Meeting Highlights

GTGS 2021 Meeting Highlights

The Next Frontier: Corporate Governance

Feel like you've heard the acronym ESG pop up with increasing frequency? You're not alone. These 'environmental, social and governance' indicators are now seen as critically important to any organization's viability. They also generated record inflows of money into dedicated funds last year.

But there are risks. With pioneering tech comes bias, inequity and unfair access, not to mention privacy concerns. How can enterprises put technology front and centre?

Image: Deloitte

Speakers in this session are: Gillian R. Tett, Editor-at-Large and Chair of the Editorial Board, The Financial Times; Amy Weaver, President and Chief Financial Officer, Salesforce; Luis Alberto Moreno, Member of the Board of Trustees, World Economic Forum; Todd Cort, Lecturer in Sustainability, Yale University; Claire Lee, Global Brand Ambassador, SVB Capital, Silicon Valley Bank; Christina Montgomery, Vice-President and Chief Privacy Officer, IBM Corporation; and Kay Firth-Butterfield, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; World Economic Forum.

Tech is a social creature

For Todd Cort, the challenges of tech are as society-based as they are three-fold: 1. Rights of individual (data privacy and online bullying); 2. Cohesion of groups and communities (digital access and job losses); and 3. Health (fitness, sedentary lifestyles and gaming addiction)

Amy Weaver agrees that employees and customers are driving the sustainability fight. "If you don't get this right you can really put a bulls-eye on your back. But if you can do this effectively, I am convinced that really laying in on ESG is one of the best ways to build a strong and durable company."

Tech in the community

Tech companies certainly can't work alone, says Cort. "What we do is work in communities of people. When it comes to ESG, we need help to project scenarios of what's going to happen - deforestation, hurricanes, global warming, for instance."

Christina Montgomery sees an increasing number of IBM investors asking about ESG practices. "They want to know how we're operationalising those principles and practices," she says. "They see our trust in technology and demand to know how it's playing out in practice. They want real-life examples", she adds.

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Luis Alberto Moreno says: "Take a country like Bolivia, where 50% of country has access to bandwidth. It's low-speed and high-cost. The more that bandwidth is accelerating, the more important it is that we're all connected - and we're all connected the same."

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We need a new way of working, says Claire Lee. "Start-ups will always look to disrupt spaces. And there is an industry around us that needs to be brought more up to date. It's our role to educate and reform."

T for technology

There's definitely "a little T in the ESG economy", says Cort. "If I were to suggest one set of metrics, it would be around how it's enabling solutions beyond its borders.

Should we regulate that? No.

Would investors be interested in learning about that? Yes."

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"We need a unified framework around ESG metrics so that there's more comparability," says Christina Montgomery. Currently, individual metrics aren't applicable enough to be useful. But the technology is evolving and there's much to be hopeful about.

Transformation in Action - Positive Futures

From Jules Verne to Star Trek, technologists often cite science fiction as an inspiration for their breakthroughs.

But how should govern these technological breakthroughs, today and in the years ahead?

To answer this question and to discuss the relationship between fiction and technology, we've assembled a panel which includes; Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley; Mike Bechtel, Managing Director and Chief Futurist, Deloitte; Amy Webb, Professor, NYU Stern School of Business; Malka Older, author and humanitarian worker; and Kay Firth-Butterfield, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum. Alana Semuels, TIME's Senior Economics Correspondent, will moderate the discussion.

Before the session kicks off, here's a piece by Russell on how we can craft a positive vision for the future of AI and other technologies.

And here's a fantastic piece by Bechtel on why 'Futurism is a means to see beyond COVID-19.'

How can science fiction influence how we think about the future?

Sci-fi pushes back on dystopian visions of the future in two ways, says Malka Older. It does this by describing hopeful visions of the future and through dystopian visions of the future that act as a warning.

We need both of these, and everything in between, she adds.

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As a futurist, Mike Bechtel thinks about this a lot. A lot of movies and novels paint worrying visions of the future, but the reality is a little more nuanced. "As a technologist," he says, "we tend to see the future as a little more technologically neutral."

The next 10 years are going to be about "moving beyond the device," he adds. The future will shift towards more 'ambient experiences', where we don't ask, 'Google, what's the weather like?', but instead ask, 'what's the weather like?' and the right device at the right time will step up and provide us with the answer.

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On upcoming trends, Amy Webb talks about the 'synthetic decade'. "We're seeing a lot of developments where we're applying technologies to improve on our existing humanity."

There are key trends that are interesting but also important for businesses to pay attention to. The first is that we are synthesizing human workflows, like when we use AI to process information. Secondly, we're also seeing synthetic media, which now goes way, way beyond deep fakes.

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It's also now possible to 'synthesize yourself', she adds, and this has many positive use cases, like synthesizing HR interactions that make employees feel more responsive and comfortable. Synthetic biology, meanwhile, is allowing us to make huge advancements in areas like gene editing that are not just transforming healthcare, but other industries like materials.

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What does the advance of AI mean for our jobs? The first thing to understand, Stuart Russell says, is that the type of AI that people worry will take all of our jobs, does not exist yet. This would be superhuman AI, and we're a long way away from that.

Harnessing Data for a Healthy Ocean

The value of the ocean economy could exceed $3 trillion by 2030, yet marine ecosystems are rapidly deteriorating due to climate change, pollution and overexploitation. In this session, panelists will discuss how data and digital technology can help preserve ocean health.

Speakers include Bjorn Tore Markussen, Chief Executive Officer, C4IR Ocean, Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Ocean; Dominic Kailash Nath Waughray, Managing Director, World Economic Forum Geneva; Maria Ines Gameiro, Advisor of the Minister of the Sea; HLP Sherpa support for Portugal, Portugal Government; Matts Johansen, Chief Executive Officer, Aker Biomarine; Michael Connor, Chief Executive Officer, ThayerMahan Inc; William Marshall, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Planet Labs Inc.; Briana Warner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Sea Farms.

Take a look at this article by Bjorn Tore Markussen on how data is transforming the way we take care of our ocean.

Maria Ines Gameiro believes this is a critical and pivotal time to use data to protect our ocean. Priorities include building ocean literacy and awareness among citizens, as well as investing in technology and the proper skills for ocean conservation and management. It is also important to increase cooperation among countries, she adds, as well as between the public and private sectors and different stakeholders.

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Matts Johansen, CEO of Aker BioMarine, a company which produces nutrient-rich feed from krill, says the drones and technology they use is collecting huge amounts of data, which provides information on the ocean ecosystem around the krill, such as the temperature of the water. This allows them to make better decisions on when and where they fish.

As a business, the data Aker BioMarine collects is their competitive advantage. However, sharing it with governments or competitors is a risk he is willing to take in order to develop the fisheries in a positive way. It is, however, important to make sure this information is not being misused.

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Will Marshall, CEO of Planet Labs, a company that has 200 satellites that are monitoring the ocean for issues like overfishing, says if governments want to help, they should pay companies like his to share their data more widely. He adds that the private sector can have an important collaborative role to play with governments when providing data, however it is also important to choose exactly what type of data needs to be shared.

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The Next Frontier: Healthy Ageing



We're living longer lives than ever before. It's a reason to celebrate - as long as we're healthy enough to enjoy our old age. This session brings together experts from state and business to explore what it means to stay healthy and happy for longer - and how tech can help us achieve it.

Speakers in this session are Yang Yanqing, Managing Director, Yicai Research Institute, YICAI Media Group; Kengo Sakurada, Group CEO, Director, President and Representative Executive Officer, Sompo Holdings Inc; Nishimura Yasutoshi, Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy, Minister in Charge of Novel Coronavirus Disease Control, Cabinet Office of Japan; Sophie Guerin, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Johnson & Johnson; Dr. Alison Bryant, Senior Vice-President, Research; Enterprise Lead, Technology and Digital Equity, AARP; and Stephanie Allen, Leader, Global and Australia Healthcare Sector, Deloitte.

Kengo Sakurada believes older people are a vastly underused resource. "If healthy life expectancy of age 50-74 years old is extended by just 10 years," he says, citing the findings of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, of which he is chairman, "annual consumption will increase by an estimated 300 billion US dollars. And tax revenue by 54 billion. And insurance premium revenue by 36 billion."

But the benefits don't just flow one way. For older people, technology offers ways to plan ahead, manage healthcare and stay connected while maintaining independence and a high quality of life. Alison Bryant says: "We know that in the US, about 80% of older adults want to age in their own home." At AARP, where she's Senior VP of Research, they're exploring the role of tech in allowing older people to age in place, and investing in smart new solutions to help them remain independent.

Sophie Guerin says: "It's really about how do you continuously involve, engage and motivate people to leverage technology so that they're driving meaningful, sustainable outcomes for that 100-year life."

But tech doesn't come without challenges, says Stephanie Allen, who was involved in a Deloitte study of 100,000 mental-health and well-being apps. "When we looked at those criteria of quality - data privacy, cybersecurity, cost effectiveness, clinical efficacy and continuous improvement - we found that only 11% of those global apps met the criteria."

That's why we need a 'global quality kitemark', she says. Such a standard "will give governments confidence to invest in those types of solutions, and it will give clinicians confidence to either diagnose or recommend those solutions, knowing that there is nothing in there that is going to be harmful."

Leading Industry Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and operating models while responding to heightened expectations for societal engagement and corporate citizenship.

In this session, panellists will discuss the priorities for corporate governance in a “new normal” of accelerated technological change and radical uncertainty.

Speakers: Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director, World Economic Forum Geneva; Yoichi Funabashi, Chairman, Asia Pacific Initiative; Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chairman, Siemens AG; Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of Serbia, Office of the Prime Minister of Serbia; Hanzade Dogan Boyner, Chairwoman, Hepsiburada; Koike Yuriko, Governor of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digitization of customer interactions by several years.
Image: McKinsey & Company

We’ve become very adept at harnessing and adapting the technologies of the 4IR, says Dr Yoichi Funabashi. But, we’re not sure of the extent to which we’re able to manage these technologies.