 Ladies and gentlemen, I'm honored to welcome you on behalf of the Alfred Herrhausen Society to the Urban Age Conference Shaping Cities here in Venice. The themes of the Habitat 3 Conference, Sustainable Organization and Shared Spaces, the 2016 Architecture Biennale, a global report from the front on the role of architecture and urban design, and the London School of Economic Cities Urban Age Research in the urban field, create a rare platform for a truly innovative partnership between the world's leading political, cultural and academic institutions. I would especially like to thank Paolo for inviting the Urban Age Conference to become a special project of the 15th architecture Biennale here in Venice and providing this very spectacular setting for our conference. I'd like to thank John Close for considering Urban Age as a partner of the Habitat 3 Conference, which will take place in October in Chito. And I'd like to of course thank Alejandra Aravena for providing such a unique environment with this exhibition for the Urban Age Conference. A warm welcome also to the members of the Board of Trustees of the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. It is a pleasure to have you here today and I would like to thank you and take this opportunity for all your support throughout the past years. The non-profit Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft is the International Forum of Deutsche Bank. It is based in Berlin and has the mission to provide a unique platform for discussion and research around fundamental issues facing the world we live in. We have been committed to the Urban Age Project for 11 years now and I would like to state that it has clearly become a flagship project for the Herrhausen Society. It has been the result of a close partnership with Ricky Burdett, Richard Sennett, Philip Road and their colleagues at LSE Cities. I thank you for this great success story. Ladies and gentlemen, cities have been crucial for social evolution all over the world. Civil liberty, the rule of law and science all arose in cities. This is where the foundation for modern states were laid. And as we all know in a few decades, two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities. In a western world, metropolitan areas are more than ever a magnet for business, cultural activities and social life. Graduates of my generation might have dreamt of a nice house in the suburbs of whatever. But the talents of today prefer living in a roaring city center where the next coffee shop, club or cinema is just next door. Why is a grey-haired man like me talking about the preferred neighborhood of much younger people? Well, because this impacts all of us. Berlin, for example, has become the focal point of German startups. And their main reason is not that you could develop new software or smartphone-based business models only there. But the founders want to work there where they want to live. It's that simple. And digitalization, ladies and gentlemen, makes that possible. Digitalization actually means that work can travel to where people want to live. And if we think about that for a second, that means that quality of life becomes a critical success factor in a skill-based economy. Let me describe to you an example. At Deutsche Bank, if you get hired as a young trader, and yes, there are still people who want to trade securities in this world, which may sound surprising to some of you, but you actually get hired in U.S., you get a choice. You can either go to New York, or for 70% of the same compensation, you can go to Jacksonville, Florida, where there is a gigantic room like this one with huge screens. And those screens actually imply that you are in the same trading room than your colleagues are in New York, and you can yell and shout at them. You can wave them, and you can communicate with them. And more and more people actually like to live in Jacksonville, Florida for 70% of the compensation because it is a great lifestyle. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why shaping cities matters so much today, and it will matter even more tomorrow. I saw the statistics on the wall here on key metropolitan areas coming in. I would actually suggest that you think about adding an indicator about, be it fiber cables, be it 4G reception, whatever the right KPI is, that shows that the city is actually, quote, unquote, wired. Now, digitalization, ladies and gentlemen, of course, also means transparency. It means social media. And these leads to very different urban challenges. Where cities attract more and more people looking for a better life. And I am quite aware, of course, that urban challenges and metropolitan challenges across the world mean more than the high quality of life and fiber cable in Berlin. There are tremendous challenges we have to face. But again, in the world that we live in, transparency means people will seek out urban centers because they're looking for a better life. But who am I to tell you that? You are the experts. So I can only wish you successful debates, debates in the best tradition of the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. And I wish you ongoing impact because in today's environment, impact for social projects is what people crave, what they look for, and what undoubtedly this great project, the urban age project, has achieved over this space of the last 10 years. Personally, I'd like to add that I think it is great that we are in Venice for this opportunity because which other city could symbolize as much the role and importance of cities in a globalized world, be it political, be it commercial. In a world where globalization has become a debatable phenomenon, one where there's a lot of political controversy about globalization, I think it is great to be in a city that shows how important cities can be in this type of a world and has a long tradition that symbolizes that. So thank you again, Paulo, for having us. Thank you very much and much success.