Marcus Koehnlein talks AR and Innovation with Charlotte Kemp

Welcome to another edition of Futures Facets, our conversation about different elements of the future. My name is Charlotte Kemp. I'm a futures alchemist, and I like to talk to people, interesting people around the world who are exploring different things about the future that could give us some insight. So my guest today is Markus Kühnlein from Bern in Switzerland. Markus, welcome to the conversation.

Thank you, Charlotte.

Thank you, Markus. Now, you've got a very interesting profile. I've looked at all of the projects you're involved in, but I'm going to ask you to explain a little bit about the work you do. On LinkedIn, your headline is Creating the Digital Future, which I think is very exciting. And I know that you work for United Grinding Group, but you also have a lot of startups. So maybe you want to just tell us a little bit about your career and how you got to what you're doing, and then we can dig deeper into what it is you are exploring at the moment.

Yes, great. So what I'm doing is I have several jobs in the end. So I have a normal job and on the other side I create startups or work with startups. And my normal job is I in the end transform companies into the digital world. That means classical companies have often problems to go digital and what it means is digital Technology has changed the way we work today and changed the way we live. It changes everything at the moment. And what it means is there are new business models coming, and there are processes changed. There are new ways to interact with customers. And there is also the culture, which is changing completely due to the digital world. And that's my main job, what I'm doing. And I worked in different industries. So that means I also worked in chemicals and mining industries, did also there the same job. And now I'm in the machine industry. And on the side, I'm creating with— yeah, it started with some friends. We just started with startups and created ideas and tried them on the markets. And that's what we do on the side, which is a very exciting thing also.

Good. All right, we'll come back to that in a moment, but let's just talk about the classical kind of companies that need to become more digital. There's a digital transformation. Can you tell us, you know, what are the problems that people experience with that? You know, we all know that we need to respond, but there are still so many hurdles before a company is really fluent in that space. So how are you experiencing that trying to help your company?

Yeah, it's normally— I always tell the people technology is not a problem, it's always the mindset, it's always the thinking of the people, and that's a big hurdle and a big challenge because you can create fascinating things today with new technologies, with AI, with virtual reality, augmented reality, whatever. But the people have to use it and they have to live with it. And if you look in classical companies, it's often the case that people are used how they work since long times, since years, and they are not open to change. And so it's always a real change and transformation story in the end you have to go through and to convince the people.

And that's the really big thing in Yes, I often explain to people, I used to do a lot of work with social media, and people would say, you know, Facebook is bad, and Twitter is bad, and LinkedIn is complicated. And I would try and convince them that those platforms were merely neutral tools, but it's how we use them. So I really agree with you that it's that mindset. We have a lot of, a lot of technology, a lot of innovation that we can use to do more, to do better, to reach further, but people are hung up on those mindsets that prevent them from using those platforms well.

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, fully agree on that.

All right, Markus, so tell us a little bit about the startups thing because that sounds interesting.

Yeah, so, so what we do is we have a kind of innovation hub created. I did it with some friends that was starting some years ago and We explored ideas and we thought, how can we change the world with digital technologies? How can we do something which changes the world? And actually, we started yesterday. We had a small go-live with a company. So it's Quareo Group. And this is a new idea and we try that now on the markets. And what we do is there we connect students and companies in a new way. So that means especially scientific people in companies have often very detailed questions. And it takes a long time to explore these answers. But on the other side, you have students, PhDs, masters, whatever. They have that knowledge because they worked since a long time in their study on exactly that problem. And that's the idea of the platform, to connect these people and bring value to the companies and to the students and get a new connection also. So there, that there are potentials for the future for the students perhaps to work for one of these companies.

All right, that's fascinating. There was a conversation I had some time ago where they were talking about a, almost a golden triangle between academics and business and government. And all of those groups have their own insights, their own studies, their own needs. But they don't often talk to each other enough. So I think that that's a fascinating platform to get at least 2 of those parts talking together and sharing resources and insights. That's powerful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's one idea, but we have also other stuff which is ongoing, for example, augmented reality, virtual reality stuff. So it's more on the exploration side at the moment. So we create in the end Something like avatars, you can imagine. And we think of using them in the future, for example, helping you to do your daily tasks. That means schedule meetings, answer emails, all this kind of stuff. And the idea is to have a kind of— perhaps you wear glasses in the future, smart glasses, and then you see a virtual avatar on your desk. And it can be an animal, it can be whatever, a person, a comic, whatever. And you can talk with this avatar and just say to this avatar, hey, I need to have a meeting tomorrow, and so on. And the avatar works for you and makes that appointment for you. And we are doing testing in that direction. So it's not yet finished. It's exploration phase, but it's very exciting.

Very exciting. But let's go back just a step because I know some people still can't quite get their minds around virtual reality, artificial reality. Can you give us some definitions that we can understand around those terms?

Yeah, so the augmented reality is you combine the real world with the virtual world. So you have, for example, your real desk, and on your real desk is a virtual animal standing, and you see that with smart glasses or through your smartphone, but not if you put off your, your smart glasses, then you don't see it anymore. That's this augmented reality thing.

Good. So that would be like Pokémon?

Yes, exactly. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

That brings me to something else. And I was reading something interesting on your LinkedIn profile. You know, we, we're experimenting with these tools, um, and we have some fun with them, but how can we turn them into real-world applications? So, um, a game like Pokémon the virtual reality Pokémon where people were going around with their smartphones and finding the animals and capturing or whatever they did with the animals. You know, that game allows us to understand what this platform, what augmented reality is about. And I know you've given us an example of how we could use it for business, but how do we take that leap from playing a game to actually using a functional AR, I mean, they're not all ready right now, but how would we be using this in the future? What might our world look like, or what might our offices look like if we're starting to use those kind of platforms?

Yeah, I think it's, if you look at gaming, so you come now from the gaming side, which is exactly where it comes from. And the interesting point there is it's somehow fun. And I think this factor comes also with these technologies into the office. So it's more fun, it's more Even more speed. So if you type an email, it takes some time. If you just say, your avatar, write that and that, then it's faster. And it's also, yeah, more having fun at work. It's not this classical work style.

Yes.

And I think that's also a big change again in the people's mind. And I also see that people can't imagine that at the moment, but it will come. And if you look further and, you know, for example, these Neuralink chips now from Elon Musk, this company, I've seen just a video where a monkey is steering a video game and that's already reality. That's, it's a video from last week, so quite new. And if you look at that, that's even further than augmented reality.

Mm-hmm.

So it's quite fascinating how fast we are in the technology side, But how slow the mindset of the people changes.

Yeah, there's always that kind of cultural lag behind somebody who's seen the future, is creating the future, and everyone else has to kind of catch up. And I have to confess, when I say to my friends and my colleagues, they're saying, Charlotte, you're a futurist, you should be doing all these things. And I say, I'm one of the really late adopters. I love understanding, I love hearing what is going on, but I'm not leaping on these things yet. But we're all going to come to it at our own pace. Which is fine, it's absolutely fine. Fantastic. Markus, what other kind of projects might you be working in or experiencing in terms of the work that you're doing or the innovation that you're seeing?

So we think of a lot of stuff. We also work on certain AI stuff, artificial intelligence things. We even tried blockchains in the past, so in the supply chain, for example. And it's more— what we do is really more exploring and trying, and then if we see something is evolving or possible on the markets, then we go out and try it on the markets, like now with this Quarrero platform. And that's the exciting thing, to have people and explore with some people some stuff and create something new out of existing things. And the very— let's say the speed we get is especially from the cloud platforms because we can use very easily servers and just set the technology up, the infrastructure in a very fast way. And I think that's the big advantage today, which wasn't there 10 years ago, for example.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's why— yeah, so we can explore and then we can change it again. And that's not a problem. And that's very fast.

Yeah. So that, that would be kind of iterating new, um, versions of something with the experiment. But, but it is the, the rate of innovation is so much faster now than it has been in the past.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, I get one of these, um, unusual questions and I try to say to people, you know, they're on silly questions. You know, we, we must talk, we must grapple with it. But some people, you know, they hear about artificial intelligence or, you The one that I heard before was, you know, 3D printing. And they say, well, you know, big deal. So you were talking about 3D printing 10 years ago, and I haven't seen the world change. I don't have a 3D printer. I don't know, you know, 20 people who've got 3D printers at home. But very often those technologies, you know, we experiment like you are doing them with your startups. You're experimenting, you're trying out new things, you're trying to see what works. And then when you, when you've got that, then you've got to find all those real-world applications. And then in terms of creating a digital future, we still have to get the companies to realign to those new technologies. And then very often the technologies that we were talking about before have been kind of embedded into the company. So we're using them without realizing we're using them.

Yeah.

The number of people who say, no, I don't, you know, I don't know anything about artificial intelligence, but yet You know, their smartphones are reminding them about appointments that are coming up, or, uh, you know, integrating with other things, or doing the predictive text, or doing the voice-to-text. And that's all artificial intelligence. So we're not seeing it like we're not logging into artificial intelligence. We're using our regular tools that have been enhanced to experience that.

Yeah, exactly. It's in the end integrated already in our world in short pieces. And it comes more and more. And we even often, I think, don't notice where it is already, in which all applications it's integrated. That's the interesting point. So it's there, but we don't notice it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of my other analogies is people say, I don't know how these things work. And I say, well, I don't know how a car works, but I can get into a car and I can drive it. You don't have to understand all of the moving parts. And I think that's what we're experiencing. Marcus, I wanted to ask you as well, and I know this is a bit of a surprise question, but you know, you're in Switzerland, I'm in South Africa. It's wonderful to be able to use technology and talk to you, but maybe do you have any insights or any kind of impressions about how Switzerland is approaching the future or exploring innovation that might be different from other parts of the world?

I think it's, yeah, it's not that different, I would say. So what we have is also startup centers. We also have programs from the government. We have support also there. And so it's, I think it's not that different if you look at the whole Western world. It's more, it's quite similar, I think.

Yes. Now that's exciting. I know we have such narrow views of other countries, and that's part of why I want to talk. You know, I think of Switzerland and I think about clocks and mountains and snow, but it's, it's so full of, of other things and all this innovation you're talking about. And the same, you know, we talk about some of the countries in Africa. Kenya is a country, you know, in kind of east of Africa. And, you know, we, we, we have this kind of picture of what Africa looks like. looks like and the wild animals and the sunsets. But Kenya's got a very powerful innovation center as well. And they've got some amazing work going on. And it's just interesting to have these conversations and make sure we're, we're understanding what the whole world is exploring and getting up to. Yeah, yeah.

And I really think there are a lot of people out there. It doesn't matter where you live in the end, you have today possibilities with the technology, which were not there some years ago. So you couldn't just create a cloud and work there in the cloud and create some data and work with the data and also learn new things in a very fast way just by using mock systems or whatever. So it's really a changing world and that's why I think you need a mindset and openness and then you can do really a lot of things today.

Yeah, fantastic. All right, so Markus, kind of in closing, how would you challenge our mindset? What, what else might we be seeing in the future? So from your perspective, what are you, what are you anticipating will be important or interesting or possibly game-changing in the future in terms of the innovation we're seeing?

I think there, there is a lot of stuff coming in, in the technology side. I think important for us is To just stay curious, to be really curious, to be open-minded, to go on, to push further, and not to say, oh, that's something new, I don't like that, I don't want to have that here. I do what I did 10 years ago, I will keep doing that. And I think that helps us all, and it's all an advantage for all the people if we have that mindset.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, curiosity is coming up in so many different conversations where people are thinking about the future, and that really does help us to kind of set our minds with the right expectations about what is coming.

Yeah, absolutely.

Good. Markus, if people want to get hold of you to have a conversation or to find out about your startups or anything, where should they look for you?

They just find me on LinkedIn or Or yeah, of course, our new startup, quarero.com. And yeah, if there are students out there who are interested or companies out there who are interested, of course, we are open to test the platform with them.

Ah, thank you very much. That's a great invitation. Markus, thank you very much for the conversation today.

Thank you.

Folks, that was Future's Facets. If you'd like to have a conversation with me about any of the future issues that you are facing, or most particularly how to adjust your mindset for yourself or your team, then please do contact me. We have some programs and workshops to help you to face that. My name is Charlotte Kemp. You can find me on LinkedIn or on my website charlottekemp.co.za, and you'll be able to find Marcus on LinkedIn as well, and his contact details, his LinkedIn profile. The other links will be in the show notes as well.