Naples The world is going through “a crucial historical moment”. We will have to deal with “challenges that are out of the ordinary”. The war in Ukraine, climate change, the energy emergency, the global economic crisis. Yet, underlines Tim Cook, addressing the young people of the Federico II University, «I cannot help but feel optimistic. Because wherever I look, I see potential. I see him here in Naples, I see him in this extraordinary University and I see him above all in you ».
A long Neapolitan day, for the CEO of Apple (a record capitalization of 3 trillion dollars, the brand at the top of luxury products, now valued at 947 billion dollars) who received an honorary degree from the rector Matteo Lorito yesterday cause in Innovation and International Management. But at one in the afternoon, after the applause in the Aula Magna, the real crowd bath begins. Mr Cook crosses the eastern suburbs, for the first time he sets foot in the Apple Academy of San Giovanni a Teduccio, answers the questions of excited boys, gives selfies, shakes hands. “This is where Europe’s first Apple Developer Academy was born,” he points out. Today in two thousand, between graduates and graduates, they have realized “their own ideas”. In “this incredible city – re-connects Cook threads, in his lectio – aspiring developers from 66 countries” have pursued “their dreams of innovation”. Which are linked, for the Cupertino manager-guru, to the idea of ”how to improve the world“. Thanks to that knowledge, “they have created apps to help people cope with challenges ranging from deeply personal ones, like Alzheimer’s, to global priorities like sustainability.” All around, the crises are pressing. But, he warns the CEO of Apple, addressing the boys, “this is a time of unprecedented opportunity: in which the promise and potential of innovation grow faster than ever.” However, he thinks, how do you understand, especially when you are young, if with technology you are “on the side of good, in the world?”.
Simple, for Mr. Cook. “I think the answer is always the same. First, let yourself be guided by your values. I mean that you should make decisions – big and small – after understanding who you are and what you believe in. ” He remembers that this has been Apple’s philosophy from the beginning. And he celebrates Steve Jobs once again: «Our company was created by a visionary genius, convinced that it is our responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. And what motivates us above all is the desire to improve people’s lives ». But let’s be clear, he will say later, more closely: “The challenges we face are resolved only if we all go in the same direction.”
Interview
Apple CEO Tim Cook: “With apps you can change the world”
by our correspondent Bruno Ruffilli
Tackle various knots, and always look to the future, Cook. Anchored to those values, Apple’s DNA. «Privacy is a fundamental human right, so we innovate to give people more control over their personal information. We create functions to protect them from unwanted tracking and we design our devices to ensure the safety of their data. And we continue to demand strict regulations around the world ». On the climate alarm: «You don’t need to look far. From lethal heat waves in Europe to catastrophic floods in Pakistan and, just recently, Italy, the consequences of climate change are impossible to ignore. And Apple is determined to do its part. For over two years we have been carbon neutral in all our global activities ». It is not enough. They will extend “these advances to the entire supply chain and lifecycle of our devices by 2030”.
Then in San Giovanni, where the excellence of the Academy overlooks districts where the Camorra shootings have touched the schools, the boys ask him about his years of study. “From my university years – he explains – I have not so much the notions left as the ability to solve problems”.
Cook had arrived on Wednesday afternoon, in absolute secrecy, to meet in the city – in the popular district of Sanità – the studio of the sculptor Jago based in the evocative (deconsecrated) church of Sant’Aspreno ai Crociferi: where the artist is inspired by great masterpieces in marble and opens the doors to the boys of the district. “I am fascinated by the energy I found,” Cook will tell the mayor, Gaetano Manfredi in the evening. “Here innovation, art, technology can be at the service of the social purpose”, is the synthesis of the mayor. Manfredi himself, six years ago, was rector in Frederick II when Cook, on the other side of the ocean, said yes to the Academy in the middle of the suburbs. Yesterday he found him driving the city. With a piece of the suburbs that knows how to give life to dreams.