If you are wondering why Elon Musk will be in Turin on 23 and 24 September and what Italian Tech Week is, you should take a step back. Not long, exactly a couple of years today. Therefore it was June 28, 2019 and in Turin the first edition of the Italian Tech Week. The previous year, the same organizers had promoted the SEI Torino Forum by bringing some innovation stars to the Talent Garden stage (we talked about it in this Almanac). The Italian Tech Week marked an important growth not only for the duration and for the location that allowed the presence of over a thousand entrepreneurs, students, innovators and investors. At the Officine Grandi Riparazioni a closure with a bang was on the bill: after the speech by Fabiola Gianotti, director of CERN in Geneva, there was a dialogue between the creator and administrator of Spotify Daniel Ek with John Elkann, then president of FCA and today, among other things, editor of this newspaper. It was not Elkann’s first time as an interviewer according to the classic American formula of fire side chat: in 2017 he had a dialogue with Jeff Bezos on the occasion of the first 150 years of the Press. This with Ek marked his debut on the stage of the Tech Week which is promoted by SEI, the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation born within the Agnelli Foundation. Is everything clear now?
And in short, what did Daniel Ek and John Elkann say to each other on the OGR stage? If you don’t want to see the video summary of the meeting (it lasts just 5 minutes, it’s worth it all), I’ll tell you what the newspapers reported. The Republic emphasized the issue of climate change. This is the post. “I met Greta in Sweden and what struck me most was that she spoke in front of former President Barack Obama and many entrepreneurs and began her speech by saying that the climate crisis is our fault.” To say it is Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify, interviewed by the president of FCA, John Elkann on the stage of the Ogr Sei Torino Forum. “The top hundred companies in the world are guilty of 70% of carbon dioxide emissions in the world – continued Ek – So all of us who live in a situation of privilege are responsible”. After the applause of the audience, Elkann took the floor and concluded: “To be optimistic between now and 25 years, the sixteen-year-old Greta will be able to grow and be part of one of these 100 great companies, to guide it and to ensure that environmental problems “.
The press report focused more on Ek’s startupper profile. Here are the two key steps:
1) «The form of education depends on where we come from. From an early age, at the age of 4 I began to be interested in music and at 5 in technology. I have always felt free to make mistakes and this allowed me to experiment. We have to think big and believe in ourselves ”;
2) “Failure is perceived differently in this part of the world. In Europe we should celebrate failures more ”.
When asked why European talents often move to the US, Ek replied: «Because they are convinced that they will be successful there. I believe it is above all a question of mentality. We should get them to come back. I am convinced that here, in this room, we will see the entrepreneurs of tomorrow ».
The following year Jack Ma, founder and director of Alibaba, was expected to attend Italian Tech Week. Cause Covid blew it all. We leave with Musk.
.