 Nick Gowing and you're here in Davos, you're live and we are going to bring you one of the critical issues which everyone's wondering about, about platforms. Let me tell you about platforms, business models, which are really behind the rise of companies like Airbnb and Uber, of course. New kinds of platforms reshaping the areas of the sectors like transport and hospitality. What next? Where else is vulnerable in this new environment? And what happens to value creation? It doesn't happen inside the companies anymore. It happens in a very different way. Well, we've got two guests here, leading participants in the whole business of what platforms are about and what they're doing to both work and jobs, but also exciting so many people with new ways of making money. And we have four hubs, global shape of hubs from around the world and we'll be going there live in a moment, but first let me just tell you that if you would like to ask questions and I have a pad here which I can receive your questions on or the points you want to make, go to hashtag shaping platforms. Hashtag shaping platforms. Let me introduce you to our two leading guests, our expert guests. First of all Vishal Sikhar from Infosys. What do you do? I'm the CEO of Infosys, a large Indian IT services company. Employer about 200,000 people, 150,000 of those can write code. And what about platforms? Platforms is at the heart of what we do. You know, as you said, the entire nature of platforms is changing and that is in many ways the driver of the new economy that is shaping around us. We build these platforms, we enable these platforms, we ourselves have our own platforms as well. But they're digital platforms and here sitting on this physical platform which is about 20 centimeters high, we're also joined by Philip Jennings. Philip, what do you do? I'm the General Secretary of Uniglobal Union, I'm the Voice of Labour. What is that? We are a global union which represents millions of workers in 160 countries and 1,000 trade unions. I am the Voice of Labour or one of the voices of Labour here at Davos. My case tonight, build a social pillar to this new platform economy. We need one. It is not irrelevant. This revolution in technology has to bring with it a new global social contract. That's what my members are expecting from an outcome of this world economic forum this year. And I need the support of the global shapers, Nick. I need all those young people out there to say, come on, let's have a social dimension to this revolution. We can do it. We're merely going to hear the arguments tonight. We're not on a campaign. This is just enlightenment. It's an enlightenment, that's all. That's what you think? I'm in charge here, Philip. This is my platform. Right, let's go to this quad which is up there. You can see we're going to four areas. We're going to New Delhi in India. We're going to Berlin. We're going to Bangalore, also in India. And we're also going to Giza in Egypt. I'd like you each to just take 30 seconds to tell me who you are and what you do. Let's go to Delhi first. Thanks, Nick. My name is Kamat Sinha. I'm an entrepreneur. I have a media business which also has digital platforms. And I'm also very involved in higher education. Founder of a new university called the Shope University, as well as a new program for women called the Vedicast Scholars Programme for Women. All right, Pramod, thank you. Let's go to Berlin. To Vincent. Hello to Douglas. My name is Vincent Simar. I'm the co-founder of Kyron. I think in this revolution we are part of the social dimension. So we are a platform. She's into higher education. Purely rolling our worldwide. Building a digital platform as well as a platform working offline. Great. Thanks, Vincent. Let's go to the other hub in India, to Bangalore, which is also where the headquarters of Infosys is located, to Vikalp Sunny. Vikalp. Hello, this is Vikalp. I'm a CTO and co-founder for a platform called Goaibibo. Goaibibo solves travel and accommodation needs of suppliers as well as the consumers. So it is a platform which enables large-scale travel and accommodation solves travel and accommodation problems. So Goaibibo is really a platform? Yes, indeed it is. Right, then we understand exactly what we're talking about. Let's finally go to Giza in Egypt, to Mohamed Rafayi. Mohamed, tell us what you do. This is Mohamed of Beolak.com, with a mobile application helping people avoid traffic jams with more than one million registered users in Egypt, and currently going to a global with KSA and Nigeria, hopefully this year. All right, thanks all four of you. Let me just remind those of you out there that you can join this debate wherever you are, as long as you're connected, on hashtag shaping platforms. Hashtag shaping platforms. I've already got several of you are giving an idea of what is on your mind. This from Salihu Yakhsai. Entrepreneurship is the easiest way to create more jobs and also to reduce poverty. Platforms providing us with wide infinite scalability at no extra cost. That from Zishan Hayat, co-finder of Topa. Topa from Vedika, Vedika scholars. That's at least what the hashtag says. Right, now I've got many more coming in, but that gives you a sense. There are people out there, not many people here, but a lot of people out there around the world. Now Vishal Sikha, tell us about your understanding of what platforms are doing and how profound the change is from the platforms we're seeing. Well Nick, we are coming out of a world which has been dominated by physical connectivity, physical supply chains, where the distance between the provider of goods and services and the consumer of goods and services is complex and has many parties in between. What is happening because of the vast digital transformation of the world around us is that those intermediaries are going away, the fancy management speak for this is disintermediation. But what it really says is that the distance between the production and the consumption of goods and services has come down dramatically as a result of these platforms. Are you amazed by the speed at which the platforms have taken over in this way? Yeah, the more connectivity that we have, the more that software eats the world in the words of Mark Anderson, the easier the connectivity becomes and the faster the adoption of these goods and services is. But in the end it is about how much more visible is the demand to the producers and how much more visible is the supply to the consumers? So how much more efficient can we make this connectivity? What kind of multiplier do you think platforms have become? A dramatic multiplier. It is exponential in the number of the participants on a network that is Metcalf's law and we see the rise of these all over the place. All the way from the Airbnb Uber type ones, but also in cars as a platform, in watches as platforms, in variables as platforms and so forth. Two years ago, three years ago, were you sitting in Bangalore or in the United States where you're also based, saying, aha, platforms are the big thing of the future. We've got to scale up for that. Or have you been sucked along by the extraordinary nature of these new platforms? No, I think that the platforms have always been around. This is a unique nature of this level, not at this level, not with this degree of proliferation and this rapid and adoption that we have seen now with these new digital platforms. But when we grew up, the enterprise platforms were by companies like IBM or a BEA, Oracle, Microsoft. And now we see emergence of these new platforms which connect us to the digital world around us in completely unprecedented ways. All right, Philip, you represent workers. The nature of work is changing. People are occupying themselves and getting paid for it. They are working, but not necessarily with jobs. What's your analysis of what the impact of this is? There are many who say that actually platforms are generating far more wealth because they're generating new kinds of work. First of all, we have a global platform and for us, the platform has been about connectivity amongst those 150 countries and these thousands of unions. The world of work is going under a transformation. Yes, the nature of work itself is changing. Yes, we consider this to be really different this time. The issues that we have are the fractures that will come with this. And it's gonna take a great deal of adjustment, certainly in what we call the developed world, about what it means when you fragment work like this, when the continuity of employment ends. And what really worries me is not the technology itself, it's the behavior that goes with it. And I think it's very dangerous when Uber says, we have no relationship with these people, that they have no employment relationship with these people. And that takes you on a bit of a race to the bottom. Why? Because they define them as independent contractors, which means they have no responsibility for them other than placing the job. They hire them, they fire them, they supervise them, they give them a constant monitoring, but they say, after all, this is not an employment relationship. And this is a task for us in labor to say, look, we understand this transformation in the world of work, but it doesn't mean to say, you abandon your social responsibility to those people. So we're working hard at this. What about the clear, the same questions as I raised earlier. In the end, this is an extraordinary multiplier. People are earning money, maybe not with skills, maybe not with a job as such, but they've generated new economic activity. Where is this wealth going to go, Nick? You're worried about preserving jobs. We can talk about generating new forms of earning. Now then, the question then comes down to distribution. It is clear that the figures from McKinsey say that this new platform economy will add 2.7 trillion to world GDP, which is a significant number. We're talking about a market of $110 billion, which is as much as the chain restaurant business in the United States of America. There will be wealth generated, but why is it that people say this becomes winner takes all? Why does Stephen Hawking turn around and said the warning to the world that says, the wealth that is generated will go to the people that own the platforms and that the wealth will remain to them. And as Robert Rice said, for the people working in these platforms, they're sharing the scraps, which means unless we tackle the distribution problem, that wealth will stay at the top of the 1%, and the other people will be scrambling for a living. That's not what we want to see. And I don't think Infosys wants to see it either. Those are your opening thoughts at this stage. Let's now go around the world, certainly to two places in India as well, one of which is Bangalore, where Infosys is based. Let's go first of all to Pramath Raj Sinha in New Delhi, because what we want to hear from you when you're representing global-shaper hubs, you've been talking about this, you've discussed this. We want to know about the two big changes that have happened in your city communities because of these platforms. Pramath. Thanks, Nick. We on our panel had at least three or four major platforms represented that you see happening in India. One is, of course, a big payments platform called PayTM. We had an education platform called Topper, which provides education to support to K-12 students. We had a content platform called the Quint, which provides news. And of course, we had Uber represented on the panel as well. The two things that I would like to pull out as the themes that emerge from these discussions were number one, that in a developing country like India, the massive infrastructure bottlenecks and the frustrations of consumers with getting access to products and services efficiently has been considerably overcome because of these platforms. So the platforms are paying a very important role in leapfrogging the evolution of infrastructure and helping consumers and ordinary citizens overcome that. And very quickly, and this speaks to the point that was just made about labor, while I do agree about some of the concerns, the fact is that in our country, some of these platforms are creating employment for people who otherwise had no access to employment. It's empowering them in ways that we had not imagined. And more importantly, it is bringing the level of digital literacy and empowerment through the mobile phone, both for consumers as well for people like small shopkeepers, drivers, and so on, which again, is a real source of big change that is happening in our country. All right, well, Pramath, you are a founder of a media organization. You're also at a university, literally in 10 seconds. Are you amazed at the speed that the platforms have generated this level of activity? Absolutely. I was sitting there moderating the discussion and thinking that I have become extinct. Unlike all the people on the stage, there seem to be people who are half my age. And it was hard for me to absorb all of the things they were saying. All right, well, let's not get so agist about this. Everyone can enjoy a platform. Let's go to Berlin to Vincent. Vincent, what is your global shapers hub being deciding is the real challenge now? What have you seen in your community? I think we in Berlin, we see a lot more about the social dimension of platforms in two ways. And also the two challenges I want to emphasize here. So we realize that building a digital platform is not enough because if you look at what Airbnb is doing, for example, they're creating a sense of community about the people working on the platform. So not leading by formal contracts, by it via vision and empowering the people to fulfill their own dreams, even if they don't have a former employee. So this is the first change we see, move from purely digital platforms towards social networks that is combining both worlds. The second thing I want to mention, I want to take my own platform as an example, is the rise of platforms into the social scene. So also in the lines of the race of social entrepreneurship in itself, where you see that for the first time, we are able to solve social problems on a global shape. For example, with Kyren, where elite U.S. universities partnering up with Syrian refugee NGOs to solve the refugee crisis in Germany, which is quite amazing, which we have seen in the commercial sector over pretty much the sector as well. All right, well, Vincent, I'm going to press you on that because your country has got a million refugees now. You are a managing director of an open higher education platform. This has happened in the last three or four months. How much has there been an incredible explosion of platforms to help the incoming refugees, whether it be on education, on hospitality, on beds, on just the basics in life, quickly, if you can? There, Berlin is the major hub of this explosion and we see a lot of innovative projects. Actually, all new projects that have came up are all platforms. They're all focused on being scalable, being innovative, and applying a solution to all refugees. All right, Vincent, thank you. We're losing you slightly there on beginning a bit of echo coming down the line, but I think we've got the gist of what you're saying. And let me remind you, if you're watching wherever you are, do send us messages on hashtag shaping platforms, hashtag shaping platforms. I've got a lot of questions here, but we're going now on to Bangalore, to Vikabh Sunny. Vikabh, what are you saying in Bangalore? Bangalore, I have to say, and I think we were talking about this a moment ago, that Bangalore still has massive traffic problems, even if you get an Uber taxi, it may not move very fast. Can we get a platform for that? A platform for faster traffic. But quickly, what are the two community platforms which your hub has identified? So we basically talked a lot about how platforms are changing stuff. And if you see, platforms are creating prosumers. It's not consumers or producers anymore. We are creating prosumers. And these prosumers are becoming micro-entrepreneurs by itself. So that's a thing that has come out of these platforms. And these micro-entrepreneurs are basically working towards creating overall value across the social chain of the society. The other thing that we talked about that various platforms, like the platform that I own and the platform that are being building in India, there's a lot of content or a lot of fragmented content that is available, which is not readily available to be consumed by the consumers. Now, the platforms that is getting built on top of all these aggregated or fragmented content is creating massive value by including the reputation management. And now the trust is basically being given on to the strangers itself by democratizing the overall fragmented market to supply. All right, Vikabh. Thank you very much indeed. We'll be back with you shortly. Let's go to Giza in Egypt to Mohammed Rafay. What are the two ideas that your hub came up with? Our application is using crowdsourcing. People can help each other to avoid traffic jams and it has been working quite well since five years. We have now more than one million users community helping each other. We have also other community successful communities in Egypt, such as Fawri, which is a payment platform that help people pay using a very convenient way. People who don't have access to credit cards can pay their bills. And we have also a larger platform called Natham where it's a community of teachers and students that is providing education in a more affordable way using technology, students can reach higher quality of education that is otherwise not reachable through tutoring directly with teachers. All right, thanks Mohammed. Now look, let's pick up that fascinating word from Bangalore. I didn't come from an emphasis lab here. The idea of a prosumer. I think I know what your answer is gonna be. So let me just go to Philip. Prosumers, producers and consumers changing the mindset of what platforms are doing and how things are having to be modified. In other words, attitudes for how to make money. Yeah, I think we have to say this is a rather thrilling ride. Will you be taking prosumer back to Geneva? Well, I must say I'm still coming to terms with a lot of these terms, but the fact of the matter there are thrilling opportunities in as much as we have really deep seated challenges to face. And therefore we are seeing a way of wealth creation which the platform opens to the planet. We still have a way to go. We still have four billion people who are not on the platforms yet. So there's still a place for how do you create those opportunities? If you can't get into these platforms then you're in a dead end street. So the idea is we have to invest in the infrastructure to ensure that people aren't excluded. And we have to respect the fact that there are new means of wealth generation, new opportunities to get your ideas out there and that this is gonna cause a very profound revolution in the way businesses and education and health are run. So there are very thrilling possibilities. All I'm asking for is as we get into this journey we need to make sure that we've got some social dimension to this and social safety net into this. Because the certainty of income, the competition will be very tempestuous and hard and price driven by and large. And therefore how are we going to have a development which lifts all of the society? Are you just seeing it through an old mindset, Philip? No, I don't think so. What's old fashioned about making sure that the quality of life and the standards of living of people are maintained? I want, as much as they have access to a platform I want people to have access to schools. I want access to education. And I'd also like them to have access to fairness in whatever kind of occupation that they are in. I am a 62 year old. It is clear when I start talking to that new generation of people. The first question they asked me last night was not whether there was a shop steward. Philip, do you employ a data scientist? And you know, it did sort of take, this is familiar with you, but for me, so we had to take me to one side, cool me down and explain what a data scientist was. Did you have an answer after you- You get an answer and he said, Philip, do you imagine we have, he says you have a thousand organizations in 150 countries. You have millions and millions of people. What you see you making of that data. Okay, let's take it into a different area. Well, it's a platform for us too. So what I'm saying is, while keep on about this, the social dimension, the access is tremendous, it's thrilling, that all of a sudden you have access to a global place to put your ideas and your products and your services. How do we make sure that we can lift all of the boats at the same time? Well, let me just put that thought to you about prosumers. Is that encapsulating brilliantly the new challenge and how the mindsets are changing? We heard that from Bangalore. It is, it is a great flattener. And so the prosumer category, the producer and consumer together, that is the same person has emerged. I think to Philip's point, there are two important issues here which transcend the entire debate. One is the education. We need to ensure that people, the lack of access, the inequity that you talked about is addressed by education. That people have the skills. It has never been easier in human history to start a company. As you can see from the shapers who are here, the number of entrepreneurs is at an all-time high. So even though the profits are unevenly distributed, are unequally distributed, it has never been easier to disrupt an existing established industry. And so the key is to make sure that the education in order to become an entrepreneur and the access to the opportunities is available to everyone. And I think that will see an even bigger mushrooming of platforms and prosumers who show up on these platforms. There's an interesting question from where Vincent Zimmer is in Berlin from his colleagues there about will, because you're talking about the way business is being generated, but will platforms vanish with time because bigger platforms incorporate them? I don't think so. I think that my sense over a long term is that each person will become a platform. We will have platforms around us. I don't see the number of platforms diminishing. Indeed, I see them increasing as we go forward. And another important one, particularly from the Indian perspective, about poor, given that the poor, you have 300 million, I think, still living in India on less than a dollar a day. I was with a leading representative of Indian farmers today. He said everyone in his farming community, very poor, has got a mobile phone. So they're beginning to think business, but there's a question here from Uvashi Prasad. How can platforms reach the poorest of the poor? We have to treat connectivity and access to the availability of this matching of demand and supply as a basic right. To me, in my view, we have been hearing a lot this diverse about jobs and the displacement of jobs, and those facts are all correct, but the lack of jobs in the future is not the same as the lack of jobs of today. When you see 40% of the jobs going away to automation, it is the 40% of the jobs that we know today because these automation will create additional opportunities in the future. And my belief is that we have an incredible potential because of all these technologies to be able to do entrepreneurial things, to be able to create new startups, to be able to create new opportunities, provided we have the right skills and education, and provided we have the right access and connectivity. Who's going to pay for it? My sense of it, Philip, is that there is enough wealth. While the profits are, in some sense, distributed extremely unequally and in some sense are at an all-time high, the opportunity to disrupt those profits in any industry has also never been easier. And so the wealth is there. Today we live in times where great entrepreneurs, Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, this is still somewhat a mystical thing that there is an entrepreneur who comes out of nowhere. But innovation can be taught, innovation, design thinking, these kinds of things can be, people can be educated on this. Well, there's a message here, picking up what Philip is concerned about. Internet penetration, picking up on the last question, this from Kumar Manish. Internet penetration in India is less than 20% so far. How, although they're going to get up to 25 meg, I think, on online soon, which is better than many developed countries, but I heard the finance minister say that yesterday morning here in Davos that this is going to be exponential in terms of change. So bandwidth is going to be there in India, better than many parts of Europe. How these platforms will address inclusivity and reaching the bottom of the pyramid, that's coming through from many questions here. Yes, that is a key thing. Again, access, we still have, I don't know, 100 million people living around the world who are completely disconnected from the rest of the world. We have to treat connectivity to this global grid of these platforms. Can you create a platform without being connected? It is impossible. You are dark, you are not visible, unless you are connected. We have to treat connectivity as a human right. There we go. I think absolutely right. The infrastructure challenge in front of us is significant. And when you combine, you see there's, there are, it's optimistic signs. If we combine connectivity with, and the infrastructure required with the refitting of our economies to adapt to climate change, this could be a tremendous job creation. Job creator. And therefore the infrastructure issue, I don't know what the bill is to bring the 4 billion people in, but it has to become a very significant development goal that we put these infrastructures in place. It's as important as water and electricity and everything else. You made a very important point there. Are we talking about an organic new platform ecosystem or something that then has to be regulated? Because there's already the inevitable questions here, here from Walid Abdul El Rahman. How do you maneuver laws and legislation that are not yet adopting fast enough with the speed of platform innovation? Just in London recently, we've had the black cabs, which are renowned around the world saying, our business is being threatened and undermined by Uber. The black cabs wanted to actually do the same thing as Uber. They've just been overruled. They've been told that Uber has every right to do what they've been doing and doing very successfully. In other words, in London, for example, legislation and regulation has failed to protect. What do you think, Philip? I think the last week, I was with the Labour Ministers of the OECD and it is clear that it's going to take time, but the politicians, they usually have a three... What's going to take time? A politician, they say, thinks in three months. They have to think in this time speed when it comes to these changes. But does it need regulation? Of course it needs regulation because it creates an unfair competitive advantage for Uber and the platforms that they provide. The fact that Uber classifies all of those drivers in the United States of America as 1099 means they fall through the social trap. That means they are on their own. They bear all the risks and Uber washes its hands of all those employer responsibilities that they've had in this sector in the past. Secondly, no, secondly, tax. Why is it that Uber organizes its tax affairs through Holland? So you have hubs here in those four places. They have an Uber hub in Cape Town. They take someone from downtown Cape Town to Camps Bay. At the end, the revenue stream is booked through Holland. So you need regulation and there has to be a sense of responsibility. If we're going to have people who can afford Uber, if we're going to be able to pay for the education and the infrastructure, tax responsibility is important. So therefore, these holes have to be blocked and maybe we have to think of, well, let's have another definition of what an employment relationship is to ensure that the people are not abused because the law somehow is not appropriate for their situation. There's business models behind it which could have meant a significant price advantage and that I would say is unfair. I would say, we do need regulatory help. To do what? To tide over things. See, education, even if you look at kids of today, they are not quite in the workforce and we are not really preparing them for the workforce of tomorrow. But so you do need some regulatory cover but regardless of the content of the laws and the regulations, it is very clear that the rate at which policies and regulations can be modified and adapted has to improve to keep up with the rate at which technology improves and this was one of the major topics of discussion in the IT Governors meeting yesterday that I participated in here and here in Davos. Look, the key is computer software authoring, the ability to write software, the ability to understand computing has to become as pervasive, as ubiquitous as writing is. The access to connectivity has to become as pervasive as water and food as Philips. And I think that once those two things have happened, then we can start to see a world that is far more connected, far more open to everybody from an opportunity point of view. Before I go, I'm just going to go to the hubs for your ideas of where the next stage should be, all four of you in the four hubs. What about the fact though that those who are first into the market, those who have the great idea, those who can make it work, there are a lot of people who fail, that they in many ways are creating the new ecosystem and therefore they should be rewarded for it, but sort of somehow embraced in legislation. Let me hear Vishal. My sense is that the first to the market may be the first to the market, but the second to the market has better access to technology because in the meantime technology has improved. Yeah. We just look at what people are saying about this evolution and from centers of learning to the people who are writing about this and looked at the research, they are very concerned that we're seeing disruption, that the degree of disruption has a very clear social dimension to it in terms of occupational change, in terms of access to social welfare or the social security net, clearly. And therefore we, these issues have to be addressed You can't ignore them. There has to be this social contract under which the operation takes place. All right, let's go to the hubs. Let me go to New Delhi first of all to Pramath Raj Sinha. What about the solutions? You've been hearing the concerns here, certainly from Philip, but also the great opportunities. What's your hub come up with about the idea of where next and what needs to be done Pramath? I think some of those points have already been echoed by Philip and Vishal so far, but let me again emphasize some of those that came out in the discussions that we had here. One of the important points was the point around digital literacy and the fact that it's not just about creating access. Arguably we have 900 million mobile phone subscribers in the country and we have close to 200 million who are on the internet and many more coming onto the internet very fast. But the question is, how do you get people up to speed on what they can and cannot do? It's a little bit like the analogy of learning how to write and go on and what are two to having access. So for example, ATM which is one of the providers of banking and payment services has created a network of advisors who go around helping retailers understand how they can use the technology. So I think there are things that have to happen on that front and we talked a lot about this whole issue of the syncing up of regulation and technology. One of the interesting things that came out from the platform builders who were on our panel was that in fact, it seems that they would be keen to have regulation and it's not like they don't want to be regulated. The challenge seems to be that the regulation is not really keeping base with what is happening and therefore when things end up in courts, you end up with outlandish judgments or rulings that don't make sense because they come from a very old school mindset. And so one of the things that we really talked about was the fact that there is a greater need to push for regulation rather than say we don't want regulation but actually push for it. Pramath, I've got to come in there because you're in a country and Vishal comes from that country as well in Bangalore of course. You're in a country where the parliament is very slow to act. They're still good, I think a telegraphy act. No one, apart from those of a certain age, even has any idea of what telegraph was. It's analog, it's kind of stone age stuff but it's still on the statute book in India. Let's go to Berlin. What about your perspective, Vincent, on how you can provide training now on influencing and the skills and where this is now going in a developed country like Germany? I think universities have to change from focusing on learning facts and teaching certain methods towards teaching competencies in order to be able to deal with our modern society because I think, like your panelists described it like the old fashioned way, we're not gonna go back to where we're gonna have like a 40 year employment in a certain company and people don't want it, people want to move, they want to change, they want to be flexible, they want to move around, they want to work in Germany for a year then go to Brazil, then go to the US and you have to teach them and train them in a way accordingly. But what is important for me is that actually the training doesn't have to change because this is already taking place because universities, maybe some steps behind but at least they're keeping up with the development but what has really to change is the industry, the big companies, the big organization, the ministry, the government because they are falling behind, they don't understand properly the terms of digitalization, the terms of that we want, a different model of organization that we don't want hierarchical. All right. Well, before we go to Bangalore and onto Giza as well, let me just pick up on that point. There's Vincent de Berlin talking about universities for 18, 19, 20 year olds. There are many of the age of 10 or 11 who are actually incredibly sharp these days at developing opportunities. They can see things almost more smartly than even these aging people at the age of 18. Because they still have the curiosity, they haven't lost the curiosity yet, with the schools haven't suppressed the curiosity out of them yet. Do you see that as important? Absolutely, absolutely. The act of innovating, the act of creating something requires curiosity requires the confidence. What David Kelly from the D-School, Stanford Design School, talks about as creative confidence, the desire to take a risk and even if it fails and ask why. Somehow, because of the burden of learning the methods and facts, as Vincent talked about, where is the curiosity out of us? And instead of preparing us for a world as it is going to be, we are taught things about the way the world used to be. So I think it's absolutely essential for our education system to go through a transformation to deal with these changes. Because when we were talking about developing 75 million new jobs sitting on this platform two days ago, there was a real sense that the education system is way behind these new opportunities. There is an issue. I mean, do people really like disruption in their lives? There's nothing they can do about it. But that's the thing. We should not be resigned to the fact that there will be disruption and we can't do things about it. You know, Vincent, have I got the name right, Vincent? In Berlin. In Berlin, hi, Berlin. The question is, if you go from a world where there is relative certainty in a volatile market situation and you fracture someone's occupation down into a, it's like a necklace of beads that it will take an accumulation of different tasks. If you were saying that we're gonna fragment labor down to such an extent that that employment relationship is shattered and then you have to spend your time scrabbling around going to these multiple platforms to try to make ends meet, then this has significant ramifications in terms of social cohesion, in terms of economic wellbeing, and in terms of economic vitality. Now I understand when it comes to the world of work, we have to give the sense of people that bureaucratic, multiple-tiered structures are of no interest whatsoever to young people. And it's good that they come in and question it and challenge it and have the shock of the news, so to speak, but think very, very carefully about fragmentation of work to such an extent that you have no certainty of income and therefore we want people to take risks, but they have the certainty that their lives don't shatter and fall apart in terms of health and education and all the rest of it. Philip, let's just go to Bangalore to Vickup. What's your pickup on these points? We've got about 13 minutes left, so be as sharp and as brief as you can, please. So basically I've been listening to Philip and listening to his thoughts, but what we've talked about over here is platforms are now taking away control from the rich gatekeepers and now giving them and democratizing it across the board. And that is actually enabling people to do much more than what they were doing it earlier. And these rich gatekeepers which were basically ensuring that the jobs are being kept or ensuring that there's a lot of employment, they are like seeing a disruption that there is a lot of micro-entrepreneurs that are coming up in place. And yeah, as per the regulations and as per the overall classical way of doing things and are happening, I mean, it is much well said that eventually in the era of platforms and the era of technology evaluation, we have to ensure that we unlearn faster than we learn. So we need to unlearn those regulations, we need to unlearn those practices that won't work in the future when the platforms and the technology basically takes over. Just a quick question Vikab, like my question to Delhi as well, do you feel that you're very much suppressed by the laws in parliament, whether the state parliaments or the federal center? So we are suppressed, but so to say, there are ways in which we can change the whole world the way we want to. So we are trying to do our best and that is where we would like basically the support of government and regulation as well because there's a massive disruption that can be seen if the government becomes faster in ensuring that the platforms and the so to say startups basically grows. All right, Mahmoud. There is a big... Let's go to Giza in Egypt to Mohamed, to Mohamed Rafay. What's your sense of where this is now going and what's on the agenda? What mindset shift is now required in your view? Currently we have a ministry of communication. It has some programs like incubation and trying to get technology all over Egypt by having new technology parks with full ecosystem, with mentorship and support. Yet on the other hand, the regulations in terms of data, in terms of privacy, GPS-related things is not yet up to speed, but I believe there are officials who know that we have to accelerate in this and hopefully we will be there soon. All right, well, I'm gonna come back to all four of you in a moment to ask you what all the good and the great, the big public servants, the political leaders and also the corporate leaders here in Davos should be thinking about this. Should they be scared of everything that you're saying? Because... And think about that for the next four or five minutes. Well, I just talked to our two main guests here. Let me put to you some of the questions coming in, Vishal, for example. How do you see platforms evolving? What's the next stage? That from Irene Jena talking CSR, Air and BNB is influencing rentals in bigger cities. Should they offer low rent flats? Should this be regulated? A comment here from Sri Lanka. Shri Ani Varasinga in Sri Lanka, platforms are being used to increase citizenship. Good governance. What's the local scalability? Now, that's why I've brought it in as last. What is the global scalability of many of these platforms? Do they get repeated, indigenously, if you like, in each region, in each district? Or are we likely to see, as we've seen with Air BNB and Alibaba and so on, this incredible ability to take over the world almost within a few months? I think that it is inevitable that we will have some local dimensions to this. I don't think that we are close to seeing a truly global kind of a platform emerge. I don't think there are good examples of that. Yet. Yet. Yet. And so, I mean, certainly around data privacy, safe harbor, some of these kinds of things, the world seems to be headed in a different direction towards more feudal, more sort of isolated islands of these things, which would argue for local versions of these things, like we see in China or even in India and so forth. So I think over time, perhaps a mix of the two is to be expected. Part of it is also to do with the speed at which some of this change can be created and can be embraced. The impact of platforms from the research that we look at, I'm looking from a work point of view, if you examine the whole range of professions from the low up to the very high skilled, then we're talking about, the word that they use is cannibalization, I think it's pretty dramatic, is the 60 to 90% of someone's job. I mean, that's a combination of platform along with the artificial intelligence involved. So this is a very significant turning point in the history of work, in the history of the structure of work. And therefore it is, we are going to see still a competition which is beyond the neighborhood, and we are going to see, but what also worries me as well is the excitement that this is generating. I mean, we're all getting excited here. You're worried about the excitement. No, no, the thing is, Acid Bubbles is Uber really worth 50 billion. And we already had the internet boom and bust which set off a ripple in the world. Are we seeing yet another wave of financial excitement which creates an acid bubble which can't be sustained? And that will do significant damage to the development of these platforms. Surely if Airbnb blew out, then someone else would come in and give two staff, a couple of laptops, and the ability to go global. Yeah, I don't want to... I mean, Phillips question is a valid one. I don't want to presuppose the answer to the valuation question. But to me, it is almost certain that we will have platforms in all the... Wherever a connection between a producer and a consumer of goods or services has been an inefficient one, there is going to be a much more efficient platform. And there's only a matter of time before this happens. Let's go to one question here from Winnie from South Africa. Oh, Winnie. Hi. I'd like to find out, shouldn't governments actually think about having their own platforms and getting the citizens to interact with them and have a better relationship by... Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, one of my predecessors built Aadhaar, the Indian digital identity platform. Which is what, 800 million people? That's an extraordinary adoption. We, at Infosys, helped the Indian government and a few other governments create such platforms. Of course, in the U.S., we have OpenGov. So, yes, absolutely. But just to be clear, do you think... I mean, this was remarkable because, actually, the current government in India was a bit cool on the idea. They woke up to it. This was what, 18 months ago, I think. But the fact being that governments are way behind understanding the enormity of the proliferation of platforms. Yes. Except for certain governments like Singapore, for instance, Singapore is an extremely digital economy. It's a small country, but nonetheless an incredibly digital one. Certain Scandinavian countries and so forth. But there's no doubt that governments are waking up to this. And the union movement is waking up everywhere. I can assure you that around the world, the future of work is at the top of the union agenda. And we're beginning to see questioning, not in a classical way at all, that all of a sudden the key item that we bring into negotiations is training, training, skills development, time off in the U.K. The Singapore government visited the United Kingdom to discover what the unions were doing to give people training. We have trained 1.1.5 million people at 10% of the market cost because we have people in workplaces whose job it is to give other people advice on upskilling. So that's a very bottom-up approach which the platforms can help. And we can see the nature of this revolution coming. We're not going to throw a spanner in the works. What we want to do is to help people adapt. And if you empower people through these platforms, which we also have in place, unions do a great job in terms of making sure that training and education remains on the agenda. I know we have the occasional punch-up over wages and so forth, but the union movement is itself going through this massive adaptation as to what this new world of work looks like. So a big takeaway is platforms are successful. Platforms for unions should be successful too. That's what you're saying. But the thing is to be credible and relevant, we have to have the solutions which fit this challenge. And we have to help people adapt. We have to help people mitigate. And we have to find a way to adjust transition. We need, in a moment of volatility, where we have this fragmentation of competition. When we have fragmentation in work, I think one of the great universal values, not just freedom of expression and freedom of association, is to have a certain quality of life. And how can we assure a quality of life? I want to go back because we've got five minutes left. Here's a comment here about leaders in Davos from Sanyana, Govinda and Jayadev. Leaders in Davos should be concerned about the potential consolidation and homogeneity of platforms. Let me ask each of you in 30 seconds at the various hubs. New Delhi, Pramath, what is the message here? Do you think those around us in the Congress Centre next door understand the enormity of this change that we're highlighting today on platforms? I think they do, Nick. I think the one thing that I would convey as a message is that at least in the near term, we are going to both have platforms as well as the older business models. And I think people have to think about not this being either or that we are going through a period of time that we are going to have this and that. And I think thinking of the world as either this or that is the wrong way to think about it. Whether it is to drive regulation, whether it is to create access, whether it is to provide equity, we have to think of a world where we are going to have both these platforms with us for some time. We shouldn't be making false statements. All right, Pramath, thank you. There's a comment here from Kumar Manisha, contrasting perspectives between developed and developing world, even in the panel. I think India is a developed country these days, myself. Okay, I've got a lot of poor people, but it's a very developed country, smarter than many developed countries. But let me go from the developing world of India to Berlin, which of course has its own problems. Let's go to Vincent. Let me ask you about what the leaders, the powerful here should be thinking about this because to put it bluntly, in Germany, there's been a shock to the political system because of the ability of the platforms during the migration crisis to create enormous problems for the corporate and the political sector. Yes, I want to make two points. The first one is that the government at the moment is getting engaged with platforms once they are big. So now they're talking to Facebook or to Airbnb or to Uber, but they waited until they got really big. And I think they should get involved more early, especially in social platforms. And the way we propose it is that they're making matching funds. So there's this great instrument of crowdfunding where platforms gathering money for innovative products. And the government should jump on this and support this new way of finding innovative products rather than giving out application or government funds. The second point I would like to stress is, and Mr. Sika already made this point, that we see a development where platforms keeping being local because they're unable to scale, conquer the whole world. And what we are doing with Ernst & Young, for example, is one of the big companies and also other people who are in Davos, is that they help us to adapt to the regulations in other countries. And this is where big companies and the people of Davos could help small, local social projects to scale by helping them move their network and move their knowledge about the world. Alright, thanks Vincent. Let's go to Bangalore, back to Vikalpa. What's your thought about... The phrase is good and the great, but many of them don't feel good these days, and certainly a lot of them don't qualify for being great because a lot of them are under real pressure here, including from the new disruptive platforms. What do you think, Vikalpa, needs to be the message here in Davos? Obviously, there are people who would drive the opportunity curve. There are people who would feel disrupted, but that's the way of life. That's the growth pattern that any industry or any evolution basically take. So what we feel over here is this is a way of growth and the way of growth has to be taken positively and the opportunity needs to be grabbed and this has to be seen as an opportunity and even government should seek platforms as an opportunity to solve a lot of the infrastructure related problems, education related problems and not feel disrupted. So that would be the message that we would like to basically give out from banks. All right, don't panic. Don't believe that this is negative just because it's new. Let's go to Giza, to Mohamed Rafai, and I've got a message here from one of your colleagues, Abdulhamid Sharara, in Giza, disruptive platforms, change behaviors of communities and consumers. How much is business and the political leadership having to change as well? The message to Davos. I believe the biggest challenge is about education. For example, all taxi drivers will find that their job is not as effective as in the previous era. How can they adapt and learn new technologies and integrate into the ecosystem or maybe they might go into other opportunities? I believe it's more of a social and economic way to educate the population. This is the biggest challenge. All right, thanks all four of you in the hubs. We look forward to hearing about enormous numbers of new platforms if we join you again in a few months time. But let me to both our guests here just ask where do you think this is going? How exponential? How dramatic is this going to be? Are we understating potentially the challenge, not the threat, the challenge of platforms to the status quo, even the status quo of a lot of new platforms? I think that it is very safe to say that every walk of life is going to be transformed by this unprecedented ability to connect in platforms and even new areas which we have not foreseen before because of the inefficiency of the physical infrastructure will emerge as new platforms. It is inevitable but the key, the two keys to enable everyone to participate in this are education, the ability to deal with technology as effectively as we deal with reading and writing and the second one is connectivity as a very basic right for all of us. And Vandana is really supporting your view I think Philip. No, I don't know where Vandana is. There's no picture here either. Social connectivity along with proper legal economic sensibilities can make it really valuable for all. It's a positive step. This time I think it really is different. I think it's very important that political leaders, business leaders, academicians understand that this really is a new era. We are really going into a new period in terms of production and organization. Now at the same time if I ask people what worries you most this revolution or Wall Street and the functioning of the financial system people are still worried about a financial system which is not working for them which is a great source of volatility and wealth for the view. What I think has done some harm is this robot out there. There's this robot over in the conference center which can pick up a stick, open a bottle and what that's doing is making people look at this in a mechanical way. That's still for me too binary. What is really not being discussed in Davos is what this means to us as a civilization. What does artificial intelligence to have a robot which can think for itself and act for itself and that's something that is missing in this discussion. We're not going to get an answer to that in the next 30 seconds I've got to tell you but we need to come back and talk about that. I think this is the missing link in the conversation. Adaptation, mitigation, just transition. Let's be thrilled but let's people adapt and let's give people a sense of a just transition and opportunity. Thanks Philip, thanks Vishal. Thanks as well to our four hubsters in the New Delhi, Berlin, Bangalore, Giza. Let me just tell you we've been on a carpet and wooden platform so there's still a place for the old way of constructing platforms but the word I'm taking away is that word we heard from Bangalore the new generation of prosumers and the implications of this enormous change and particularly the way the next generation not the 18 year olds but the 8 year olds have a way of knowing what platforms they want in a way which those of this generation and the adolescent generation are already showing is maybe a bit out of date. So thank you all very much indeed. It's been a marvellous debate. Thank you very much indeed and keep the ideas coming in for all the global shapers, meetings and the kind of things you're doing out there in the hubs around the world. From me Nick Gowing, bye-bye.