Green Orange and Red and the Human element
I was fortunate to listen to perspectives on technology and new things at Web Summit Qatar in February 2025. There was an AI veil everywhere on all the stages, either on the centre stage, which covered topics related to advertising, media, Fintech, social media, or sports, or on specific stages dedicated to Fintech, Creative, or New Ventures. None of the talks went without mention of it.
There were tech leaders from major conglomerates who mused that it is something which they aren’t thinking of at all, maybe in a sector like SME finance in India by Annapurna Finance, or Sonia Gokhale of VentureSouq of Qatar who mused that they were looking at change of funding from Fintech to those ventures which are integrating Fintech with AI technologies and also as elegantly put Micheal Brown Cheif Business Officer Of @AtoB that in a business like his where finances of truckers are being managed, he would look at AI as a enabler in their business. Jonathan Adashek from IBM and Carla Zakhem of JP Morgan Chase, both from big conglomerates who had done marketing in a traditional way, also mused that “change management”, specifically by AI tech adaptation by the employees, is a crucial factor for survival.
To engage another distinguished and young speaker Alexandr Wang of ScaleAI, who made his cohost muse on his latest advertisement for his open letter on AI war proposal of his support to America on the war with other competitors
Machines and artificial intelligence were omnipresent in all presentations, and the fear of catching up with the ever-changing landscape of technology and the loss of jobs because of these were also present.
It was a welcome change when Will Smith came on stage with his borrowed “Green Orange and Red” funda. His talk with Jay Shetty was refreshing because he infused the human element in the tech-charged environment. He is known for his different avatars of rapper, actor, and now entrepreneur and how he manages it all, with his charisma and ability to learn from scratch every time after a reset (read as Failure). He emphasised he made all of them possible by his deep-rooted intent to serve the humans around and the above principle was endearing as he says his CEO of Westbrook Kosaku Yada, before diving into any meeting, asks each team member to rate their emotional state as green, yellow, or red — and more importantly -no explanations required for that rating. What he said works great with this is that although business is essential, the human behind it is never forgotten.
With Humanoids and AI tools taking over every sphere, I hope such principles are also imbibed. Kudos to the organisers of WebSummit for bringing in such speakers.
Will Smith in flesh and blood, thats what web summit 2025 offered. He was there for fire side chat as they called with Jay Shetty.
An eclectic personality that he is, was very candid with his replies on failure
