Thiam sees tech as answer to inequality

Thiam has experience of how technology has made an impact in Ivory Coast Keystone

Some people are asking why WEF's Davos meeting is focusing on technology when the world is riven by conflict and bloodshed. But Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam is convinced that tech is the answer to a lot of the world's social problems. 

The theme of the 46th WEF annual meeting in Davos is: Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Thiam, who is a co-chair of the annual Davos conference this year, drew on his experiences in government in Ivory Coast to make his point. In 1995 he witnessed an Ivory Coast citizen tell a World Bank delegation that wells and roads did not help his cause. 

Thiam recounts: “[He] said: ‘What I want is a telephone. My son is a doctor who lives in the capital. If I had a phone then I would get everything that I need because I could just tell my son and he would bring it to me.'”

“The reason that technology is relevant is that it is a big part of the answer [to pressing social problems such as migration],” Thiam added. “The empowering dimension of technology for people in unfavourable situations cannot be overestimated.”

Tunisian Amira Yahyaoui, another Davos co-chair, reminded journalists that the revolution that swept across her country and others in 2011 was driven in large part by social media. Yahyaoui, who founded the humanitarian NGO Al Bawsala, admitted that many people in her country are more concerned about “how humans are hurting other humans” than technology. 

“Of course you can look at it from a private sector perspective, but you can also look at it from a humanitarian or governmental perspective,” she added. “The fourth industrial revolution does not just mean a tech discussion. In Tunisia, technology, especially phones and internet, has helped many people get access to markets that they would not otherwise have dreamed of.”

Jobs

A third Davos co-chair – Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation – said that technology itself is not the problem. 

“Our fear is not that technology will simply displace jobs,” she said. “Our fear is that technology will be used by the few that already have the wealth to simply create enclaves of greater wealth and further marginalisation and conflict.”

Speaking of jobs, I asked Tidjane Thiam to comment on rumours of more cuts at Credit Suisse. This is what he said:

“It’s one of the challenges of running a business that you have to both cut costs to be competitive and you have to invest for the future – it’s a balance between those two.”

“In the medium to long-term my job is to build a growing organisation. I really believe as a CEO that if an organisations does not grow, it is like a human organism – it will eventually get necrosis and die. There’s a lot of work to do to create foundations for growth and to add more jobs in Switzerland.”

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