Party Keynote - Alain Heureux

Martin Rees- I was scared that I would be the bookkeeper of the night, but I'm not the bookkeeper, so thank you Martin. Glad to be here, and especially back in Arras. I said it this morning, and it's not because I'm standing here that I'm trying to be nice with your beautiful city, but I'm still impressed every time I come back. We had the opportunity this afternoon with Adriana to visit back some of the spaces and the grassroots disruptive initiatives that are happening in the city. And that's great, because that's true that it's close to my heart, like Martin was saying. I've always, I don't think that I would, like you were talking about the pioneers, I don't think that I would qualify myself as a pioneer, but certainly as a disruptive thinker, as somebody that would never accept to go in the line. When people were saying they need to go in the line, I was going in the opposite way. When I had to go right, I went left. It's true that this is moving heavily, so maybe I'm heavy. So I was more disruptive and trying to go another way than the classical way, and that's certainly something that I would encourage and continue people to push, to work on. And that's why the DNA and the magic that I see now in IRIS happening, I try to promote as much as possible. You do a great job already, because 2017 seems to be a big year for you, with a lot of things that will happen here. And you can count on me and the people that work with me to celebrate the IRIS. Celebrating tonight, I think it's always important. And in general, in business, what has always been difficult, and certainly when you start to be 50 years old like me, I started my first company when I was 18. And I would say that in the first years, it was the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s, we were not really rethinking something. We were not really reinventing the world or reinventing business models. It was more trying to do something a bit differently, with more efficiency. With a bit more passion. With a bit more something special that we were trying to add to an existing business. But what made me really happy in general was the outcome of the Internet. And Internet on a broad perspective, more the digital, as a global approach, and as an industry, the digital industry, the digital world. Because it helps us really to rethink every and to challenge the world. And to challenge any kind of business. And I was talking this morning about media. And I think it's fabulous how a traditional media industry was suddenly challenged by the outcome of digital. And again, this morning I was probably concerned a little bit about the position and the situation in which Europe stands today, with the digital outcome and the digital industry. But if I just focus on the disruptive factors, the positive element that digital brings to all of us, to rethink, I think it's fabulous. And media has been one of the first industries touched. But if you see down the road further, what happens with fashion industry, we talked today about still the traditional brands like the Vuitton and the Dolce & Gabbana. They still do well. They still are present in Paris and Milan with the big shows. They're still doing very well in terms of business and revenues. But next to them, you have suddenly new brands. They're new business models. The Zalando of the world. The Zappos of the world. But also, within the traditional way of doing, you have people like H&M, like Gabb, like Zara that comes up and that suddenly shakes the industry as well. So I think together with digital, you can rethink on a more traditional way the industry. That's more what Zara did to say, I go disruptive. I will not go for two shows a year, but I will go for digital. I will go for new innovations every month and I bring them fast on the market. And Zappos and Zalando coming with another one. Music is another beautiful example, I think, of how disruptive digital can come, can introduce new models and new ideas. And we had great examples from the traditional music industry being challenged. But on the other hand, you still see that the Rolling Stones are singing on Cuba. They're still alive and they still do well. And on the same time, you have iTunes, you have Spotify, you have Deezer. You have a lot of new business models that are brought to the scene. And you still have new festivals every year coming up. So I think it's a very positive thing is to be able, thanks to digital, to suddenly grasp and take an industry, shake it heavily and try to rethink it. The Ubers, and I know that you're thinking about mobility in the city as well. And you're thinking is it a good fact or a bad fact. But I still believe that what Uber brought to the experience of the consumer is still something good. Because I don't think that we were often experiencing a very great taxi experience in the world. We were often complaining about the long queues. We were often complaining about the heavy fees and the charges. We were often complaining about the non-sympathetic way that we were hosted by the taxi driver. And today the Uber has been challenging all of that, the existing industry. I would say nearly the cartel of the taxi industry. They have been challenging it and they bring a new solution. And that's where again a city, I think, will have a role to play. Because walking into the city of San Francisco last year in August, I was again seduced enormously as well about all the city living in the atmosphere. And the culture of the shared economy. You go there and we booked an Airbnb. We were hosted by a guy that we don't know, like often in Airbnb. The guy was preparing himself to go to the Burning Man. During the whole week we were hosted in his house like we were family. We got the keys, we were sitting there. The guy, Wesley, was going in and out. We had neighbors coming into the house and we felt part of the family. And that has been for me again, if you compare it to a traditional way, to book a hotel, to book a room somewhere in the city and you really live in the atmosphere of Airbnb, I think that's great. But everything needs to be right, the full experience. If you challenge the system, make sure that you do it properly. Because I had a lady last week that complained about the Airbnb experience in Berlin. So apparently something is still missing out there. So I agree with you and we were speaking earlier. We should just see if the Uber solution as such is something that we want to replicate here in Arus or somewhere else. But I think the experience again that I had in San Francisco with the entire city, that rethink the way people experience their city. The collaboration is great between the political level, between the university, between the entrepreneurs. You live there in an Airbnb atmosphere. You book your Uber easily. The guys are really, really nice. They are really concerned about you. They bring you somewhere. You go on the streets. You go to your app, Yelp. And with Yelp you try to book your museum. You try to book your restaurants. And what was fascinating that I was walking there and when I was looking too long on my app, on my mobile device, somebody came to me and just said like, do you have a problem? So you see that it's an entire social and shared city and economy that is totally different. It's an economy that is out there. So again, the city as a neighbor and a platform will be important. But all the digital that makes it happen and give us the opportunity to rethink nearly everything that we are doing in private matters, in professional matters. That's why I think celebrating re-thinkers like we will do tonight with the last award is certainly something that I'm always very grateful to celebrate heavily. Although this award I understood is something particular in the way we will celebrate their way to rethink. But I could not just end just by focusing on the newcomers, the people that try like a startup to reinvent an industry, to challenge an industry. Because what I discovered the last years through my professional activities is also that within large scale, within large corporate groups and large organizations, there are also some people that we should try to encourage and to help. And that's the word of intrapreneurs. Intrapreneurs are people that try to really rethink from inside the large corporates their own organization. They are the hackers of their internal system. And I think that's also something that is happening now more and more within corporates. And that makes me feel positive towards the future. To see that we have now a disruptive thing that helps us all to reinvent some businesses and some practices that are digital. We have a mindset in general where we see that the new generation consider startup and entrepreneurship as the real path for the future. And we see within the large corporates also a new culture of intrapreneurs, people that try to hack and rethink the system. I've been participating with them into some large corporates. And I think if we can embrace and bring all these elements together, that the future will be certainly bright, interesting. And I hope for the kids in the next generation certainly interesting. What is funny about the awards that I will not provide and give out to somebody else, but what I was seduced about at the IAD is that we celebrate here, we think. But it's for people that rethink the internet players. So it's how can we rethink the use of Facebook? How can we rethink the use of Google? How can we rethink the use of maybe Amazon or eBay tomorrow? So it's an industry of internet that is only 15 years old. And what we try to celebrate here now is people that will grasp what is on the internet. And maybe see how we can rethink them and create something new based on their activity and their model. So it's already interesting to see that we are starting to rethink the internet while it's only 15 years old. So the pioneers will be challenged by the non-pioneers now to rethink their own business. So very glad that we can celebrate that. I don't know who will hand over the award. I'm sure you will tell me. So I'm leaving the internet. Thank you.