Speeches

The digital revolution has enormous consequences and we must be prepared

The last talk at Foro Zagaleta 2018 was from Bernardo Hernández, General Partner, e.ventures and a global authority on innovation.
The innovation expert started his presentation by sharing an interesting fact and a question: “Silicon Valley has created the same amount of wealth in 20 years as two of the biggest European countries in the world. How is it possible to create so much real wealth in such a short period of time?” For Bernardo Hernández, this is a consequence of the ‘Third Industrial Revolution: “This revolution is as important in size and outcome as the first one and is spreading around the world”.

Understanding the essence of change is one of the key premises for success. Hernández said “The big winners of this revolution don’t develop technology; they adapt it to create value. He named Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. as the companies that are operating along these lines. They know the limits of the technology and get the most of it. However, he also pointed out the fact that this opportunity “is accessible to all of us and not just a few in Silicon Valley” and also added that “technology is not only becoming more powerful, it’s also more affordable”.

The technology leader reflected on, where we are today and what’s technically possible and responded by reinforcing the key message of his presentation: “The value is not in creating the technology but in knowing how to use it”. The entrepreneur believes “more efficiency is needed. The algorithms working until now have been deterministic and we must move to probabilistic ones”. There’s no need to map, it would be impossible. Computers are making decisions with probabilistic parameters, not a deterministic one.

To finish up, the expert shared some of the principles he considers basic for digital transformation: “Solve a problem and do it well for millions of users, have a competitive advantage, focus on one thing and work hard, and remember competition is just a click away”. Bernardo Hernández finished by saying “the digital revolution has enormous consequences and we must be prepared”.