A disruptive event designed to surprise. This is Square, which will be held in Ibiza between 4 and 6 June. World-renowned figures and groundbreaking experiments such as understanding how music affects human behaviour in order to apply it to the real estate business or challenging Artificial Intelligence will be some of the main attractions of the event. This is explained by José María Pons, CEO and founder of Square, who highlights how the event aims to help attendees acquire the necessary knowledge to make the best decisions to help overcome the current uncertainty. The hallmark of the event is to always provide innovative approaches.
What are the main contents of SQUARE?
José María Pons (J.M.P): The first afternoon will focus on geopolitical analysis, to give attendees clues on how to minimise uncertainties. This vision will be provided by the Financial Times' chief international policy analyst, Gideon Rachman, and will be complemented by the Chinese perspective of Alice Han and that of the Middle East specialist Ayham Kamel.
Afterwards, two real estate figures, François Trausch and Karim Habra, will try to translate the consequences of this context for real estate.
And what are the main novelties of the event?
J.M.P: Square aims to be daring. A different proposal is a session before dinner, in a beach bar, with the sea as a backdrop, about music and real estate. There will be two perspectives. One vision is how there are people who have made a lot of money in real estate through the music business. Abel Matutes will explain the success story of Ushuaia. Music has been the driving force behind the renovation of an entire neighbourhood.
In addition, we are going to experience how music changes human behaviour. We will do an experiment in situ: three groups of people with headphones will listen to different music each. The behaviours will be different and we will give them a photo, the same one, and on the back they will write down what inspires them in that photo. Depending on the music, they will express totally different things.
We will see how the music and the feelings that you want to express with them influence the design and success of the spaces, so that the property meets its objectives.
Another differential proposal is an experiment on Artificial Intelligence and its ability to design strategies. A series of human groups will define strategies with established parameters. The same parameters will be presented to Artificial Intelligence. Each group will work separately and then the five strategies will be presented.
The audience will not know who has done each one, but they will vote on which one they think is the best roadmap and we will check if they consider that the best one is that of the AI. It's going to be a challenge, pitting AI against human intelligence. In addition, the AI will be listening to all the conferences and will learn as an attendee, as well as summarising the conference. We don't just want them to tell us what AI can do, but to experience it, confront it and challenge it.
How will the challenges posed by the new Trump Administration be addressed?
J.M.P: Futurist Howard Saunders will explain how he believes the US president will change the world. This is the seventh year he's come to our events and he's going to go through the predictions he believes have come true.
We are going to have a debate in a format we call Oxford Style, in which two experts each defend opposing positions. In this case it will be Dominic Smith and Michael McBrien. One will support the idea of Make America Great Again (MAGA) and the other of
Make Europe Great Again (MEGA). It is an interesting intellectual exercise, whichever way you look at it.
We will then turn to the implications of population ageing and demographic changes for the real estate business, according to Simon Durkin, BlackRock's global head of real estate research.
Once this context has been analysed, another session will address where sources of capital for European real estate may come from.
The final session will provide insights from experts such as Thomas Muller-Borja of Blackrock, Randy Giraldo of Nuveen and Cristina Garcia-Perez on how to remain resilient in a changing environment.
In this challenging time, how important is an event like SQUARE?
J.M.P: It tries to bring some knowledge to reduce uncertainties. The title of this year's conference is The Art of Uncertainty, i.e. managing uncertainties.
We are trying to provide some information, so that real estate professionals can define their strategies with better knowledge. Of course, it is essential to encourage networking.
What role do you see for AI in the sector?
J.M.P: Beyond checking whether it is really more accurate, those who work in Artificial Intelligence foresee that it will take a lot of work away from analysts, because it will reduce the time and the number of people working on it. All industries, if AI works, are going to end up reducing processes or the number of employees. It remains to be seen if it is that good, but at the very least it is a tool, although for now the idea is that AI needs human control.