https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrlaNhzuKBA
Madam Director General of ORT Uruguay, deans, members of the faculty, Friends of ORT, and dear graduates.
We are delighted to share this special occasion with you and your families. Almost all Uruguayans have access to education, but very few go on to earn a college degree.
Graduating as a professional requires skill and dedication. It requires learning to delay gratification, to work as part of a team, and to bounce back from setbacks. It requires intellectual growth and building resilience—in other words, it requires maturity. You have lived up to your own expectations and those of the people who believed in you. You have every reason to be proud!
A college education is a life-changing experience. Our mission is to guide you through that transformation. We hope we have succeeded. We hope we were there to support you when you needed us. We hope we helped you build your self-confidence and make your own big decisions.
As you know, ORT Uruguay recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. We have changed a great deal over the course of our history, but our mission and spirit remain unchanged. Our mission is to provide educational opportunities to Uruguayans so that they can lead dignified and independent lives. An education that allows them to find their place in this changing world, full of opportunities but lacking in certainties.
ORT Uruguay is a story of constant reinvention, a story of leadership free from prejudice and fear. It is a leadership that has refused to accept the seemingly insurmountable limits of each historical era, a leadership that always looks to the future.
Today, I would like to thank our president, our vice president, our deans, and the faculty for their ongoing commitment to our mission. ORT is not just an institution; ORT is a project. It is a project with a vision of contributing to our society, and that is how we live it every day.
Graduation symbolizes the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Today you begin your journey into the unknown, because it’s always easier to set out than to arrive. We leave high school, college, adolescence—but where do we want to go? And why? The future won’t turn out the way you plan; it never does. But neither should it be the result of forces beyond your control. Don’t leave your destiny in the hands of others; choose your own path, make your own decisions.
Graduation has traditionally marked the end of the learning phase, but it will increasingly lose that meaning because the rapid obsolescence of knowledge will require all of us to be lifelong learners.
We are undergoing an epistemological shift in which we must redefine the meaning of learning. For most of human history, knowledge was viewed as a static concept. We discovered fire, the wheel, and the printing press, and never considered that this new knowledge might be fleeting. But this has changed, and it will change even more in the future.
Knowledge will be a dynamic concept with an increasingly shorter shelf life. Education will become a lifelong process rather than a phase of youth. Living in this new era will require continuous learning and relearning. As long as there is life, there must be learning, and only through learning can there be an active and productive life.
That is why the primary mission of universities will be to provide their students with the motivation to continue learning and the cognitive tools to do so. That is why we reiterate today that our commitment to you did not end today; it begins today. You can count on us to support you on your journey of lifelong learning, on your path to personal growth, and on your journey toward professional advancement.
Remember that in this day and age, the opposite of education is exclusion. Knowledge connects us to the society around us. Ignorance isolates us, excludes us from opportunities, and leaves us vulnerable to the consequences of constant change.
Education is always a society’s response to the big questions of the day, and one of the big questions of our time is: What advantages will humans have over machines in the future? We are entering a phase in which that question will be decisive in determining where we will be able to add value and, ultimately, what work humans will be able to do. The ability to read, count, memorize, and repeat tasks will no longer be enough to set us apart from machines. The capacity for abstraction, proficiency in foreign languages, critical thinking, and creative skills are the new minimum requirements a citizen will need to thrive in the knowledge society. These skills constitute the new literacy.
As members of our country’s most educated minority and as representatives of civil society, you must demand that this “moral minimum”—this new literacy essential for inclusion in modern society—reach all citizens. In the long run, a highly educated minority cannot thrive in a mar ignorance. Humans are social beings; we make progress when we collaborate, and we thrive when we trust others. Intelligence is cultivated through dialogue; creativity, through community. Without partners in conversation, we cannot have conversations.
Uruguay has a great opportunity for development in the knowledge society. It no longer matters that we are a small, remote country; it no longer matters that we lack vast natural resources. We can thrive through our intelligence, but intellect must be cultivated through education. We can no longer grow by copying; we must progress by creating. We cannot foster an open, creative, and dynamic society with an education system that is closed-minded, rigid, and resistant to change.
Listen to the ideas of those who think differently. In the world of social media, everyone feels compelled to voice their opinion, but very few feel compelled to listen. But remember that the bridge between us and others is dialogue. When we speak, we tell others who we are, but when we listen, we let the other person tell us who they are. Speaking requires assertiveness, but listening requires courage. When we listen attentively, we are vulnerable, because we allow others’ opinions to enter our minds and challenge our certainties. That is why listening sets us apart as human beings. Listening is the antidote to the egocentrism of thinking that we are the center of the world and that our beliefs are the only valid ones.
Do not be afraid of your ambitions. A society without outstanding individuals cannot progress. Do not let others’ expectations define you. Do not let your inevitable personal anxieties hold you back. As Horacio Quiroga once said: “The jungle is dangerous, but only for two kinds of people: those who do not believe in snakes and those who see snakes at every turn.” Snakes do exist, but not behind every branch.
Believe in yourselves, because if you don’t, no one else will. Apply your intelligence to achieving success on the path you choose, but don’t focus your life solely on the superficial. Money is never enough, beauty is never eternal, power is never complete. Possessions, fame, and power are part of a fulfilling life, but they are not what give it meaning. Life requires purpose and fulfillment. You can’t live on dreams alone, but you also can’t live without dreaming.
Be demanding of yourselves, because that is a prerequisite for being able to demand things of others. Always set your sights on big challenges; don’t be afraid of making mistakes or failing. There is no risk without mistakes, and there is no progress without risk. We pay a high price for the fear of failure that is sometimes instilled by the education system itself. The fear of failure prevents us from experimenting—and therefore from learning and making progress.
This is one of the ancient teachings of Judaism. Great men are not perfect; they cannot be, because perfection is not human. Even the wisest make mistakes, fail more often than they succeed, and experience moments of frustration. Indeed, the Talmud explains that what distinguished the great men and women of history was never that they were perfect, but that they learned from every mistake, and especially, that they refused to abandon their ideals.
It is interesting how modern this biblical concept of perseverance is—it is the very essence of the entrepreneurial spirit. Moses was history’s greatest entrepreneur. He proposed the most disruptive idea in history up to that point: monotheism. He confronted the great monopolist of his time, the pharaoh, with whom he held nine meetings. The pharaoh rejected his request to leave nine times, but Moses did not lose heart.
The market research he commissioned on the Promised Land yielded negative results. He sent twelve people to explore the Promised Land, and when they returned, ten of them reported that it wasn’t worth going. And despite all that, he continued to pursue his goal tirelessly for 40 years. He literally died at the very gates of his destination without ever entering. Despite all these obstacles, his vision bore fruit, and he is a revered figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
If even Moses had his frustrations, made mistakes, and lost his patience, then all of us must admit that the same can happen to us, and all of us have the moral choice to move forward, to choose to carry on.
Dear graduates, technological change points to a promising future, but be aware that it has a dark side, and that your generation will have to shed light on that dark side. Every new technology is a Faustian bargain: we receive something new that has advantages, but with consequences that are not always expected and not always positive. In particular, we must reflect on the potential of new technologies to amplify what is inhumane.
Every society includes aberrant individuals whose opinions and behaviors are incompatible with democratic life and social coexistence. In democratic societies, these aberrant ideas used to be isolated, and those distorted views did not contaminate the social fabric because they remained isolated. But social media has enabled the creation of virtual communities that connect these aberrant opinions and individuals. In these communities, there is no dialogue, only the reaffirmation of prejudices. There are no people to get to know, only allies and enemies. There are no facts to understand, only conspiracies to spread.
We have not yet fully grasped the full implications of the existence of these communities of people living in alternative realities. We still lack the technological tools and appropriate laws to regulate these “hate communities.” In our country, we were quicker to regulate Uber than to monitor these hate networks.
Tragedies occur when the virtual world collides with the real world, as happened in Paysandú two years ago and as happened in Pittsburgh two weeks ago. In Pittsburgh, one of these “isolated-yet-connected” individuals named Robert Bowers announced on social media his intention to murder Jewish neighbors because, according to him, they were helping Muslim immigrants. Shortly thereafter, he entered a synagogue with a machine gun and killed everyone within his reach. He didn’t know them, they didn’t know him; he had never seen or heard of them, had never read about them, and had no dispute or disagreement with them, but in his alternate reality, they were enemies. His first victim was 97-year-old Rosa Malinger, followed by 85-year-olds Bernice and Silvio Simón, and then by David and Cecilio Rosenthal, two 50-year-old brothers with intellectual disabilities. He was wounded by the police, surrendered, and was taken to a hospital where a Jewish surgeon and a Jewish nurse saved his life.
All of this serves as a good example of how hate is not harmless and how words can kill, especially in the age of social media—something that many politicians and artists need to take into account. Those who organized a recent rock concert in our beloved Montevideo, which was exploited to spread racist messages, should know that talented music does not justify the spread of hate.
Your generation will play a leading role in this technological age. You will have the privilege of taking advantage of its enormous opportunities, but you will also have the responsibility of establishing the ethical guidelines that will allow humanity to enjoy new technologies without losing our humanity.
Dear graduates, thank you for joining us today. Uruguay may not be a large country, but it is a great country, and you have both the responsibility and the opportunity to make it even greater. Uruguay needs you. Succeed from Uruguay, and help your country succeed. Forge your own path, but know that ORT will always be your home.
Thank you very much.