Klaus Schwab Quotes

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Klaus Schwab

Profession : Economist

Birth : March 30, 1938

For all the opportunities that arise from the Fourth Industrial Revolution - and there are many - it does not come without risks. Perhaps one of the greatest is that the changes will exacerbate inequalities. And as we all know, a more unequal world is a less stable one.

Klaus Schwab

New technologies and approaches are merging the physical, digital, and biological worlds in ways that will fundamentally transform humankind. The extent to which that transformation is positive will depend on how we navigate the risks and opportunities that arise along the way.

Klaus Schwab

As the novelty of wearable tech gives way to necessity - and, later, as wearable tech becomes embedded tech - will we be deprived of the chance to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful, substantive conversations? How will our inner lives and ties to those around us change?

Klaus Schwab

As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities.

Klaus Schwab

As technology increasingly takes over knowledge-based work, the cognitive skills that are central to today's education systems will remain important; but behavioral and non-cognitive skills necessary for collaboration, innovation, and problem solving will become essential as well.

Klaus Schwab

Business cycles naturally entail peaks and troughs in employment, and socially responsible businesses should follow successful examples like Coca-Cola, Alcoa, Saudi Aramco, Africa Rainbow Minerals, and Google in working toward mitigating joblessness and enhancing people's abilities to earn a livelihood.

Klaus Schwab

Technological change is never an isolated phenomenon. This revolution takes place inside a complex ecosystem which comprises business, governmental and societal dimensions. To make a country fit for the new type of innovation-driven competition, the whole ecosystem has to be considered.

Klaus Schwab

Profitability, growth, and safeguards against existential risks are crucial to strengthening a company's long-term prospects. But if these three factors constitute a company's 'hard power,' firms also need 'soft power': public trust and acceptance, won by fulfilling a company's social responsibility.

Klaus Schwab

Receiving an economic boost from the digital era is not a luxury - it is essential to ensuring that Europe continues to grow and deliver levels of prosperity that meet the rising expectations of its citizens.

Klaus Schwab

I am an enthusiastic European, and my first-hand experience of war and hatred has strengthened that conviction. I have seen how misguided unilateral nationalistic identities have brought destruction and death. I am, however, a world citizen, too.

Klaus Schwab

Environmental pollution, terrorism, and many other global threats do not stop at borders. We all bear global responsibility and thus need a global identity to enable us to cope with them. We must learn to integrate different levels of identity in ourselves. What matters is not either/or, but both/and.

Klaus Schwab

Of all the many leaders I have met in the course of my life, none made a deeper impression on me than Nelson Mandela. His courage, compassion, humility and wisdom were without parallel on the world stage, and he himself was an enduring source of inspiration.

Klaus Schwab

Nelson Mandela understood that social transformation and economic transformation go hand in hand.

Klaus Schwab

It was a hallmark of Nelson Mandela's leadership that being open to change made him appear not weaker, but even stronger.

Klaus Schwab

When the World Economic Forum was established in 1971, the global population was four billion, of which 50% lived in poverty.

Klaus Schwab

I like, very much, nature. Since I'm always together with people, I like to retreat.

Klaus Schwab

Of course, some people call me one of the most well-networked people in the world, but I am a very unsocial person - I never go to a cocktail party; I am never seen at a charity event. I have one exception: I'm a member of the board for one of the big European music festivals, so I participate, with pleasure, in concerts.

Klaus Schwab

Diversity does not preclude political stability.

Klaus Schwab

Talent is a by-product of education; the quality of a country's human capital depends on it.

Klaus Schwab

Technology is going to revolutionize almost every sector, leading to the demise of many traditional professions. Economic and political power will be determined less by a country's size than by its technological superiority.

Klaus Schwab