Discours

Retour Announcement of the Hackathon winner and closing remarks by the Secretary General

Nora GAROUIT

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Speech by Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

What a week.

Packed rooms. Hundreds of participants. From all 46 member states, and beyond.

Hacking sessions. Giuliano da Empoli on power and technology. A panel on the ethical dilemmas of innovation. The International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

A debate on hate speech as the biggest threat to democracy. Gilles Marchand on cultural sovereignty. The Journalism Excellence Awards.

Four tracks. Four problems. The Dragon’s Den.

All of it in three days.

***

And that’s just the serious stuff.

There was rock, paper, scissors. In several languages, which I’m told changes nothing.

The winner walked away with a World Champion t-shirt. I hope I can participate next year.

There was the Lego challenge. Guess the number of blocks in a jar.

The answer was 437. If anyone got it right, come and find me. We may have a job for you.

And last night, we were all together at the residence. No complaints. If you want my playlist, you can find it online.

***

It’s just been fascinating to see the Hackathon and No Hate Speech Week come together like this.

And they say hate is winning. Not in this house it isn’t.

Right from the opening on Wednesday, you set the tone.

When I asked you what the internet will look like in 10 years, you said: something we can’t imagine yet.

Only this young generation could say that. And it’s not doom. It is hope.

***

You know, hope is a simple thing.

It’s two teams defending their position with conviction, but always respectful of the other. That’s what we saw yesterday during the debate.

Everyone played by the rules, even without a referee.

I don’t know any better definition of democracy. I know they will give others the courage to get involved.

Hope is a number: 130. That’s how many teams registered for the Hackathon.

We kept 20. In the end, there will be 4. But the number of teams doubled from last year. Last year was one day. This year, three.

I was also happy to learn that women made up over 30% of participants. Much higher than the average in the tech sector.

And our youngest participant this week was 16.

***

But hope is not the same as wishful thinking. The panelists made that clear on Wednesday.

Four women taking on technology at the highest level. Two more moderating. The tech world rarely looks like this. It should.

And they said: moderating hate one comment at a time is like raking sand to calm the ocean. You have to go where the waves are made. And they warned us: you cannot govern machine-speed systems with paper-speed rules.

In the end, it’s all about incentives. They reward attention and speed.
The same incentives that shaped social media now shape AI. Safety comes last.

Change the incentives, and you change everything.

***

That is not the work of three days. It is the work of your whole lives. Democracy is a lifelong commitment.

I leave this week with hope because I have seen what you are capable of. And this reminds of a great American philosopher, who once said, and I quote:

“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake. I shake it off, I shake it off.”

As the philosopher reminds us, there will always be haters. People who break rather than build. But not you.
You hacked the hate. Now let’s all go renew democracy. Thank you.

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Winner Announcement

Thank you, Liz.

Before I announce the winners of this year’s hackathon, I would like to thank everyone who made this week possible.

The mentors, the jury, the moderators, the participants, and all our colleagues, including the Anti-discrimination team and the Pact team.

It was truly impressive. Thank you.

***

We are going to start with the Youth Contest.

We had teams from several member states, including Ukraine.

Please join me in congratulating “Democracy Wrapped.”

***

The next category is special, because you chose it. It is time for the Audience Award.