Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Molly, we are crossing over the
Speaker 1: threshold into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Can it solve the
Speaker 1: world's challenges? And there are many challenges out.
Speaker 2: There, and we are also crossing over to the Atlantic
Speaker 2: for our next guest. Marca hoche Is on Zoom from
Speaker 2: the Netherlands Market. It's got to be pretty late there.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us. Marga is the
Speaker 2: chief executive officer. She is a She just came out
Speaker 2: with a new book that's all about tech. It's called
Speaker 2: Tech for Good Imagine solving the world's greatest challenges. So Margat,
Speaker 2: thank you once again for joining us on this exciting
Speaker 2: Monday evening in the Netherlands.
Speaker 3: Thanks. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so tell us a little bit about the book.
Speaker 2: What inspired you to write it and what's like your
Speaker 2: background in this topic.
Speaker 3: So the book is coold, like you said, Tech for Good,
Speaker 3: and it's a book that synogized is on the one hand,
Speaker 3: sustainability and on the other hand technology, and both of
Speaker 3: them are very important topics, but not very often they're
Speaker 3: brought together to see how, you know, the intersection of
Speaker 3: technology and sustainability looks like. And I've been a CEO
Speaker 3: in the past, and then I moved on to lead
Speaker 3: a sustainable business association because I was passionate about the
Speaker 3: fact that business can be a first for good and
Speaker 3: having a good business case at the same time, and
Speaker 3: even more so, being progressive on sustainability strengthens companies competitive position.
Speaker 3: And before this, I wrote the book The Trillion Dollar Shift,
Speaker 3: which was about the sustainable development goals, you know, the
Speaker 3: goals that we set out in twenty fifteen with the
Speaker 3: timeline to twenty thirty. You just refer to the intro
Speaker 3: to all these challenges which are in these sustainable development goals.
Speaker 3: And in that book, I described all the opportunities that
Speaker 3: arise if companies really engage with sustainability in their business,
Speaker 3: you know, to do less horror but really see how
Speaker 3: they can create value. And then it appeared that technology
Speaker 3: is you know, maybe even our biggest ally moving forward
Speaker 3: because it can be huge force for good and also
Speaker 3: strengthen companies' commercial positions. So though that's exciting, because you know,
Speaker 3: the whole debate is so often about how we fear
Speaker 3: technology how you know, it's supposed to do bad things
Speaker 3: and you know, replacing our jobs and all that. But
Speaker 3: I think it's important with all of those challenges around us,
Speaker 3: you know, in a way, the consequences of the former
Speaker 3: industrial evolutions, that in essence we have to embrace what
Speaker 3: technology can do for both humanity and the world. And
Speaker 3: that gets a bit lost. And so that's the reason
Speaker 3: why I wrote the book Imagine Tech for Good, Solving
Speaker 3: the world's challenges, to put people's you know, and hopefully
Speaker 3: inspiration with that positive view on technology.
Speaker 1: We already have technology who's doing it right at this point?
Speaker 1: Do you look at specific companies as example?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course in the book, I have written about
Speaker 3: seventy five real life business cases from all over the world.
Speaker 3: So there's many companies that do the right thing. Of course,
Speaker 3: it's not enough, you know, it's still a minority and
Speaker 3: it should become a majority. But yeah, we have either
Speaker 3: large companies that do a bit good or smaller companies
Speaker 3: that do a lot good, or anything in between. But
Speaker 3: we have enough good examples to learn from.
Speaker 1: I want technology Mali to cure cancer. I want technology,
Speaker 1: with the help of business at this point to come
Speaker 1: up with the challenges of climate change. I want all
Speaker 1: these things. Is it going to deliver?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Can you tell us? I mean some of the
Speaker 2: hope here, I have no idea, don't ask me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can deliver, I mean, will not go by itself.
Speaker 3: We have to you know, join efforts and have all
Speaker 3: stakeholders you know, pointing in the right direction and focus
Speaker 3: on that. And if we put our energy, our mindset,
Speaker 3: and our investments toward that, then it can actually be achieved.
Speaker 3: I mean we have actually still no clue what technology
Speaker 3: can do. We want to, you know, come across as
Speaker 3: if we do know, but to be fair, we don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean even the other day there was a message
Speaker 3: and I put it on Instagram that, for instance, Google's
Speaker 3: Deep minds AI has predicted over three hundred thousand, three
Speaker 3: hundred eighty thousand stable materials, meaning there's all kinds of
Speaker 3: new advanced materials that can do take care of technological breakthroughs,
Speaker 3: and we have no idea what they will be, so
Speaker 3: nobody can predict. But I am absolutely sure that we
Speaker 3: can do much more than we think. And John, the
Speaker 3: topics that you pointed out is hugely important. I mean
Speaker 3: tech for for medical reasons, and for healthcare is hugely important,
Speaker 3: also hugely important to close what they call the digital divide,
Speaker 3: meaning that we have to disseminate progress technoy that technology
Speaker 3: brings us equally around the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, wasn't there something recently? I think that
Speaker 2: I saw that It was the chat GPT, one of
Speaker 2: the other bots was giving like faulty medical advice I
Speaker 2: believe on one of those. I mean, there's some there
Speaker 2: could be some potentially really dangerous stuff out there, MARKA.
Speaker 2: Isn't there right, of course?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, of course. And we need we do need
Speaker 3: rules and regulations and policies around technology, and they have
Speaker 3: to do both. They on the one hand, have to
Speaker 3: uh as much as possible, you know, prevent bad intent
Speaker 3: because after behind every bad technology is people that have
Speaker 3: not the positive intent, of course, and on the other hand,
Speaker 3: help and support technology to do good and not paralyze
Speaker 3: that or prelimit it. So it has to do both well.
Speaker 1: It's like at the dawn of the nuclear age, the
Speaker 1: promise was for free, clean energy for the world. What
Speaker 1: we got also were nuclear weapons that could destroy us
Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. And we can have drones in wars and
Speaker 3: we can all imagine what they're doing there. But we
Speaker 3: can also have robots in battlefields that save people because
Speaker 3: the first seconds is first thirty seconds is the most important.
Speaker 3: And drones that can deliver medicine and seeds to remote areas.
Speaker 3: So there's always those two sides. But if we only,
Speaker 3: you know, focus on fearing the downside of technology, we
Speaker 3: forget that we actually also needed to achieve the good.
Speaker 2: And you know, margut is something that this brings up
Speaker 2: the question of sustainability and ESG and that's become you know,
Speaker 2: as I'm sure you know, a very political debate on
Speaker 2: our side of the pond, but you're telling us that,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't think that it necessarily has to be.
Speaker 3: Well again, we need both, but you know, sometimes to
Speaker 3: make a big of a joke, I was talking to
Speaker 3: a big bank and then they said, yo, you because
Speaker 3: I'm based in Europe, you have all these rules and regulations.
Speaker 3: We have to you know, settle whole departments to monitor
Speaker 3: all that, but where are the deals? So in other words,
Speaker 3: you know, the sustainable business has to be profitable and
Speaker 3: sustainable by itself, and then of course rules and regulations
Speaker 3: can close the back door, but it very rarely opens
Speaker 3: the front door. In other words, you know, businesses have
Speaker 3: to do it by themselves because they see good rules
Speaker 3: for it. And then it can be sative to have
Speaker 3: rules and regulations and all kinds of policies around it,
Speaker 3: but it won't solve it by itself.
Speaker 1: In this new Industrial revolution, the Fourth Industrial Revolution as
Speaker 1: you term it, do you have a favorite technology that
Speaker 1: stands out that you see as most promising?
Speaker 3: Well, what's actually my favorite, if you will, about this
Speaker 3: fourth Industrial Revolution? That it's so very different. So in
Speaker 3: former industrial revolutions we have one two things you know,
Speaker 3: like coal, oil gas. All these a few innovations, but
Speaker 3: they had big effect. The difference with the Fourth Industrial
Speaker 3: Revolution if that it's like, you know, a huge toolkit.
Speaker 3: In my book, I describe eight groups of technologies from
Speaker 3: AI and data to three D printing, robotics, advanced materials,
Speaker 3: and so on and so forth, and they blend physical
Speaker 3: and digital technologies and in every solution, the culbination of
Speaker 3: those eight groups appears. So what's my favorite. Why I
Speaker 3: like it so much is because we're so rich this time,
Speaker 3: with so many options and combinations that we can do
Speaker 3: you know things beyond the unimentionable. To give you an example,
Speaker 3: you know our core reefs are about to disappear for instance.
Speaker 1: Oh well, we'll only about twenty seconds. But coral reefs
Speaker 1: three D printing at the intersection. You believe it's actually
Speaker 1: something that could could save the coral reefs.
Speaker 3: Mark correctly. It can reverse the damage you inflicted because
Speaker 3: we can print and then the ecosystem doesn't recognize it
Speaker 3: as artificial, so we can actually restore nature.
Speaker 1: Margaret Hope, we appreciate your appearance that I CEO of
Speaker 1: Business for Good, author of Imagine Tech for Good, solving
Speaker 1: the world's greatest challenges,