As a way of introduction, he started with the story of Dick Fosbury, the Olympic medalist who pioneered the backflip high jump; the style that became his safe place to do risky things. That style has become the norm today.

He spoke on innovation and why we need it. Innovation is not about inventing something new but combining existing ones in a new way, to make things more efficient. Innovation allows us to upskill people. 

He went further and used Shenzhen in China as a case study. He explained that the growth we see in China today is traceable to what they did many decades back, and not necessarily what they’re doing today. In his words, Shenzhen shows us how to try out new things that will be too dangerous or controversial to do on a mass scale at once. 

Drawing from Shenzhen’s story, he argued that reaching an agreement on the way to solve an economic problem is always difficult. The easiest way to go is to find a safe place to try out risky things. And that’s what China did with Shenzhen. A lot of unapproved things can be tried out in safe places. Shenzhen is located very far from the capital of Beijing, and a lot of experiments were done there by China away from the prying eyes of many. And today, the success recorded from the Shenzhen experiment has been replicated across several parts of China today. 

He went further to say that risk-taking is not natural to people, and so you have to encourage people to take risks. He suggested that universities are great safe places to try out new things and research. Private companies are also great safe places to try out risky things. The government has to deliberately shape the future by giving incentives that encourage people to try out risky things. 

In conclusion, he urged that we should control and shape our future as a nation as much as we can rather than let things happen to us.