By Andrea Barbara Schuessler
“We are now in a situation in which we need all hands on deck, and everybody has to participate, both in the private sector and government, and non-profit sectors around this challenge, former U.S. President Barack Obama Sept.29 said on climate change at the opening of the “Bits&Pretzels” conference, a European festival that connects 5000 start-ups, founders, and investors.
“We have work to do around finding technical ways to reduce our carbon emissions and our energy consumption,” Obama told “Bits&Pretzels” participants from around 90 nations.
“She’s extraordinary, she’s very young, and for her to carry this sort of burden that she’s carrying is part of the message we should be taking in - a 16-year-old shouldn’t have to do this […]. Part of her power is not only extraordinary clarity about the fact that this is a monumental challenge that we have to confront, but it’s also a reminder that those of us who claim to be adults have responsibilities that too often we don’t meet”, Obama said about his meeting with climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Governmental structure to incentivize and encourage new technologies
There would have to be some sort of governmental structure that would incentivize and encourage those technologies [to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption] as they would first get implemented, the former U.S. President said in the talk moderated by Britta Wedeling, editor-in-chief of “Bits&Pretzels”.
“We should expect that such a massive transition as is gonna be necessary isn’t gonna be able to happen without some collective effort that’s expressed though our government and through some of our regulatory bodies,” he said.
Entrepreneurial culture starts with societies that invest in their children, Obama says
“Entrepreneurial culture starts with societies that invest in their children”, Obama told the “Bits&Pretzels” audience.
“Somehow we think we can starve public education, underfund universities, underfund research, but then somehow all these great ideas are just gonna pop up,” he added.
Policy-makers and start-ups should talk about frameworks for new technologies, Obama says
At the “Bits&Pretzels” festival that took place around the Oktoberfest in Munich, Obama also called for a conversation between policy- makers and start-ups on frameworks for new technologies.
“I think it’s particularly important as we start seeing things like AI coming up […] the promise of artificial intelligence to make our lives better in medicine, in energy, transportation, it is already beginning to happen, but I think we’re just scratching the surface,” he said.
Adapting new technologies would pose “a whole range of really important value questions”, Obama said.
There should be a public conversation that would allow for company profits and equities but society should also have a say, he told start-up entrepreneurs in Munich.
Need to reassert the importance of facts, Obama says
On the increasing divide of societies in the United States as well as in Europe, Obama said: “Globalization is creating a lot of winners but also a lot of people whose lives are disrupted and greater inequalities that make people feel less secure […], the fact that peoples’ traditions and cultures sometimes feel threatened and that we have to respect individual languages, and traditions, and cultures, and faith, while at the same time insisting they respect those both ways”
“The challenge now is so revitalize the ideals of democracy, and human rights, and race and gender, and equality and the belief in free speech, and freedom of assembly, and most of all I think maybe […] reassert the importance of facts,” Obama told the audience in Munich.
The huge record levels of inequality in globalized societies won’t probably be a sustainable system, Obama said.
Founder of the Honest Company Jessica Alba and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston also spoke at "Bits&Pretzels"
Jessica Alba, Founder of the Honest Company, Drew Houston, Founder&CEO of Dropbox, Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder Linkedin, David Limp, Senior Vice President Amazon Devices & Services, Donna Carpenter, Co-Founder and CEO Burton Snowboards, and Klaus Hommels, CEO Lakestar Advidors, also spoke at the “Bits&Pretzels” conference 2019.