 On behalf of the World Economic Forum, I would like to welcome all participants for more than 48 countries that gathered today in Medellin to take part of the 11th World Economic Forum on Latin America. I would like to express our deepest gratitude to President Juan Manuel Santos, the government of Colombia, and in particular to Minister María Claudia Lacutir and ProColombia for being exemplary partners in the preparation of this event. I would also like to thank Federico Gutierrez, Mayor of Medellin, and his team. In a very special manner, let me acknowledge the presence of President Francisco Macri from Argentina. We're overjoyed to have you, Mr. Chairman. Carlos Julio Ardila of Grupo Ardila Lule, Brian Gallagher of United Way, Eileen Gordon of Ingredient, Carlos Alazar Lomelín of FEMSA, and Francesco Starace of NL. Welcome. Our Executive Chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab, regrets not being able to attend a regional meeting this year, but he has requested us to share this special message with you. We're now showing a very short video by Professor Klaus Schwab. Mr. President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear members and partners of the World Economic Forum, a very cordial welcome to this Economic Forum on Latin America. The consequences of a severe otitis unfortunately prevent me to travel at this time. I regret it, and in my heart, I'm with you. We are here in Medellin at a very critical point for Latin America. There have been many positive developments, and particularly in this country, Mr. President. We see a very positive potential outcome of all your efforts, but nevertheless, we are confronting worldwide the consequences. I should also say the opportunities of a forced industrial revolution. This revolution will change not only how we produce, how we consume, how we communicate, it will change us. And of course, there are numerous consequences, particularly related to the required skills for the future. Latin America has a great potential, and we are here to see how this potential through international cooperation, through inner Latin American cooperation could be best developed. We are here in a city which serves as a role model in the world based on the integration of its citizens based on its future-oriented policies. Ladies and gentlemen, the World Economic Forum will continue to support Latin America and you individually in your efforts to shape the future. We have restructured ourselves, concentrating particularly on 14 different initiatives such as shaping the future of the health system, the future of infrastructure, the future of digital industries, the future of the financial and monetary global system, and so on. All issues of tremendous importance for Latin America. We want to do so, not advising you, but integrating you, collaborating, because the World Economic Forum is a platform, a platform for leaders from all walks of life to work together. And in this respect, I'm very pleased that we have from so many countries political leaders, business leaders, but also leaders of civil society assembled here. I would like to use this opportunity to thank you, President Santos, to thank your government, to thank the people of Colombia for your support, for your partnership and for your friendship. I wish you a very fruitful, forthcoming days here in the beautiful city of Medellin. Latin America has enjoyed a decade of continuous growth and has made great strides in poverty reduction. The region now faces a crossroad, economic deceleration, and the drop in commodity prices has had a significant impact on all our economies. On the other hand, the region stands up to a new phase in international trade. It is developing more modern infrastructure and it is also observing major political milestones of historical transcendence that will have a regional impact and even a global impact. These variables must be tackled strategically in order to grow based on our strengths and resources in a post-conflict environment and a post-commodities environment with an agenda driven by innovation based on individuals' well-being built on trust, its institutions with far more efficient regulations and stable public policy. New solutions must be explored in the area of transparency, accountability, social stability, and public security. Healthcare systems, social security, and education must be radically transformed. Given demographic evolution as well as the skills and competencies required in the 21st century in order to advance in social and economic inclusion, likewise, mitigation and adaptation to environmental changes as well as building a sustainable economy are matters of paramount importance to our region. Public-private partnerships as well as technological progress are called to play a pivotal role in the region's development in order to sponsor productivity on the long run as well as in human capital development. The digital economy is fertile ground for this type of cooperation because it's based on infrastructure and vanguard investments. We must look at new production models. We must also apply data analysis that is far more rigorous and sophisticated as well as identifying emerging consumer patterns to make sure that the region is a dynamic actor for this fourth industrial revolution. The call for all our leaders is a call to action to define a forward-looking agenda that avoids backsliding in social and economic progress achieved to date. The private sector has a leading role to play and together with the public sector it must help build trust and give renewed momentum to the region's economy. I hope Medellin will be an inspiration and this forum, the ideal setting to do precisely that. Thank you very much. I would now like to invite our host, President Juan Manuel Santos to join me here at the podium. Good morning, everyone. Good morning to you, President Mauricio Macri. President of Argentina, Colombians are overjoyed to have you here. In our country yesterday I had a state visit. We had a state visit in Bogotá and I'm overjoyed to see you at this meeting in Medellin. I'd like to greet Felipe Gonzales, former president of Spain, the former president of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Fernandez, Mr. Ernesto Sanper from Colombia, the director of the World Economic Forum, dear mayor of Bogotá, Medellin, excuse me, and his wife. Thank you, thank you for hosting us in the city of eternal spring. And I've been told that all the attendees to this wonderful forum have had a wonderful time. And I'd also like to greet all the entrepreneurs, political leaders and academics with us here today. Welcome, welcome all to Colombia. Welcome to the city of Medellin. This meeting is a meeting of great importance because of the times we're living at this juncture in the region, in Latin America, Colombia included. We are living what the Chinese would call interesting times, interesting moments, difficulties that if we make good use of them could be turned into opportunities. And I am convinced that this forum is the ideal setting to discuss how we can make the best of all these difficulties and turn them all into opportunities. Colombia, Colombia is also living one of the most interesting moments in its history. We are transitioning from war to peace. And this transition hasn't been easy in spite of rationale and logic dictating that this transition is normal and that this should be a seamless transition. And this is a transition that we Colombians are committed to. We are committed to carry it through to the very end and hopefully a happy ending. And all the opportunities that will open up thanks to this new circumstance that we will achieve after 50 long years of war. And the subjects discussed here are very relevant for peace building. We have wanted to start by building peace before the end of the conflict because we're convinced that what we are negotiating, dating currently in Havana, silencing rifles, putting an end to the conflict. But peace is built everywhere in the territories, in schools, in industry, in households. And that is another process that we've begun. So reconciliation between Colombia is very important as well as planting the seeds for a better future. Education, I'm sure that this world economic forum has always attached great importance to education and so have we. Education is I'd say the most effective factor for social mobility that any society can use and have. And the goal of having inclusive development, obviously education plays a pivotal role therein. We've also talked about public-private partnerships. You mentioned it earlier. And I would say that this is the mechanism that, fiscally speaking, is the best suited mechanism for building infrastructure, for developing a country. And we've already put that in motion. Colombia is currently investing in infrastructure through public-private partnerships. And I would say that this is the PPP most ambitious in any emerging countries. Over $25 billion are to be invested in projects that have already begun. We've already started building some of these projects and will continue to do so in the next five to six years in Medellin. And the entire Department of Antiochia will be benefited because it will be connected to the Pacific and the Caribbean through modern infrastructure where we've been lagging for quite some time. On the technological front, Colombia has also made great strides using technology we've connected every municipality. In the country, over 1,100 municipalities connected with broadband now. The big challenge is how to use that. And the challenge for Latin America is to go back to our growth, to our ability to not just achieve growth but inclusive development in Latin America. There are shameful differences between those who have and those who don't. Then that's why we have deployed so much effort in this. Obviously, progress has been made. ECLAC has provided some very interesting statistics in our progress against poverty. Yet there is a very long way to go, but all together we must see how we can go back to the path of growth and achieve higher growth rates. We in Colombia have been hit very hard by the sharp drop in commodity prices, particularly oil prices in Colombia. We were highly dependent on oil revenues, on the oil price, on energy and mining resources in 2013, 20% this year zero. And actually, we will have to return taxes or our growth is going to be negative. And the adjustment has been difficult, yet it has been done with a pragmatism that is working, protecting the most vulnerable sectors, allotting these scarce resources to all those activities that bring about economic growth. And that is what allowed us last year to grow slightly higher than 3%. And this year we will also grow at a rate slightly higher than 3%, which is going to be some of the, you know, one of the highest growth rates in Latin America. But what must we do on the long run? We have to invest in all those things that will actually and truly allow us to achieve sustainable growth on the long run. We need to invest in education, infrastructure, connectivity, technology, and that's exactly what we have come here to discuss. So I'm overjoyed to have you all here in the city of Medellin that is the role model we all want to follow. This is the Columbia of the past, Columbia of the future. For many years you know that Medellin's history was one that was mentioned once and again under the title of the Medellin cartel of Pablo Escobar once today. Medellin is a renewed city. This city is known for its entrepreneurial spirit, the hard-working people of Medellin in Antioquia. This is a city that is modernizing itself at a very fast pace and is a city that is a role model worldwide, an example of positive development. And that's what we want to do in Columbia. We want to follow Medellin's example because it's been able to leave its past behind it and looks at the future with renewed optimism and greater dynamism. And that requires leadership, that requires drive, that requires ambition, that requires the most positive ambition possible. And that's what we have with us here today. We have leaders who have ambition, who have the ability to innovate. And we want to learn from you and I'm sure that the discussions today and tomorrow will help us walk away from this meeting with more tools and elements of judgment to continue finding our way to this inclusive growth, a more humane development so that Latin America will recover its momentum, the dynamism it deserves. And that it should have because this is a continent that has a lot of wealth, many opportunities. We have in Columbia everything the world needs. We have energy. We have water. We have biodiversity. We have the ability to produce food. We have everything. The important thing is to make the best of it to continue and further our progress. And in the specific case of Columbia, we too would like to contribute to Latin America by leaving aside and putting an end to the last armed conflict in the entire Western hemisphere. The internal armed conflict of Columbia is the last war, the last internal war in Latin America. And once we put an end to it, the Americas will be a continent in peace and for progress. And that we hope will be our contribution and hope to do so as promptly as possible. So I wish you a fruitful deliberation and I thank you once again for coming to the city of Medellin for being in Columbia. Our country receives you with open arms. We are fervent believers in the need to receive foreign investment right now. We have the highest investment rate in our history. We'd love to maintain it and hopefully increase it because that will be the basis for future growth. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, President Santos. I would like now to introduce a distinguished panel, President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, President Juan Manuel Santos of Columbia, and Dr. Philip Brossler, head of regional strategy of the Center of Regional Strategies of the World Economic Forum. Philip, all yours. Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen, it's now my great honor and pleasure to moderate our today's opening plenary. And the speech by President Santos was an excellent segue into all this year's headline of our Latin America Summit. And the headline is, Strategy to Reignite Latin America's Inclusive Growth. And of course we all know that Latin America is quite diverse. And each of the countries has a unique set of opportunities and innovations to achieve inclusive growth. So we are very honored to have such distinguished political leaders here on stage. And so allow me to turn with the first question to President Macri and ask you as one of the biggest economy Argentina in Latin America, what is your goal in terms of inclusion and growth based on the decision you made recently in terms of investment into education and health? President Macri. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I would like to once again thank President Santos, hospitality and cordiality. And even though he is a bit under the weather, he has a slight flu. The only thing I regret is that he contains me. But we will in any event continue working in spite of the flu. And I am sure that in Argentina we have been working very hard on climate change. And maybe this climate change is also the cause behind our flu. What I would like to say is that we are at a different stage in respect of Colombia. I respect very much what Colombia has done in recent years in the area of growth. And I told President Santos so yesterday that your ability to overcome poverty, to ensure greater social inclusion, obviously our starting points are very complex. We still have a long way to go, yet there is a clear political avenue. We, too, are leaving behind us a series of populistic political practices that have not translated into an improved quality and standard of living for the people. We've only worked on consumption, which is a part of what citizens want. But we have not worked on fundamentals like education and infrastructure that will truly help consolidate quality of life. The starting point was not an easy starting point. Argentina had been excluded from the world, and we had serious problems in terms of energy supply. We have a 700% accrued inflation rate, exchange rate, constraints, limitations on imports and exports. In the last six months, I actually feel very happy because we've been able to discuss all these topics. And today we have helped settle our exchange rate. We have eliminated barriers on imports and exports. And we had been sanctioned by the World Trade Organization for these trade barriers. We are settling our debt situation. And in the first expression of a welcome of the world to Argentina, we received a seven-fold number of bids to correct our avastefol. And in Argentina, we are opening the door, like you said, President Santos, a moment ago. The world is opening the door to Argentina. We're starting to see initial results, and we will announce $6 billion in investment in a few days, $4 billion more for a grand total of $20 billion, which is much higher than last year's foreign investment, which is very revealing of the change in expectations. We see increased exports as soon as we eliminated restrictions on exports. Our countryside is preparing itself to increase its agricultural output by 25 to 40%. In energy terms, we have launched or opened up the first bid, and we received seven-fold the number of bids we were expecting for thermal power generation. And I am convinced that the exact same thing will happen in the area of renewable energy. Argentina has a very interesting renewable energy potential. Wind, solar, hydroelectric. And we've also made progress in our integration into the world. Argentina decided to become an active participant in the 21st century, and we have been visited by Obama from the leaders and presidents of the world development banks. We are in constant contact with them. We have built over 50,000 kilometers inside Argentina, re-establishing links. And Juan Manuel, I thank you for inviting me and giving me the chance to talk to you. And I think that's all very important. Argentina also has a lot to contribute to the region, and we should be contributing to the world. And we have re-established internal dialogue in Argentina. In these last few months, we've worked with the governors. We know that Argentina has to be a truly federal country, and things have happened, things that evidence a new stage in our maturity. The default was voted by two-thirds of our Chamber of Deputies and our Congress. We are a minority. We're far from having a majority bench in both houses. And while I arrived here, the court found out it had two free positions. Two jurists have been appointed. I don't know them personally, but I did appoint them based on who would be the best suited, the most appropriate person. These are people who are not tainted by political nuances. So our society strives to have credible, reliable institutions defending and upholding our country's constitutions. Our country's constitutions are beautiful. The problem does not lie with our constitutions. The problem is that those who have led our countries did with that constitution in our countries, and I am convinced that the fundamental pillar to overcome and defeat poverty is employment, which is based on education. And there I agree and fall with Juan Manuel as to the need to invest heavily in education. We have to be bold. We have to be creative, and we should not be fearful of innovation. We are introducing, in the city of Buenos Aires, we have introduced, you know, issues that have to do with the future, robotics, creative design, and journalism, because evidently half of all new jobs in the 21st century will be the result of, you know, small enterprises, and this entrepreneurism has to be tied to innovation and stand up to the technological challenge that the 21st century brings with it, because we all know that technological progress can sometimes kill traditional jobs, new factories we all fought for, and we hope that you will invest in them in our countries, have an increasing number of robots and less labor. But we need to be a part of the creation to be produced by the Knowledge Space Society. Argentina has an interesting starting point in the area of scientific research. For example, we have had several Nobel Prize laureates, and we have also done a lot of non-applied research, and that has translated into concrete results, which is employment and regional development. We want to continue investing in science and technology, but we want to work on unifying all that talent in our round ideas that will empower our capabilities. And certainly there are certain guiding threads, you know, food security, food production energies, renewable energies, the topic of the Knowledge Space Society and communication. So if these are the basis, if this is our starting point, then I'm sure we will be able to create jobs and make opportunity for more people. I'm sure that Argentina stands before a great challenge, which is reducing its domestic poverty, and we have to start by admitting it because for years in Argentina we didn't have a single statistic that was truthful, we didn't know inflation rates, we didn't know poverty rates, we didn't know crime rates nor the result of the assessment of the quality of education. So now we are providing numbers, producing numbers and statistics because we know that our society that has talent is creative, innovative, and we want to resolve our problems, and we want to do all that together with the world, integrated with the world, and Latin America, and Merkel's sewer is a starting point, but I'm very happy to have been accepted as observer in the Pacific Alliance because we are aiming for sharp, quick integration because that is the road to create quality jobs for our communities and that is, you know, the situation in Argentina, and I'll try to describe it as briefly as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you, President Maclea and President Santos. So very crucial for inclusion and growth are of course security, equality and peace. So allow me to ask you the question, what are your expectations in terms of peace within Colombia? Security is the first law of the Republic as a Romans used to say when they created the concept of a republic, there is no security, other laws become useless. So this is why it's so important for a country to have peace because if there's no security, if there's no peace, it is very difficult to have development. And this war has been for Colombia a sort of handbrake and hopefully when this conflict comes to an end, we will be able to grow much more without having that handbrake. Everything will become easier. There are certain regions in the country where there's no state presence precisely because there is a presence of a conflict and the estimates are that the growth of those regions might go from 8, 10 or even 12 percent because we start out at a very basic level. But this is also going to have a great positive impact on the rest of the economy. I'm going to explain one of these specific factors. We have 8 million victims. Most of them are displaced populations. We have analyzed the productivity of these displaced populations and what kind of an impact they have on the economy. Well, it turns out that a farmer who is cultivating his land at a next spot but he gets displaced and he becomes part of the beltway of misery around the city and then his problem goes from 50 to 90 percent and this is an effect on growth simply on the part of displaced people and we have 8 million victims. So let's do this the other way around. Let's say the war comes to an end. We will have enormous opportunities for these populations to be able to go back to their areas of origin and if there is presence of the state the productivity will once again increase in a very significant manner. And of course security is also very necessary to attract investment because if there is insecurity this is something that does not promote investment. There are people who do not want to come to Colombia simply because we're on the list of countries that are suffering from armed conflict also in the area of tourism. For instance, the tourist potential in Colombia is enormous. Our dear ex-president Nel Fernández has a country with a great tourist activity of 13 million tourists and Dominican Republic and Felipe González in Spain something like 20 or 30 million tourists and we are sort of talking about four or four and a half million people and I asked the first Chinese minister who was here a few months ago I asked him why is it that of 140 million Chinese that leave China to go on tourism only 8,000 come to Colombia and he answered me very straightforwardly. He said well they don't want to come here because you're still having an armed conflict here so when this is over we will have many more Chinese people here many more Chinese tourists here. This is just one example as to how this could really have a positive impact on the future of Colombia on the economic arena. Now you were talking about inclusive growth. What do I think are the necessary conditions to have this take place? First of all we need growth and growth depends on investment and investment depends on trust and trust depends on the accountability of countries in terms of tax management because this is a necessary condition for growth. This is why in our constitution we have introduced this concept of fiscal accountability so that not only the judges but also the Congress have to take into consideration the fiscal cost of their actions and thanks to this this was approved in Congress and the National Constitutional Court we were able to approve the very compelling concept. The fiscal crisis will always make vulnerable the fundamental rights of citizens because then you have to cut down on education budget or health budgets or anything that is most precious for any society in terms of fundamental and basic needs and this basic accountability has to come together with a series of social or progress oriented actions very focused so that growth will be inclusive. In the case of Colombia what have we done? First of all we changed the way in which we measure poverty and together with Mexico, I see Carlos Salazar here from Tamsin Coca-Cola with Mexico we were pioneers in terms of measuring poverty and tackling poverty according to a multi-dimensional concept not according to income but rather according to factors that will lead a family or a household to be poor or not to be poor things such as having access to education, access to health the quality of their dwelling where they live etc. We even measure the quality of the floor if it's cement, if it's dirt if they have foundations or not, if their dwellings have foundations or not there are like 40 factors that we take into consideration we began to apply those six years ago and without stopping the measurement of other types of poverty which is measured by ECLA and which is done according to income well all these results have been quite extraordinary we have reduced what we call normal poverty by 12 points in only 5 years 12% extreme poverty came down to just half and we think that we can eliminate extreme poverty totally before the target we had set for ourselves which was for the year 2025 so all these focus policies have been successfully and for infants the very best social policy and this has been verified by Nobel Prize winners it's not hard to verify this we need to focus on the most profitable social investment which is the investment you do on your children from the moment they're born or even before they're born all the way until they go to school we had sort of ignored that element and now we are implementing this type of policy it's become a policy of state because now we are making it mandatory for governments to invest in the first years of life of every child in Colombia so no father and no mother can have the excuse of not sending their kids to school because they have no resources because this is no longer valid and in addition to this some parents used to say well we cannot pay for books or for other school materials but we are now giving for free more than 18 million of school tax so that we can stimulate education which we believe is the most important factor for social mobility so in summary growth is a necessary condition yes this is true because without growth there are no possibilities of having resources to make the economy inclusive well we need focus policies and efficient policies so that we can properly use the resources that are being generated by growth such that we can include the most vulnerable populations within the economic dynamics that we are looking to drive forward inclusion and growth the role of technology as you may all know Professor Schwab our founder and executive chairman recently coined the term fourth industrial revolution which means we're living in times where technology means humanity with a strong impact on business, society, policy making our everyday life so my question is because it's very crucial to both of you how will you use the technology how will you embrace the fourth industrial revolution to foster the idea of inclusion and growth maybe President Macri I will ask you first and then President Santos well if coinciding with everything that Juan Manuel has said you could sign up well we could talk about football for the rest of the meeting but there are certain things that I would like to touch upon in terms of what he said well Colombia has some brilliant moments in terms of the football cups that we've been playing as does Argentina but if we're going to talk about education and if we're going to talk about inclusion and if we are going to talk about early childhood well we have to start working on children as of the first 45 days of birth so that we will make sure this child will have stimulation medical care and other types of care so that this child will go to first grade in the same conditions as other children and if we do not achieve this then we are losing the battle I think we need to work on early childhood with a great deal of energy and I think this will bring about a change in the region which will be amazing and something else which is very important is to make sure that children have access to technology because if they do not have access to computers if they do not have access to other tools that will allow them to develop their capabilities they will not be up to par with other kids in the world who do have those capabilities and also we have to think about infrastructure we have serious problems in my country we are lacking in ports and trains and roads and power, irrigation there are millions of hectares that could be transformed into productive hectares or acres but they have not been turned into that because of lack of infrastructure fiber optic in our country is very important because it gives you high speed in order to be able to process data so we need to invest in those areas a great deal and the state has to be the leader and also the partnership of the public and the private sectors will generate great opportunities the governments need to understand at all levels that what will change the history of a country what will change the life quality in people is investment and not just current spending so we have to focus on public accounts and if one analyzes the history of the last 30 years in Latin America we will see that deficits are not due to lack of investment you can blame the lack of transparency you can blame corruption you can blame the lack of technology technology will help us to have transparent governments because citizens will know exactly what is being done with their tax money and it's not only for them to be informed but also so that they can make a contribution they can bring forward ideas through the networks because through the social networks one can debate about things that can be done people can come forward with ideas let's say there is a chat and a lot of people will be there who probably know a great deal about transportation they probably know more about transportation than even people have been working at the mayor's office for 20 years so social networks will give us a dimension will allow people to make contributions the economy needs to grow and we have strategic lines we have tourism and so far as we reaffirm the value of being able to offer a continent with peace and prosperity there will be no end to our growth once people understand that it's not so hard to get here well it's easy to have access to Colombia Argentina is a little bit further away but you can always sleep on the plane while you travel and you will eventually get there anyway we have to send a message to the European and to the North American market about the tourist possibilities in this part of the continent we have to do this through methods that are logic and this will of course have an impact on job generation and we have to work on food production because we are now protagonists because in 2050 we are going to have to feed a population of 9 billion people and I think Argentina is a leader in this and we are there to help participate in the peace process because we know we have to generate the capability of transferring technology there are millions of acres here that have been trapped within the conflict and for instance in Argentina we have millions of acres that lack water and therefore they are not productive so technological development will help us to increase production to actually produce not only more but better look at Israel how they have been able to increase their food production even though their land is not exactly appropriate for that and this is what technological development will bring about also renewable soils will also be very important and I think Latin America will be an important player in helping to achieve environmental safety because we have raw materials we have wind energy we have rainforests so we must and can be part of that development because there is a great deal of capability to generate employment thanks to this kind of resources and I always tell Argentina well we have we must not ever stop in our endeavor to produce food for many people but we can no longer be the pantry of the world we have to become a supermarket and this means we need to add value we need to add technology we need branding we need design so we must become more familiar with what surrounds us so that we can be more competitive and probably the main challenge is looking after the environment because everything has to be sustainable the developed world has an agenda and we have adopted that agenda as well we need to defend our capability to grow but in order to do this we have to always defend the sustainability of the system as President Santos was saying we have to have clear rules we have to generate an ambiance that will generate trust we're going to be working on an ongoing basis in our country in different regions so that we can help this development along and this development has to be equitable it must be inclusive we can no longer marginate certain parts of our populations because then there will be there will not be the conditions that we need for this development as I said in Davos a couple of years ago today and due to the enormous access to communication the 21st century citizens are millionaires in information and they're rich in terms of expectations because they're demanding things that had never been demanded before because years back the poorest parts of the population had no sewage they had no television they had no social systems they had no information but today society has a great deal of information which gets transformed into immediate demands so that our work becomes more and more dynamic and our democracy has to be more and more intelligent and more and more active so that we can share these resources such that we can produce concrete results in terms of the changes that the world is expecting from us we're going to meet the next generation of the youth our global shapers and YGL community and they are of course very open to technology so how can you encourage them to work here in Colombia on technology and the forced industrial revolution? I'm going to tell you an anecdote that shows us the power of technology I was minister of the fence at that moment and I went to the media lab at MIT and I was there with its director, Mr. Negroponte and he proposed an experiment to me and he said why not take some very simple computers to a very remote area of the country and let's teach children how to use these computers and we'll wait and see what happens I thought it was a very attractive proposal so I said yes I'm going to pick a place in my country and I picked a place which is called Vista Hermosa which had been under control of the FARC rebel movement for many years but we had just recovered it there was the peso the Colombian currency was not in circulation what was in circulation was coca leaf or coca or cocaine they had no access to radio nor to TV and in order to connect one computer we had to take a military antenna and we took 315 computers because there were 315 children and we took two instructors and we left them there and we came back to months later approximately to see what had transpired and my private secretary at that moment came with me to the spot and something incredible had taken place the children had actually taken over the town the parents were chasing the children hey show me this show me that explain this to me explain this to me and this was really quite a phenomenon that had taken place in two months simply because they had access to a computer and they were sort of updated on what was going on in the world today this was ringing a bell in my mind all the time so when I became president one of my targets was let's connect all of the municipalities with fiber optic and broadband because this brings about teleeducation telehealth and teleknowledge and this of course also contributes to equality because even the poorest child even from the poorest spot in Colombia will have the same level of access to the great world of technology to the great world of computers and the access will be the same as the wealthiest children in other parts of Colombia and today all of the municipalities are connected so the great challenge now is that well we have internet we have broadband we have fiber optic but we have to multiply it in different places technology also took care of that 15 days ago the world president of Microsoft came here and he said president Santos we already have the technology you need so that you can take it to all of the schools 70% of schools in Colombia rural schools are in the rural areas in order to take technology to those areas we needed to have specific conditions to take this technology to the most remote areas in Colombia so he showed us technology called white spaces which connects the port to the school and we inaugurated this through the new offices of Microsoft and this was so spectacular that I'm sure this is going to bring about enormous changes in education so I've seen this I've been a witness to this I've been a witness to the fact that technology stimulates people to study more and more because there's still a deficit in Colombia there's still a great need of having more people in Colombia people who are trained in order to be able to use technology appropriately and to progress through this appropriate use of technology here we can also deploy more efforts at universities and at training centers we have one here called SINNA and we probably can have more supply of training and education in technology so as not to lag behind and as the president or as a government we have to accept this challenge so the question would be how can we update ourselves as governments and states in order to regulate technology so that every day we can solve different conflicts so for instance the cell phone operators are complaining because Google are taking away some market share from them so we need to control them and open television owners are saying well the competition from cable television is not being fair so governments also have a challenge in order to regulate or not regulate they need to know what to regulate and what not to regulate and not to fall behind in terms of technological regulation because if you lag behind in this kind of thing you will also stop progress based on the beautiful landscape here in Colombia the mountains so it's a little bit similar to Switzerland I mention this because we have not a Swiss but a Colombian watch facing and so that means we have to close right in time but before I do so I would like to thank on behalf of all the participants to Colombia, the president and say thank you to a great hospitality so thank you very much President Santos and also President Macri was in Davos this year now we are here together in Medellin and my last quick brief question is where do we see next? Mr President I forget that I've been a bad student in April of next year we will be organizing the same event in Buenos Aires hopefully you will be there with us next year so after having invested in Colombia if you have any money left come and invest in Argentina and 15th to the 18th of September we will have an entrepreneurial forum in Argentina to talk about other potential opportunities that we have and we want to share with the world we've been talking with Juan Manuel about how to increase our exchange we have always been close but strangely enough we've never had really a good trade agreement we talk about tango and football but no entrepreneurship so I think we need to continue to exchange and progress so we'll see you there hopefully in April of next year and I am going to add something here Mauricio and I have agreed that if we meet at the final cup we will go together so I hope to see him next week during the final football match if Argentina and Colombia are the finalists Argentina wants to come closer to the Pacific Alliance and I think this is wonderful the Alliance of the Pacific came from a shared vision of development and of the economy and of the way to achieve our goals so the fact that Argentina wants to become to have a rapprochement with the Alliance of the Pacific then we need to think that the countries that are there precisely the countries that are playing the cup it's Colombia against Peru and Argentina against Mexico so if you do become part of the Alliance and you have to make a concession to the Alliance depending on who wins so apparently football is going to determine a great deal of things you remain seated we will now come to our ceremony for the social entrepreneur award 2016 in Latin America so ladies and gentlemen 15 years ago Hilde and Professor Schwab founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and at the time being not everyone was familiar with the idea of social entrepreneurship today everyone knows and is thrilled by the idea of social entrepreneurs because they address social challenges opportunities and sometimes problems but they always try to solve the issues by entrepreneurial spirit and therefore I would like to thank on behalf of our chairperson of the Schwab Foundation Hilde Schwab first of our cooperation partner the newspaper Filao de Sao Paulo and I would like now to announce our this year social entrepreneur of the year 2016 in Latin America Sergio Andrade please join me on stage agenda publica that's your company built a strong bridge between local governments and private companies to train public administrators in implementing public services the ultimate goal is public private cooperation towards the sustainable development of rural municipalities in Brazil services are provided across a wide range of government agencies including housing and health so far agenda publica has trained more than 5000 administrators in basic infrastructure another 5000 administrators in policy development and 600 municipal officials they have made great strides in building transparency and improving the delivery of public services thank you very much congratulations so thank you very much ladies and gentlemen now I wish all of us a successful Latin America summit 2016