Barack Obama warns of gap between technological, social development

Barack Obama

Former US President Barack Obama on Thursday warned about the problems in the society adapting to technological change.

Addressing a business conference in Helsinki, Obama said that technology changes faster than societal and political systems, Xinhua reported.

"We meet problems if the gap widens," he said. Obama called for enterprises to adopt a more direct approach to societal matters. He deplored that governments move too slowly and cannot keep up.

The former US President said the US-based social media operator Facebook only now begins to realize that it has a major impact on the society.

Obama praised the equality in the Nordic societies. "The poorest child in Finland can attend one of the best schools in the world," he noted. He recalled that Finns was defined as the happiest people in the world in a recent survey.

Obama talked to some 7,000 paying participants of the Nordic Business Forum at the Helsinki Fair Centre. Local media said around 70 people had purchased attendance in a brief meeting with Obama personally.

On the podium, Obama appeared in an exchange of remarks with Niklas Zennstrom, the Swedish founder of the videophonecall system, Skype.

There were no encounters with Finnish leaders outside the event, local media reported. While in office from 2009 to 2017, Obama never visited Finland.

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