influencers of the world. She has been serving as one the Key Opinion Leaders of Huawei for some time now. This time assuming the role of moderator, she ensured that the conference was a success.
Entrepreneur and Angel Investor Mike Flache, opening speaker of the conference Andrew Williamson, former professor at Université Galatasaray Jonathan Liebenau and I have tried to answer Elise Quevedo’s questions on “Trust and Transparency”. Unanimously agreeing that Artificial Intelligence can be trusted, we have discussed numerous matters including the mistakes of governments in setting their priorities straight, corporate hesitations when it comes to adopting new technologies, the death of ‘dead-end’ jobs and the birth of new ones, the right and the wrong use of technology, and technology’s crisis of confidence. I think Huawei will publish “Trust in Tech” conference proceedings very soon.
“We should be looking forward, not backwards”
At the end of the panel, I presented Jonathan Liebenau with my latest book “Exit from Economics”. As the English version of the book is scheduled to get published in January 2020, I told the other participants that they will get their copies at the MWC Barcelona 2020 in February.
A wide range of topics, including 5G, limitless technology, new initiatives to engage persons with disabilities, and value creation, were discussed in the afternoon panels moderated by Spenser Blank and chaired by Marsha Collier. I was particularly impressed by Prof. Gelen Gilmore’s engaging speech and the interesting approach of Beatriz Becerra, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights. Chief Telecoms Analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, Matthew Kendall told us about the latest developments in Technology, Telecoms and IT. The conversation we had during a coffee break after the panel has let us realize that governments actually have more in common than we think in terms of approaches to technology implementation.
I was happy to see that, especially on International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Huawei has invited Justin Smith from British Deaf Association, who himself is a deaf-mute person. Smith provided deep insight on how persons with disabilities can be fully operational and work proficiently in society by using adaptive technology. His speech was translated into English by two sign language interpreters. It was something worth to see.
In short, the World is engaged in whole different things while we, in Turkey, keep talking about inflation, interest rates and mega projects. From now on, we should be looking forward, not backwards. We should make efforts to increase the number of future-focused people in Turkey where still exist some academics who question whether it was good or not that Ottoman Turkish script was replaced by the Latin-based new Turkish alphabet in the 1920s.
We may achieve it by giving technology a chance.
