Human-centricity is hitting society in a huge way – WebSummit
Hunome attended a WebSummit like no other in earlier this year. More than 100,000 attendees from all over the world joined the largest tech event in the world, all online. Despite the occasional patchy connection, the breadth and variety of talks gave plenty of food for thought (and action), and I was encouraged to see one theme in particular emerging across the board.
The recurring thread was human-centricity in the business landscape.
Industry giants are focused on human-centricity
“We at Ikea have a big agenda on ethics, sustainability and human-centricity. We need to make the whole societal system human-centric and put humanity at the center. This requires leaders to be curious and step up.” Barbara Martin Coppola, Chief Digital Officer, IKEA
“When Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014, he quickly reset our mission to ‘empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.’ Every person. People-centric brands start with culture, and as we became people-centric, we moved from a know-it-all culture to learn-it-all culture” Mascha Driessen, Regional VP, Microsoft
“We need to reclaim humanity, what it is to be human. Concepts like sustainability are not enough as a goal for humanity. We need to actively do something to make things better, do good, not just fix what’s broken.” Ruth Andrade, Chief Sustainability Officer, Lush
These are just a few examples of the business leaders talking about human-centricity and its impact not only on organizations, but individuals and society as a whole. The idea that we need to move beyond sustainability to something that puts humanity at the heart of the business is exciting. It moves businesses away from just gathering generic data their customers, employees, and other stakeholders to really understanding them as people. It enables companies to understand the real problems that people encounters and offer solutions that have a bigger social impact than just one that appeals to a predetermined target customer in a sales funnel.
Why now for human-centricity?
As Sir Ridley Scott said during a talk about how digital technologies can help reach the UN’s sustainability goals: “Humankind and Earth require intervention. We’re in a crisis state and we need to pull this together to fix the problem. Science fiction is fiction, but we operate in reality. Digital with Purpose is a movement and in a race to deliver against the Paris Agreement. Putting humankind at its core.”
Or as Dominique Jaurola, CEO at Hunome puts it:
Dominique Jaurola, Hunome Founder and CEO, on the importance of humanity awareness
The WebSummit has shown us that human-centricity is important to the likes of IKEA, Microsoft, Lush and many more. We know it’s important to you, which is why we built Hunome, a collective platform set to revolutionize the world’s understanding of humanity.
Launched in 2021, we connect perspectives and evolve insights to create a better understanding of the world arounds us.
Sign up for Hunome to join the growing number of individuals, groups and businesses excited about the potential that human-centricity can have in shaping how the world works.