Greetings From The Host | Georg Kapsch

Mr. Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure for me to welcome you here in the Federation of the Austrian Industry, which from my perspective is the center and the melting pot of innovation, dynamism, and change. As far as I know, the topic of today is the digital revolution. So why the hell are we always talking about a digital revolution? From my perspective, working in this industry for 30 years, there is no digital revolution at all. It's an evolution which has lasted for almost 50 years. Just the pace of change and the dynamics have gained speed, and that's it. From my perspective, it's still the core question we are asking ourselves all the time: is digitalization a threat for us from an economic perspective? I answer with no. Even if it comes to the question of employment from a social perspective, I would answer with yes, no. Not because of the changes that are in front of us regarding unemployment issues, but because of the impact on our social lives. And I think this is the core question we have to ask ourselves. Working in this business and in this industry for almost 30 years myself, I think what we are currently talking about—and that might be a bit provocative—but I think it's a kind of hype and it's a phase in the evolution which took place already millions of years. So this is just a tiny little window in the evolution of the world and of the human beings. But this is Darwin's circle today. And when Tava talks about Darwin, talks about survival of the fittest, and that was already mentioned today, he was talking about individuals or species that are most responsive to change and that are most willing to adopt change. But when it comes to today's world, I would add something. I would say in today's world, it's those who are able to drive change, whether it's disruptive or incremental change, who are those individuals or societies that are successful. It's those who are most innovative, who are most flexible, who are most dynamic, most curious, and who have a very, very high degree of social responsibility and social cohesion. And one of the threats of the Internet and of the social media is, from my perspective, that we are going to lose social cohesion. But this all requires a change in our mindset from an all-providing state to all individual responsibility, from innovation followers to innovation leaders in terms of society as a whole, technology, and business models. So these three topics have to be very close together. Well, despite the fact—and that's again a bit provocative—of the current type of startups, and I do not want to marginalize startups. Startups are very important, and I created a startup on my own 17 years ago, and it's meanwhile a really enterprise. But what I think is not appropriate is to create companies and to sell companies at a price which is far beyond the intrinsic value of the company. And when this becomes an industry on its own, this is not real. Same for a society. Irrespective of that, the industry is still the driving force of innovation, and there is a very, very tight link between startups and industry. Startups contribute very much in terms of disruption, and industry contributes very much in terms of incremental innovation. But the two need to be together. There will be no startups successful without the industry, and then in an appropriate innovative ecosystem, which is the prerequisite of a welfare state, depends upon the policy framework and the intrapreneurial spirit of a society. These differentiate successful societies from less or unsuccessful societies. And this is not just meant in respect to wealth and let's say cash, but this is also meant and especially meant in social terms. Those who are able to provide the entire value chain in an economy from R&T to manufacturing and new business models will be successful. And those societies who do not generate envy on the one hand side—where we can be proud of because Austria is an envied state—and greed on the other side, we don't have that much in Austria, will be able to create prosperity for the entire population. And that has to be our goal: to create prosperity for the entire population. I wish you a very pleasant and interesting and fascinating day today here in this, well, from the architecture a bit old-fashioned but from the mindset very future-oriented and dynamic place. Thank you very much and have a nice day.