I \u00a0was lucky\u00a0last week to get a last minute ticket for a sold-out event to attend a talk with Eric Schmidt at the Chinaexchange in London. The Executive chairman of Google is refreshingly free of any tech jargon when sharing his thoughts on a wide range of questions thrown at him by some of the 200 participants.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0<\/strong>On digital addiction.<\/strong> Will there be a point when people will get\u00a0tired of using their mobile phone everywhere? \u201cWe invented a new toy that is addictive,\u201d Schmidt says. \u201cI just want to remind people that there is a great feature on your phone, which is the off button,\u201d he adds. \u201cIn my addiction to this, I have developed the capability to turn off the phone for 90 minutes over dinner.” He believes that everybody has to find his or her limit.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0On data and machine learning.<\/strong> The Tech veteran who has been in the industry for 45 years says: \u201cComputers are very good at counting the most popular things but they are not very good at predicting future things. That\u2019s what human do best.\u201d People create things. Computers use data to give smarter answers. \u201cDon\u2019t you want your phone to make suggestions?\u201d he asks. \u201cThat\u2019s coming very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t buy into the fear that computers could overtake humans. For him, Machine learning will help us do routine stuff very well. \u201cIn order for something bad to happen, we would have to not be watching,\u201d he says. And humans ultimately have control over these computer power systems.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0On what business exactly Google is in?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWe try to figure out what problems are really big in the world and find new solutions,\u201d Schmidt says. The problem of diabetes in US is a major one and people have to test themselves for glucose. So a group of engineers are developing contact lenses to show the glucose level in the blood.<\/p>\n Google is in the business of solving interesting problems. And another major interesting problem is Renewable Energy, particularly solar panels and wind power in which Google is investing in massively although they are not building it\u00a0themselves. Google X is looking at problems that affect a large number of people and can be solved in a decade.<\/p>\n For Schmidt it\u2019s simple, if they can solve these problems it will make money somehow.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0On education and its future.<\/strong> \u201cThe only way to get people to make better decision is about educating them,\u201d Schmidt says. \u201cWe are not slaves of specific mouth piece of any particular site or any particular message. Each of us needs to be critical. That\u2019s why we go to high school, to college and the education system is incredibly important.\u201d But he recognises that traditional education needs to reinvent itself. In the world he foresees, students will watch videos at home and get in a classroom with a teacher to engage in a very sophisticated gaming and learn by collaboration. He says that there is great evidence that shows that Khan Academy method works better than high school education.\u201cWe should have hundreds of groups doing this not just one,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the world I am describing the only solution is education, relevant education ie critical thinking, knowing how to work all these things, learning how to search.\u201c But with so many courses and information online would we still need to go to school in the future? There is no hesitation and his answer positive as he acknowledges the important role of teachers and residential colleges. \u201cHumans are not just computers or analytical spark like me, emotion and charisma matters. It may be possible in the future for computers to have charisma and inspire people but not in my lifetime. Teachers are incredibly important.\u201d<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0On countries that restricts market freedom and tech companies.<\/strong> Schmidt reminds that an economy grows with a strong private sector, innovation and has to allow new entrants to keep the market competitive. He thinks some restrictions can be envisioned in certain situations but not to ban all together innovative start-ups from entering certain countries. He finds that politicians fight very hard to try to keep their jobs and think they would be better off allowing entrepreneurs to enter the market and bring new solutions to enable economic growth and drive job prospects.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0On Information Neutrality.<\/strong> How can we trust the recommendations pushed when searching for a particular service or product that an actor with a vested interest will\u00a0not manipulate the results? \u201cThe solution for that is enough competition,\u201d Schmidt says. If there are enough of them one competitor can\u2019t steer you towards his or her restaurant or salon or whatever. \u201cRegulation only needs to come in if there is market failure meaning that there is not enough competition; regulation that promotes more competition,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0On business value creation in the UK.<\/strong> Schmidt considers that there will be a lot of wealth creation in Financial Technologies in the UK and the service industry in general. But to reach its full potential we\u2019ve got to make things easy. \u00a0The Google\u2019s Executive has a simple way to evaluate a business potential: his mother\u2019s test. Most ideas, he says, don\u2019t survive that test. \u201cMy mother is perfectly capable of using dollars to purchase what she wants. Most of the systems have one too extra step that confuses her,\u201c he explains. Until you can answer the mum\u2019s question your proposition is not good enough.<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0On London becoming the next Silicon Valley.<\/strong> He says that 70% of the global Venture Capital money goes to the Silicon Valley and the Bay area.\u00a0 To create something similar, \u201cthere is a need to have a lot of people and great universities to have enough of the selection pressure to produce this environment\u201d. He agrees that the UK has Oxford and Cambridge and many people from the continent choose to move here because the laws are easier on start-ups than elsewhere on the continent. So\u00a0with this combination he considers that\u00a0London is getting a critical mass. That\u2019s the good news. He also says that it\u2019s vital to have a set of companies to go public with billion pound valuation.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0On Women in Tech.<\/strong> Why aren\u2019t there enough women in Technology industry? Recurring question but difficult to answer as he says there are a lot of them in other sectors like medicine or biology. There must be some kind of bias, he thinks. Google has a number of initiatives including an outreach programme to try to make it appealing to women to become coders but he admits they have not made enough progress. \u201cIt\u2019s much harder than it sounds to make this shift,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0On how Schmidt is using Google.<\/strong> \u201cI am working on a book on future science technology so my primary use of Google is there and I am learning a great deal about the subject. What is remarkable is not only there is information; you can literally become an expert at it which is extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Share\u00a0your thoughts about any of these topics below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n About Chinaexchange<\/strong><\/p>\n This forum is the brainchild of the emblematic Sir David Tang, British knight and Hong Kong businessman, that Hannah Bett describes in her Evening Standard\u2019s article as a \u2018philanthropic fl\u00e2neur\u2019 who \u2018has turned his little black book into this summer\u2019s hottest intellectual salon\u2019. Sir Tang wants to bring great minds in business, technology, economy, education, religion, arts, etc. to exchange with the public and have \u2018intelligent conversations\u2019 in the middle of Chinatown. Visit http:\/\/chinaexchange.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n About the author\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Francine Beleyi is a bilingual French-English, digital strategist and marketing expert, multimedia journalist, speaker, and change agent. Her latest digital program www.01digitalcoach.com<\/a> is designed to help small business owners, consultants, trainers, journalists, freelancers and other solopreneurs to master the digital tools and build a meaningful online presence to accelerate their results. For more information about Francine visit www.francinebeleyi.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,47,192,38,65],"tags":[98,93,94,99,91,54,95,92,97,96],"class_list":["post-11211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneurship","category-news","category-techentrepreneurs","category-technology","category-women","tag-business","tag-chinaexchange","tag-digital-strategy","tag-entrepreneurship-2","tag-eric-schmidt","tag-francine-beleyi","tag-future-of-education","tag-google","tag-sir-david-tang","tag-women-in-tech"],"yoast_head":"\n