so this is Robert’s mill Crawford’s mill
was the saying of one of the great
battles which involved the Luddites in
the during the first Industrial
Revolution the Luddites
most of us will think about as those who
were against technology those who
resisted change and as with most things
in history actually the reality is a bit
more nuanced than that yes the Luddites
went and broke machines but actually by
and large they were themselves experts
they were already the ones who drove the
the weaving machines the machines that
at the time we’re moving from completely
handmade but what they objected to was
really a change in environment bigger
machines faster machines which threaten
their livelihood and what they also
objected to was changes in how
governments operated and how individuals
were treated which when you think about
it and you think about where we are now
in the fourth Industrial Revolution
isn’t all that different to where we sit
today another thing that’s interesting
is the Luddites were called after a guy
called Ned Ludd who actually never
existed he was an invention that
unleashed the Luddites originally
started in Nottingham and Ned Ludd was a
guy who lived in Sherwood Forest with
Robin Hood
so you can argue that during the first
Industrial Revolution we had the first
fake news kind of interest in the way
history echoes so here we are several
industrial revolutions on at the fourth
Industrial Revolution and you’ll see
over that the time that we progressed
from the 17th 18th century right here to
the 21st there’s been huge surges huge
surges in what happens huge surges and
Technology huge surges in the societal
change that happens with that
interestingly in my view between the 3rd
and 4th there was a bit of a kind of a
tender moment where computers swiped
right I connected with telephones and
that connection of the Internet of
processing power with communication
really is what leveraged and what
enabled all of us as individual
to connect and to use technology in ways
until then we had never imagined and
ironically that amount of communication
that amount of engagement is what is
generated now a lot of fear and a lot of
concern around what happens
what about AI what about big data are
the robots taking over what happens my
job questions that have echoed through
history and yet here we all are so from
my perspective I’ve been around a long
time not for all for industrial
revolutions but for a couple of them um
and I started life as a glass pour many
years ago and working in a factory and
over time I could see that machines were
going to come in we’re going to start
making a lot of the things that I was
making by hand and I looked for other
opportunities to do things when I really
realized that hey the the progress of
technology is something we should be
paying attention to how I should be
paying attention to was during this
event which as I look around the room
most people won’t remember but in 1996 a
guy called garry kasparov who was the
world chess champion play chess against
an IBM supercomputer called deep blue
deep blue was capable of a hundred
million calculations a second and in
1996
Kasparov beat the machine right cue not
quite dancing in the street but it was
quite exciting right humans were still
better than machines that was a
narrative in 1997
Kasparov a deep blue deep blue was
capable of 200 million calculations a
second and deep blue one if you read
time if you read the newspapers at the
time it was the end of the world humans
had finally been overtaken by machines
not the case and there’s a really good
presume all you folks hurry to Ted
Kasparov himself did a really good Ted
session last year where he talked about
his learnings at the time he talked
about how he felt about technology at
that time and how he actually felt he’d
been cheated he reckoned that something
had happened and people had been behind
the Machine couldn’t beat a human and
he’s come to a place in his mental
evolution where he understands that
actually machines are there to help us
and he talks a lot about where you bring
average chess players and put them with
technology put them with development
they can compete against the best the
interesting thing about that whole
transformation is that when you put that
mindset on and you think about what’s
happening in the world today
you think about how we take the best of
technology the best of transformation
with the best of who we are as people
and bare our minds just like a lot of
Technology are in beta we are
continually evolving we’re continually
upgrading and machines and technology
can bring the best of us to the rest of
us one of the interesting things that
has happened as I’ve spent time in this
industry over the past twenty years or
so is that the affordability of
technology has really really reduced I
can’t see those numbers trust me they’re
really impressive but essentially the
cost of compute the cost of processing
the cost of progress reduces and reduces
and reduces and what we see is that the
benefits that we can get from that
technology from those items and those
those steps that we take increases and
increases and increases the
democratization of technology really
allows us to operate in a very very
different way it allows access in lots
of different ways and that access is
what allows us to improve as people is
what allows us to improve improve our
organizations and ultimately is what
will drive us through the fourth and
onto the fifth and sixth Industrial
Revolution AI is one of the big
conversations that we have today when we
talk about technology when we talk about
digital transformation there’s this kind
of ghost in the machine called AI the
truth is we’re using AI every day when
you’re searching and it autocompletes
that’s using artificial intelligence
when you go home at night and you turn
on Netflix or Spotify you get a
recommendation that’s artificial
intelligence when you’re walking around
actually the campus and the buildings
around here and you see the autonomous
vehicles that are already driving around
this estate
that’s all artificial intelligence
nobody would argue that’s a bad thing
well sometimes when I see what my
daughter Sara was in the cloud crowd and
I say really all night on Netflix I
might argue but generally speaking it’s
a good thing however for us when we
think about the benefit to to those
looking off to live in Singapore there’s
a whole new set of benefits that operate
around the world that digital
transformation brings digital
transformation and artificial
intelligence is being used to enable the
four hundred million people who live in
food poverty in in sub-saharan Africa to
make better crops to grow better crops
to grow crops that are more disease
resistant that are more drought
resistant and ultimately become better
and more self-sufficient from food
perspective artificial intelligence is
allowing us to track mosquitoes allowing
us to track how malaria transfers across
countries across environments across
people and actually allowing us to start
to genetically modify to to reduce
disease and to make they the standard of
living that people have in many of the
tropical areas of the world much much
better
digital financial transactions when you
think about cash there used to be a
thing that cash is came the reality
today’s cash is a bad deal particularly
if you’re poor there you know the 1.7
billion people are so that still live on
$2 or less a day if they’re paid in cash
what happens it gets stolen or they buy
things they buy assets which diminish in
value and so the poor get poorer and
what digital transformation what
technology allows us to do is to start
to introduce low-cost financial
transactions for the poorest around the
world and you might think okay I Bank on
my phone
that’s not such a big deal last year in
India there was an exercise where women
in some of the poorest areas in India
were giving access to digitally to
enable digital finance so they had a
bank account that a cheap cheap phone
that they could use the results were 25
percent more savings for the women and
those families just by the fact that it
was digital because they could save more
11 percent of those women more of those
women joined the workforce than could
have done previously so it’s huge the
benefits of transformation the benefits
of digitization roll through our society
in many many ways and roll through
positively in many many ways and because
they roll through they enable more and
more people to join the workforce
yes jobs change yes positions change
that’s not a new thing back in the midst
of time I changed my job from being
working in a factory being a glass maker
to working at one of their the most
well-known and most well-regarded
technology organizations on the planet
it can be done and it’s being done every
day and it’s being done faster as
technology assists diversity makes a
huge difference in that to all of us in
our lives there are many studies this is
one by McKinsey that just sort of
illustrates the difference but what you
see is if we work with people like us if
we work in teams that think like us act
like us looked like us initially we’re
more productive but that benefit levels
off actually quite quickly but where we
work with people who are different who
think differently who act differently
who are motivated differently it takes a
bit longer because we need to learn we
need to build up our own empathy we need
to build up our own concerns but the
results then become exponentially higher
so organizations where who actively
invest in in diversity have 20% less
turnover than those who don’t
organizations who actively
in diversity are on average a little
less than twice as innovative by all of
the industry measures than those that
don’t
diversity matters and it’s technology in
many cases combined with great policy
combined with the time to think about
what happens that is enabling that
diversity it’s technology that’s
allowing more and more girls and women
to be trained in stem it’s technology
that’s enabling different people to
enter the workforce in different ways
these are things that matter and that’s
that connection between what we do and
what we build and how technology works
and the opportunities we open is
ultimately what will drive us forward as
time goes by so we’ve talked about sort
of the big things there you know the big
date of the big items these are just
some you know from my own experience
some images of what goes on at a local
level you know we’ve got examples of
learning technologies where people with
dyslexia can read much easier much
faster they’re much better using
technology we have technologies like
seeing AI and soundscape apps which you
can download today and for those who you
know are or know people who are sight
impaired these applications are
fantastic they help people see they help
people navigate around an environment
just using the technology on your phone
so big technology written small with a
huge impact which allows people to
participate in different ways Skype
classroom something I’ve involved in off
and on allows us to bring the classroom
to to children to students no matter
where they are in the world allows
students to connect no matter where they
are in the world connect that with Skype
translator and I can speak to a
classroom in China they are hearing me
in their language I’m hearing them in
mind that’s AI and that’s kind of cool
right even apart from the social
benefits the economic benefit you think
wow when we think about what we want to
do as humans when you think about how
tribal we are and how communication
becomes one of the things that breaks
down first the fact that technology
digital transformation is enabling and
allowing communication on multiple
levels in multiple ways and respecting
diversity in multiple ways to remember
when we think about diversity there’s
visible and invisible diversity there’s
the diversity you see the color of your
skin the diversity you hear the accents
that people have then there’s how do
people learn there’s how do people think
there’s how do we bring more people with
autism into the environment and get
their unique perspective all of these
things matter and all of these things
are being helped by technology and by
transformation there’s a second element
to diversity that’s inclusion one of the
things we say at Microsoft is diversity
is cool diversity is being invited to
the party
inclusion is when you’re asked to dance
and that’s really when you think about
the cultural change that’s enabled by
some of these transformational
technologies when you think about what
we enable and how we think there’s still
that piece coming back to us as being
humans in beta where we need to drive
our own cultural view we need to be
willing to reach out and ask people to
dance not just say it was enough to
invite them to the party and when we do
that and one of the things that I’ve
seen certainly in my environment is we
enable the best of everybody and one of
the things we say Microsoft when we
think about diversity and inclusion and
we think about transformation is that
what we want people to be able to do
whether it’s in school whether it’s at
work whether it’s at home is calm as you
are and do what you love and that to me is the real promise of transformation
was the saying of one of the great
battles which involved the Luddites in
the during the first Industrial
Revolution the Luddites
most of us will think about as those who
were against technology those who
resisted change and as with most things
in history actually the reality is a bit
more nuanced than that yes the Luddites
went and broke machines but actually by
and large they were themselves experts
they were already the ones who drove the
the weaving machines the machines that
at the time we’re moving from completely
handmade but what they objected to was
really a change in environment bigger
machines faster machines which threaten
their livelihood and what they also
objected to was changes in how
governments operated and how individuals
were treated which when you think about
it and you think about where we are now
in the fourth Industrial Revolution
isn’t all that different to where we sit
today another thing that’s interesting
is the Luddites were called after a guy
called Ned Ludd who actually never
existed he was an invention that
unleashed the Luddites originally
started in Nottingham and Ned Ludd was a
guy who lived in Sherwood Forest with
Robin Hood
so you can argue that during the first
Industrial Revolution we had the first
fake news kind of interest in the way
history echoes so here we are several
industrial revolutions on at the fourth
Industrial Revolution and you’ll see
over that the time that we progressed
from the 17th 18th century right here to
the 21st there’s been huge surges huge
surges in what happens huge surges and
Technology huge surges in the societal
change that happens with that
interestingly in my view between the 3rd
and 4th there was a bit of a kind of a
tender moment where computers swiped
right I connected with telephones and
that connection of the Internet of
processing power with communication
really is what leveraged and what
enabled all of us as individual
to connect and to use technology in ways
until then we had never imagined and
ironically that amount of communication
that amount of engagement is what is
generated now a lot of fear and a lot of
concern around what happens
what about AI what about big data are
the robots taking over what happens my
job questions that have echoed through
history and yet here we all are so from
my perspective I’ve been around a long
time not for all for industrial
revolutions but for a couple of them um
and I started life as a glass pour many
years ago and working in a factory and
over time I could see that machines were
going to come in we’re going to start
making a lot of the things that I was
making by hand and I looked for other
opportunities to do things when I really
realized that hey the the progress of
technology is something we should be
paying attention to how I should be
paying attention to was during this
event which as I look around the room
most people won’t remember but in 1996 a
guy called garry kasparov who was the
world chess champion play chess against
an IBM supercomputer called deep blue
deep blue was capable of a hundred
million calculations a second and in
1996
Kasparov beat the machine right cue not
quite dancing in the street but it was
quite exciting right humans were still
better than machines that was a
narrative in 1997
Kasparov a deep blue deep blue was
capable of 200 million calculations a
second and deep blue one if you read
time if you read the newspapers at the
time it was the end of the world humans
had finally been overtaken by machines
not the case and there’s a really good
presume all you folks hurry to Ted
Kasparov himself did a really good Ted
session last year where he talked about
his learnings at the time he talked
about how he felt about technology at
that time and how he actually felt he’d
been cheated he reckoned that something
had happened and people had been behind
the Machine couldn’t beat a human and
he’s come to a place in his mental
evolution where he understands that
actually machines are there to help us
and he talks a lot about where you bring
average chess players and put them with
technology put them with development
they can compete against the best the
interesting thing about that whole
transformation is that when you put that
mindset on and you think about what’s
happening in the world today
you think about how we take the best of
technology the best of transformation
with the best of who we are as people
and bare our minds just like a lot of
Technology are in beta we are
continually evolving we’re continually
upgrading and machines and technology
can bring the best of us to the rest of
us one of the interesting things that
has happened as I’ve spent time in this
industry over the past twenty years or
so is that the affordability of
technology has really really reduced I
can’t see those numbers trust me they’re
really impressive but essentially the
cost of compute the cost of processing
the cost of progress reduces and reduces
and reduces and what we see is that the
benefits that we can get from that
technology from those items and those
those steps that we take increases and
increases and increases the
democratization of technology really
allows us to operate in a very very
different way it allows access in lots
of different ways and that access is
what allows us to improve as people is
what allows us to improve improve our
organizations and ultimately is what
will drive us through the fourth and
onto the fifth and sixth Industrial
Revolution AI is one of the big
conversations that we have today when we
talk about technology when we talk about
digital transformation there’s this kind
of ghost in the machine called AI the
truth is we’re using AI every day when
you’re searching and it autocompletes
that’s using artificial intelligence
when you go home at night and you turn
on Netflix or Spotify you get a
recommendation that’s artificial
intelligence when you’re walking around
actually the campus and the buildings
around here and you see the autonomous
vehicles that are already driving around
this estate
that’s all artificial intelligence
nobody would argue that’s a bad thing
well sometimes when I see what my
daughter Sara was in the cloud crowd and
I say really all night on Netflix I
might argue but generally speaking it’s
a good thing however for us when we
think about the benefit to to those
looking off to live in Singapore there’s
a whole new set of benefits that operate
around the world that digital
transformation brings digital
transformation and artificial
intelligence is being used to enable the
four hundred million people who live in
food poverty in in sub-saharan Africa to
make better crops to grow better crops
to grow crops that are more disease
resistant that are more drought
resistant and ultimately become better
and more self-sufficient from food
perspective artificial intelligence is
allowing us to track mosquitoes allowing
us to track how malaria transfers across
countries across environments across
people and actually allowing us to start
to genetically modify to to reduce
disease and to make they the standard of
living that people have in many of the
tropical areas of the world much much
better
digital financial transactions when you
think about cash there used to be a
thing that cash is came the reality
today’s cash is a bad deal particularly
if you’re poor there you know the 1.7
billion people are so that still live on
$2 or less a day if they’re paid in cash
what happens it gets stolen or they buy
things they buy assets which diminish in
value and so the poor get poorer and
what digital transformation what
technology allows us to do is to start
to introduce low-cost financial
transactions for the poorest around the
world and you might think okay I Bank on
my phone
that’s not such a big deal last year in
India there was an exercise where women
in some of the poorest areas in India
were giving access to digitally to
enable digital finance so they had a
bank account that a cheap cheap phone
that they could use the results were 25
percent more savings for the women and
those families just by the fact that it
was digital because they could save more
11 percent of those women more of those
women joined the workforce than could
have done previously so it’s huge the
benefits of transformation the benefits
of digitization roll through our society
in many many ways and roll through
positively in many many ways and because
they roll through they enable more and
more people to join the workforce
yes jobs change yes positions change
that’s not a new thing back in the midst
of time I changed my job from being
working in a factory being a glass maker
to working at one of their the most
well-known and most well-regarded
technology organizations on the planet
it can be done and it’s being done every
day and it’s being done faster as
technology assists diversity makes a
huge difference in that to all of us in
our lives there are many studies this is
one by McKinsey that just sort of
illustrates the difference but what you
see is if we work with people like us if
we work in teams that think like us act
like us looked like us initially we’re
more productive but that benefit levels
off actually quite quickly but where we
work with people who are different who
think differently who act differently
who are motivated differently it takes a
bit longer because we need to learn we
need to build up our own empathy we need
to build up our own concerns but the
results then become exponentially higher
so organizations where who actively
invest in in diversity have 20% less
turnover than those who don’t
organizations who actively
in diversity are on average a little
less than twice as innovative by all of
the industry measures than those that
don’t
diversity matters and it’s technology in
many cases combined with great policy
combined with the time to think about
what happens that is enabling that
diversity it’s technology that’s
allowing more and more girls and women
to be trained in stem it’s technology
that’s enabling different people to
enter the workforce in different ways
these are things that matter and that’s
that connection between what we do and
what we build and how technology works
and the opportunities we open is
ultimately what will drive us forward as
time goes by so we’ve talked about sort
of the big things there you know the big
date of the big items these are just
some you know from my own experience
some images of what goes on at a local
level you know we’ve got examples of
learning technologies where people with
dyslexia can read much easier much
faster they’re much better using
technology we have technologies like
seeing AI and soundscape apps which you
can download today and for those who you
know are or know people who are sight
impaired these applications are
fantastic they help people see they help
people navigate around an environment
just using the technology on your phone
so big technology written small with a
huge impact which allows people to
participate in different ways Skype
classroom something I’ve involved in off
and on allows us to bring the classroom
to to children to students no matter
where they are in the world allows
students to connect no matter where they
are in the world connect that with Skype
translator and I can speak to a
classroom in China they are hearing me
in their language I’m hearing them in
mind that’s AI and that’s kind of cool
right even apart from the social
benefits the economic benefit you think
wow when we think about what we want to
do as humans when you think about how
tribal we are and how communication
becomes one of the things that breaks
down first the fact that technology
digital transformation is enabling and
allowing communication on multiple
levels in multiple ways and respecting
diversity in multiple ways to remember
when we think about diversity there’s
visible and invisible diversity there’s
the diversity you see the color of your
skin the diversity you hear the accents
that people have then there’s how do
people learn there’s how do people think
there’s how do we bring more people with
autism into the environment and get
their unique perspective all of these
things matter and all of these things
are being helped by technology and by
transformation there’s a second element
to diversity that’s inclusion one of the
things we say at Microsoft is diversity
is cool diversity is being invited to
the party
inclusion is when you’re asked to dance
and that’s really when you think about
the cultural change that’s enabled by
some of these transformational
technologies when you think about what
we enable and how we think there’s still
that piece coming back to us as being
humans in beta where we need to drive
our own cultural view we need to be
willing to reach out and ask people to
dance not just say it was enough to
invite them to the party and when we do
that and one of the things that I’ve
seen certainly in my environment is we
enable the best of everybody and one of
the things we say Microsoft when we
think about diversity and inclusion and
we think about transformation is that
what we want people to be able to do
whether it’s in school whether it’s at
work whether it’s at home is calm as you
are and do what you love and that to me is the real promise of transformation
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