Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Monday, February 28, 2022

Opening of MWC 2022 - Álvarez-Pallete: "What happens in Ukraine has reminded us that technology lacks values"

The opening speeches of the Barcelona event have incorporated the condemnation of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. The president of Telefónica and the GSMA maintained: "Technology gives us the power to change and do more things. This is not a time of war, but of collaboration." It also anticipated the need for a new framework for "a new era of superconnectivity" in which "hypersectoral collaboration" is achieved.

José María Álvarez-Pallete confessed to being "worried optimistic" about the present: "Technology has given us the power to change things, but now we must decide whether to change them for better or worse." Minutes before his presentation as GSMA’s recently appointed president, Mats Granryd (director general of the entity) had expressed GSMA's condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In fact, the conflict overshadowed the opening of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2022, an event that sought to redeem itself after the 2021 edition in the middle of the year -with markedly lower attendance- and the suspension of February 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The disruptions of the 20th century and the puzzling events of the early 21st century, as is happening in Ukraine right now, have reminded us that technology has no value. Technology has allowed us to change things and do many new things, but we are the ones who must decide what and how to do it”, Álvarez-Pallete said.

In his speech, Telefónica’s head also defended the role of the telecommunications sector in the era of super connectivity. “We are the door to the future. Telecommunications makes possible what is to come. Nothing will happen without us in the digital age. Data traffic continues growing t 50% annually. The burden of the investment required to manage this growing volume of traffic must be just.”

The official also highlighted the values ??of collaboration, cooperation, solidarity, responsibility, sustainability and dignity, to create in the future "an ecosystem of shared values". In this context and in the face of a new era of super-connectivity, a new framework will be required, "of hypersectoral collaboration," the executive said. Moreover, he called for establishing a new social contract between Science, Business and Society. “Improvements have always come when we have driven progress, when we have bet on the future. When our society felt the advances of the scientific community and the business ecosystem as its own. This is what makes it possible to industrialize knowledge and create new services. When States and companies work together. Being positive. I am optimistic. Perhaps a worried optimist, but an optimist,” he confided.

Human and social dimension. “Humans should never be categorized by their access to digitization. There should be no distinction between those who have access to the new digital world and those who do not”, Álvarez-Pallete pointed out.

He called for placing people and values ??at the center. And remember that it is people who give meaning to technology, and not the other way around.

Lastly, at the opening of the congress, GSMA’s president named the technologies that will generate a sudden disruption, with a central place at the Barcelona fair: Web3, Metaverse, Blockchain, Quantum Computing, Cybersecurity, Edge Computing and 5G Stand-Alone as well as Artificial Intelligence.

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