Confluence

Dropping a perspective-bending statement on your audience is always a great way to start a speech. Fischer’s eye-opener was that the critical factor is launching our “new world” was the Berlin Wall coming down: “The real beginning of globalization came with the end of the Cold War.” This post-Cold War Europe is well served by its expansion and integration into the European Union.

But this combined strength is not enough by itself to ensure European success. “Europe is an old country. It’s not the age; it’s the mindset – that’s our greatest challenge.” Because a new competitive reality has emerged and “we have leaders, but not leadership.” He believes the business community needs to step  up – and that the summit meeting in Copenhagen next month is the golden opportunity: “Copenhagen is seen to be about climate change, but it’s really about the economic future – it is a huge opportunity for the business community to show that the private sector is ready to move ahead.”

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For more than 30 minutes, Cox delighted and astounded us with the extraordinary contrasts between the vastness of the universe and the intricacies of proton acceleration. There is something entirely beyond our ken when you hear that an exponential expansion of the universe began a million, million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang.

But he brought us all back down to earth, and immediate relevance, by saying that “basic, incredibly ambitious science provides the foundation on which our economy rests” because “economies need people who understand cutting-edge knowledge.” The investment in science more than pays for itself – economically, intellectually, and inspirationally. And then, in an unexpected tie-in to Dr. Starkey’s talk last night, he remarked that “the thing about CERN is the idea of the power of ideas.”

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There is no question that these are turbulent times. Shibu graphically described the devastation that has hit the global economy this past year, then suggested that “this represents a new normal, but certain fundamentals of business have not changed.” What does this mean for Infosys? “We must innovate for the future, while strengthening our core.”

At the core, Infosys has been busy expanding our geographic footprint, deepening the existing suite of services, adding major certifications and enhancing employee capabilities. Innovations have appeared in new client-engagement models, vertical domain expertise, cloud-computing offerings and product-development partnerships. As Shibu concluded, “every crisis brings opportunities.”

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Dr. David Starkey is not troubled by such conventional wisdom as Christopher Columbus embarking for the new world from Barcelona – “Ideas are much more important than facts.” And the idea he promoted this evening is that the greatest impact from Columbus’ time, on worlds both new and old, was the invention of the printing press: “For the first time, culture became a mass product.”

The power of the press, at the turn of the 15^th century, was the multiplication, fixing and preserving of knowledge. Today we are once again on the threshold of breakthroughs in the universal transmission of knowledge – remember Geldof’s comment that the US$150 million raised by LiveAid built schools that have taught 37 million African children?  Which is why Dr. Starkey, referencing information technology, concluded by throwing down his own gauntlet: “It’s in your hands whether we see the end of a renaissance or the beginning of a new one.”

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He was equal measures charming and challenging. But if there is any truth to the saying that if you can measure it, you can improve it. Bob Geldof gave us plenty of raw material to work with. His talk was studded with compelling, often shocking, factoids – 3 billion people live on less than US$2 a day, Europeans spend US$2.50/day to subsidize each unwanted cow while only US$0.50/year to address starvation in Africa.”

Granting that “the problem of corporate thinking is that they don’t embrace the marginal, they only pretend to,” Geldof asserted that the Cassandras of our generation speak from the margins and “those marginal voices are the ones who navigate the future.” Then he enlisted the help of Goethe to throw down the gauntlet: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

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Kris began with a simple, straightforward premise: “IT is the biggest driver for solving the problems facing us” – but that there remains a gap between intention and implementation.  To that end, Kris laid out the platform for moving forward by capturing the primary trends providing opportunities for radical innovation: the transition from value-chain to value-web; the growing power of pervasive computing, the untapped potential of emerging markets, sustainability, and new models of commerce; and future-proofing society through the revolution underway in health care.

But before we take on the world, perhaps we best look to our own house first: there are rampant opportunities to leverage the final trend of creating a smarter and more adaptive organization. Kris’ conclusion: “IT-led innovation will deliver the next generation of growth, profitability and asset efficiency.”

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As we begin to file into the Gaudi ballroom, here are the specs. There are 67 of you in attendance: 50 CEOs, 9 CIOs, 5 Directors, and 3 Managers. Even allowing for variations in titling, that’s a lot of firepower in the room. Unlike in past years, when executives from the UK prevailed by a wide margin, there is more geographic diversity this year, with little more than a third of you based in the UK and one stretching the boundaries of EMEA to encompass the Asia/Pacific region.

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