K-Pop, Cutting-Edge Tech and Other Ways Asia Is Shaping the World | Neeraj Aggarwal | TED

33,446 views ・ 2024-11-21

TED


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Our global culture has a fascinating new look to it,
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and it has to do with this guy,
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Indian actor and musician Diljit Dosanjh.
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Diljit's star has risen big time of late.
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He performed at Coachella last year.
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He had incredible energy
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and had the audience in a foot-tapping, head-banging spell.
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He had the audience in North America,
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where he toured this year,
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had the same experience and performed in large,
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packed arenas.
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You know what is even more noteworthy?
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Diljit does not perform in English.
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He performs entirely in Punjabi.
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Diljit's momentous rise is an indicator of something fundamental happening
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in the world around us.
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The West for long has set the cultural and intellectual agenda for the world.
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But now, East is coming to the limelight as well.
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Asia today claims a cultural and intellectual authority all of its own.
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Yes, Diljit is popular,
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but even more than that,
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he takes pride in his own identity and is not reduced to a stereotype.
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He wears traditional Punjabi garb.
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Imagine an Indian pop star in the West dressed in a turban and a kurta.
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My name is Neeraj Aggarwal
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and yes, I'm a slightly lesser known Indian than Diljit.
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(Laughter)
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With BCG, over the last 25 years,
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I have worked on tough problems across industries
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and have spent time thinking about big-picture trends.
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In my current role of leading BCG’s Asia Pacific region,
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I travel extensively,
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and I meet a wide range of Asians across business,
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government and civil society.
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Drawing on these experiences,
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I want to share with you how Asia is changing
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in ways you may not have imagined,
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and what that could mean for all of us.
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In the 20th century,
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most Americans got a taste of Asian culture,
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but just a taste.
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If you went to a local mall,
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the taste may be quite literally Panda Express.
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(Laughter)
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Asian cultures were somewhat exotic, somewhat stereotyped,
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but never had the full context.
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Today, the scenario is vastly different.
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Recently, Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh won the Oscar for the Best Actress.
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First Asian ever.
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Korean production "Squid Game"
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became Netflix's most popular show ever.
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In the US, now there are 400 cricket leagues,
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and more than 200,000 kids pick up a bat.
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So you may ask me,
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what is driving Asia's rising cultural and intellectual expansion?
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It has to do with Asia's rising economic power.
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There have been massive changes in the income pyramid.
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By 2030,
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Asia is expected to have five times as many high-income households
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as it had in 2000.
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An absolute number higher than the number in the West.
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Walk the streets of Mumbai, Jakarta or Shanghai.
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You can feel it.
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It's everywhere.
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Millions of low-income households,
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they’re almost all digital natives.
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And they want more convenience
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and better quality of life.
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No wonder Asian businesses strive to be more innovative.
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Asia, of course, is incredibly diverse
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and cannot be reduced to a chart like this.
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I would argue the same diversity makes this change
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even more profound and prolific.
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I started by talking about pop culture,
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but Asia's cultural and intellectual influence extends to ideas
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and business innovation.
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For long,
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we’ve equated Asian workers with outsourcing and factories.
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Today, however, many Asians are intellectual leaders.
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They're bypassing jobs with Western multinationals
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to start new ventures.
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That's a big shift.
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Many kids who come to West to study are keen to go back
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because they spot opportunities in their own countries.
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And this is disrupting industries.
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Take fintech.
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Twenty years ago, fintech was almost entirely a North American play,
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hardly visible in Asia.
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And living in India, it used to seem like a travesty to me.
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Why?
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Because back then, only a third of the Indians had bank accounts,
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and many others used to pay outrageous sums of money to moneylenders
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to live a basic life.
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It changed with the mass adoption of cell phones.
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Today, India's payment system UPI
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does about one trillion dollars-plus of transactions.
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When I go to a local streetside vegetable vendor,
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he says, "Please do UPI."
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The same change exists in Indonesia, Philippines or Singapore.
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Alipay in China does 100 times more transactions than PayPal.
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Fintech in Asia is innovative,
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it's deeply entrenched
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and is not done growing.
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By 2030,
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I expect fintech revenues in Asia
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will be larger than any other part of the world.
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I could give you any number of such examples across industries.
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Instead, I want to step back
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and talk about the broader intellectual contributions
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that Asians are making.
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As a consultant,
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I deeply believe in the power of three.
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So I'm going to give you three of them.
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(Laughter)
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First, Asian companies are investing on developing at-scale solutions
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with different but attractive unit economics.
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Take climate.
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Asia has more polluted cities than any other part of the world,
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and it's roughly half the planet's carbon footprint.
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Driven by adversity,
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many Asian companies are investing at scale
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in solar production and battery storage.
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In this case, China in particular has invested massively,
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and in the last two decades brought down the cost of solar panels by 95 percent.
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Battery storage costs are also declining.
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Combined, that is resulting in a huge decline
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in the cost of accessing solar power.
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The sun is coming down, but in a good way.
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And when I talk to the CEOs of these companies,
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they smile and say,
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“Neeraj, we are far from done.”
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"Far from done" is really encouraging
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because if these trends play out,
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solar power could muscle aside fossil fuels
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as a source of energy.
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By 2030,
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Asia will have twice the amount of solar deployment as the West.
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And thanks to Asian innovation,
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large parts of the world could have low-cost renewable power
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whenever they like.
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And a new panda may enter our lexicon.
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The solar panda.
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(Laughter)
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Asia's second intellectual contribution has to do about solutions
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rooted in collective good.
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Young Asians maintain close ties with their families
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throughout their lives.
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For them, the group is as important as they are.
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The same ethos permeates in businesses,
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so family-run enterprises and state enterprises dominate.
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Today, when many Western companies talk about social purpose
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and multi-stakeholder orientation,
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remember, Asia embodies that.
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Actually, Asia pioneered that.
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The region also continues to raise the bar on social consciousness.
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A good example is Ibasho centers,
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which encourage the elderly to stay involved in their communities.
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Originating in Japan, these centers are now traveling across Asia.
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An Asian CEO I know well put it this way:
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"If I had to put a person on Mars in five years,
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I'd look to the West.
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To make sure the same person survives on Mars,
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I'd look to the East."
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Which brings me to the third intellectual contribution that Asians are making,
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which is driven by their own unique challenges and what I call
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a “leapfrog mindset.”
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Take health care.
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Asia is 60 percent of the world's population
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and more than half of the burden of diseases like diabetes, cancer.
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Asian countries, shown in green dots here,
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cannot replicate the path taken by the Western nations,
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as that path is prohibitively expensive
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and is not always guaranteed to get you the best outcomes.
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So instead of the red arrow path,
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they need to leapfrog and take an alternative white arrow path.
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Health care that is less costly
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and gets you to a better outcome
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and accomplishes more.
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Digital technology today offers exciting possibilities.
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Interoperable health records is one way of addressing this challenge,
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because they allow continuity of care from a small doctor's clinic
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to a big hospital.
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Many countries have stumbled to implement this,
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but India in this case has taken a big leap forward
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and digitized 400 million health records.
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Of course, a lot more needs to be done.
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The Asian private sector is getting into the mix as well.
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My daughter who's sitting here recently interned at a start-up
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which does low-cost portable diagnostics
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for diseases like diabetes and respiratory infections.
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In Asian healthcare,
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I feel the same kind of energy
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that propelled fintech to where it is today.
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And I find that extremely promising.
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Asia's intellectual contributions can be summed up,
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in my mind, as a new kind of URL.
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We have unit economics rooted in collective good
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and a leapfrog mindset.
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As you may have guessed, consultants love acronyms too.
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(Laughter)
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So what does Asia's rising cultural and intellectual influence mean
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for the world?
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In the short term, it may mean some disruption,
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but in the long term, it will mean progress for everyone.
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As Asian culture moves westward,
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and as Asian ideas and business innovation take root,
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our lives will be more diverse,
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more interesting, and frankly, more fun.
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Our societies will be more resilient.
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As we deal with climate change
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or potentially a next pandemic,
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we will have two different paradigms to work with and not just one.
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So let's embrace Asia's new place in the world.
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Let's celebrate our interdependence and the richness it brings us.
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Let's look to Asia as a place for learning, growth,
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progress and excitement.
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Let's enjoy our Taylor Swift and our Diljit Dosanjh, too.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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