HI-TECH NATION forum visited by Solar DAO

Last week I attended a very exciting and important event for Belarus and the rest of high-tech world. In Minsk, there were about 2,000 people to hear and communicate with many famous speakers from different countries. I decided to focus on some speeches and quote the main ideas.

Saul Singer, co-author of the bestseller “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle”

Every entrepreneur knows that 9 out of 10 startups fail. But one still believes that he/she will be the exact successful 10th.

Entrepreneurs are different from most of the people. They are not to work for someone, they want to be at the head. They are ready to take risks.
In general, the willingness to take risks and accept failure is a critical moment in entrepreneurship. Shimon Peres, who is often quoted in Israel, was an excellent entrepreneur. He said: “Sometimes it’s safer to risk”. I like this quote, it is a kind of entrepreneur’s mantra.

More than that, entrepreneurs are very purposeful people who are able to sacrifice themselves for a certain higher goal. As a rule, people thinking only about profit, do not achieve serious success. Thus, if you believe that you are creating something really meaningful and willing to sacrifice for the sake of your interest → you have a chance to succeed.
In practice, the more ambition gives the greater failure’s chance. However, it is impossible to succeed without failures. You have to go this way out of Trial and Error.

In fact, the business consists of constant experiments. It can follow one by another until you find a truly worthwhile solution really working and bringing the growth. But even after that, you will constantly face failures. It’s normal. Just don’t stop, believe in your work and move forward.

Arkady Zucker, managing partner of the Center for Strategic Consulting, the famous Russian trainer and speaker

In the new world, one cannot be successful, because success means to have time. It’s impossible to keep up with everything in a constantly accelerating world.
If the concept of “success” is lost — what has come? The key is choice, according to the Speaker. Now it is important not to have time to do something but choose the right option.

Consumers are replaced by “selectors”. And if the business is oriented to “selectors” — it will fail. The most successful entrepreneurs do not have business plans but live in a total experiment.

Nouriel Roubini, a well-known economist, regular speaker of the World Economic Forum in Davos

Nouriel Roubini, known for his rather gloomy forecasts for the future, which used to come true (f.e. he have predicted the global crisis of 2008), was quite optimistic at the Minsk forum.

“For several years, the global economy grew at a mediocre. But now it is healthier and growing faster. This growth is approaching 4% per year. The inflation is low, investors are more optimistic about investment issues” — said Roubini. “The profit of many corporations is also gradually growing, the investing interest in new areas and in creating new industries and jobs is also becoming higher.”

According to Nouriel Roubini, today’s most important economic trends are:

1. Information technology. It represents a powerful factor of development, about artificial intelligence and big data at first.
2. Green economy. The Solar Energy is becoming cheaper, solar batteries are being improved. Using these technologies, anyone can become an electricity producer.
3. Biotechnology, medical research. According to forecasts, its development will increase the average life expectancy to 100 years already in near future.
4. Agricultural changes. The energy cost and desalination technologies’ development will significantly impact on this industry.
5. Transport. Till the next 15–20 years, the world will pass to unmanned cars and trucks and develop the drone delivery service.
6. Production. Big changes are expected to appear with the development of robotics, 3D printing, and so on.
7. Defense technology. The use of drones and other new technologies will change the armies and make it much more tech-equipped.
8. Financial technologies. According to Nouriel Roubini, the future of this industry “must not only be related to the blockchain.” Today’s digital technologies combine artificial intelligence and machine learning with large amounts of data and all kinds of sensors. Thanks to this combining, the financial revolution is taking place in credit, insurance, and asset spheres.

Ray Kurzweil, legendary futurologist and inventor, Google top manager

Ray Kurzweil literally “materialized” on the “Minsk-Arena” stage — he acted as a 3D hologram.

“I was thinking about information technology for many years. We all know a number of examples, when small companies, start-ups, that began as a small group of people, grew into billion-dollar corporations. And then they helped to develop the whole world. Even companies like Google and Apple were once founded by a couple of young entrepreneurs!

Today young people all over the world have the opportunity to change history. Especially in a world dominated by IT.
Worldly wisdom says that we can not foresee the future. I was surprised to find that there are very predictable things. The IT’ ability to develop, its power and performance is predictable.
We see that information technologies do not develop linearly but exponentially: its growth is doubled at certain periods of time, again and again. And today this doubling period is declining. Everybody see the computer sizes decreasing, its price dropping. Exponential progression explains the Internet’s appearance and spread.

Several directions, which development can be predicted:

We will become million times smarter. A head chip will transmit signals directly to the brain as if it were coming through the senses. We will use cloud technologies that will help to expand brain’s power.

Life expectancy will grow. By 2030, we will develop blood cell-sized nanobots and use it in different spheres. One of the application areas is health care. Robots will be able to program the immune system during illnesses or simply help to avoid it.

Alternative energy will provide all the needs. The amount of energy that we generate with the help of the sun doubles every two years. Exponential growth tells us that there are 5-time cycles until the moment when we can meet all the human’s needs in cheap, clean and infinite solar energy.

Information and nanotechnology, which are being introduced into supercomputers, will make new panels to “catch” the sun’s rays. The cost of such panels is also decreasing, its size is getting smaller rapidly.

According to Ray Kurzweil, the success in global market depends on such important factors, as:

• Investment in education;
• Business sector development;
• Free access to information resources, maximum openness;
• Optimism and self-confidence.

Marvin Liao, one of the largest US venture capital funds partner and 500 Startups accelerator

Today, most innovations do not come from big countries. And the future is not for big countries — Israel, Estonia, Singapore, Sweden, Finland…
Of course, there are big players — Germany, France, China, Russia, but its size is the only advantage. It is very difficult to transform something in large countries. Previously, a large fish ate small — today fast fish eats slow. This way the competition is organized.

One of my favorite quotes is “The future is here. It’s just irregularly distributed.” by William Gibson (American science fiction writer).

Also, the meet-up was joined by such remarkable speakers as Pavel Muntian (Cyprus), Joe Shenhoon Chow (Singapore), Andrii Stetsovskyi (Ukraine, USA), Eugene Borukhovich (Germany), Janeen Uzzell (USA), Yury Melnychek and Andrey Avsievich (Belarus), Denis Aleinikov and Viktor Prokopenya (Belarus), and many other interesting people and cool companies.

I can summarize it all and say that the world’s development is moving with a geometric progression, and new technologies take on a huge role in it. Ways of information exchange, innovations, boundless development and moving forward — that’s what creates new business opportunities.

Our company also strives to be in a trend, monitoring all significant innovations not only from Solar but also other spheres. Knowledge, communication and comprehensive development allow us to be successful and make this world better.