Professor Gil Giardelli (pictured), one of Brazil's most prominent futurists, opened the second day of the O&G Techweek 2019 calling for the end of the 4th industrial revolution. For him, the present moment should be called the Digital Transformation Economy and is characterized by the rise of the intangible economy, "capitalism without capital". This new period is called Post Normal Time.

With the presentation of technologies and examples present in our daily lives, the innovation expert highlighted roads that produce energy through vehicle rolling, avatars and robots that replace humans, as well as food produced by 3D printers. He also stressed that digital transformation takes place on five interconnected fronts: nanotechnology, biotechnology, neurotechnology, green technology, and digital technology.

Giardelli's proposal for the sector was to pursue efficiency in innovation and not just operational or financial efficiency, as still happens today. For this, it highlighted human aspects. "We can no longer divide people into human, exact and biological sciences," he said, calling for greater partnership between academia and private enterprise.

Giardelli cited the OECD's recommendation that empathy and humanity be valued as much as knowledge of logic and mathematics. "All countries that have become innovative have experienced a problem that Brazil is experiencing is the collapse of ethics," he said, stressing the growing intolerance of society even with minor daily corruption.

After the vision of the future, Tuesday morning was marked by very practical panels. Representatives of Chevron, Google, Intel, and ESSS simulation software company discussed cooperation between oil and gas and technology companies in developing innovations.

"Our industry has a very big challenge because it has the money (for P&DI). Just identify where to allocate. The challenge is to define where you want to go using data," said Vinicius Girardi, ESSS O&G Development Manager.

For Cássio Brandão, Google Business Development Manager, the biggest challenge in the oil industry is to have data culture. "You have to look at the signals that are being emitted all the time and companies are not noticing," he said.

In the last panel of the morning, representatives of Modec, Schlumberger, Subsea7 and Equinor discussed the supply chain challenges in digital transformation. Modec vice president Soichi Ide compared the perception of technology and O&G companies and warned of the risk of "distraction" with isolated cases, while the industry misses opportunities for effective transformation.

For Subsea 7 vice president in Brazil, Marcelo Xavier, the biggest challenge is finding a way to transform corporate culture to make innovations possible. "We need to show that we really use technology to solve problems," he added.