“My name refers to Joan Manuel Serrat, that musician who was part of my parents’ soundtrack. In fact, at mom’s house, there are more photos of Serrat than mine, which I always found funny. My last name, Cwaik, is truly a linguistic journey: the original is Zweig, like the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. I think it’s a reflection of my family: a mix of Argentine roots on my paternal grandparents’ side and a Russian-Polish lineage on my maternal side. And, to add a curious fact, some time later, I took a genetic test that revealed that I am 90% Ashkenazi Jewish. When I was about 22 years old I entered the Bitcoin world without knowing where it was going to take me. I was somewhat obsessed with that technology and wanted to understand it from the inside. I convinced my dad to lend me money to buy a computer to mine bitcoins and I installed it in my room. For my father it was a new language, but he understood that it was not just a whim. What I did not anticipate was the infernal heat generated by the video cards; my parents forced me to move the computer outside the house. That anecdote became a metaphor for me: sometimes, to explore new ideas, you have to accept discomfort. That computer not only mined bitcoin, it undermined my curiosity to understand how emerging technologies could change the rules of the game. In those days I also collaborated in the organization of Labitconf, the first Latin American conference on Bitcoin. It was a turning point in my career,” says this talkative young man, protagonist – for many – of an unknown dimension.
News: Primary and secondary schools. Were they bullying you for being a nerd?
Cwaik: My education was like a series of chapters written in different languages. I started primary school at the Delfín Jijena School, in Villa Crespo. At the age of 9 I moved with my family to the city of Raanana in Israel, where I completed primary school and attended the first years of secondary school. That experience was like learning to swim in an unknown sea: new language, new customs, another world. I returned to Buenos Aires and finished high school at the Scholem Aleichem School. Bullying for a nerd? Yes, but it was never a big shadow in my life. I was a curious boy, with my head in the technological clouds and my feet in a classroom full of social codes that I did not always understand. My classmates could see me as “the weird one,” but I saw it as an opportunity: if you stand out, it is because you are doing something different. Today I know that this rarity was my driving force to explore new frequencies and connect seemingly disconnected worlds.
News: And we arrived at the UADE where he graduated…
Cwaik: I finished my Bachelor’s Degree in Media and Entertainment Management in 2012, a perfect meeting point between my three great passions: cinema, technology and administration. My bond with the UADE is very special, not only because it trained me, but because it allowed me to remain linked in different roles. Then I did a postgraduate degree in Multimedia Convergence at the FADU of the UBA. And more recently I completed my Master’s in Business Administration at the IAE Business School of the Universidad Austral. In parallel, I nourished myself with courses and programs. For me, education is not just a stage of life, it is a permanent process.
Author of three books, “The 7 Rs. The 7 technological revolutions to understand the economic impact of disruptive technologies” (2020); “The human dilemma. From Homo sapiens to homo tech” (2021) and “Post technological: Skills to recover the human”Joan gave hundreds of lectures with added value: she explained the complex with admirable simplicity.
News: Define emerging technologies, digital culture and their intersection.
Cwaik: These technologies are like horizons that we have not yet reached, but that are already transforming our way of looking at the world. They are tools, systems and concepts that not only solve existing problems, but often invent them. We talk about AI, blockchain, biotechnology and other innovations that, more than answers, raise new questions. Digital culture, on the other hand, is not a tool. It is the water in which we swim. It is the space in which our cultural, social and even emotional practices are redefined through digital. It is the place where identity becomes a profile, where love passes through a swipe and where creativity is often measured in likes. And the intersection between the two is the most fascinating and dangerous terrain we inhabit. It is where technology is not only adopted, but shapes our values, behaviors and even the way we perceive time and space. We are at a point where the emerging and the cultural are not limited to coexisting. They enhance, reinvent, and sometimes destroy each other. This intersection is not neutral: it carries the weight of our intentions, biases, and hopes. This is where we must be more critical and aware, because each technology we adopt redefines who we are as individuals and as a society.
News: “Technology redefines our cultural and social practices, from art to interpersonal relationships.” Does it impact love, for example?
Cwaik: Technology is the great invisible sculptor of our lives. In art, it redefines the creative act. In interpersonal relationships, the transformation is even more profound. Love, for example, no longer happens only in squares, cafes or libraries; Now it also happens between algorithms that decide who we are compatible and between screens that mediate our vulnerability. But this change is neither linear nor neutral. While technology allows us to connect faster and with more people, it can also dehumanize the bond, turning it into a product in the infinite catalog. What is fascinating and disturbing at the same time is that the same tools that promise to bring us closer also force us to reflect on what it really means to be close. Love, like art, now lives in a constant tension between the human and the technological.
News: He has said that there is a cognitive sedentary lifestyle in the digital age with its implications for creativity and critical thinking…
Cwaik: Cognitive sedentary lifestyle is the mental inertia imposed on us by a world where the answers are just a click away. It is the equivalent of living intellectually in an armchair: we stop exploring, questioning, because technology gives us solutions before we ask questions. This affects our creativity and critical thinking in an alarming way. We live in a paradox: we have never had so much access to information before, but we rarely use it to build something new. Getting out of this sedentary lifestyle implies something revolutionary: recovering the habit of asking ourselves “why?” and “for what?” instead of just “how?”
News: How are automation and AI transforming the labor market?
Cwaik: Imagine a chess board where each piece is being replaced by machines. That is the transformation we are experiencing: predictable, repetitive jobs are being devoured by automation. But machines don’t know how to play on the margins, they don’t understand improvisation or emotional context. The irreplaceable human abilities are those that cannot be programmed: creativity, because revolutionary ideas are not born from patterns; empathy, because no machine can feel what another person feels; and critical thinking, because questioning what we take for granted is a unique quality of ours. In a world where machines do so much, the human will be the most valuable. We need an education that teaches us to adapt, to learn continuously, to embrace uncertainty. Job security will be the ability to reinvent ourselves, over and over again.
News: Also, does he have a life beyond technology?
Cwaik: I live alone in Pilar, surrounded by plants. One of my most particular hobbies is my Pokémon card collection. It is something that connects me with my childhood and, at the same time, with my competitive side. Participating in auctions and searching for unique pieces has become a hobby that mixes a lot of nostalgia and strategy. My playlist is a journey between Scottish and English rock. My life, beyond technology, is full of small rituals that help me balance the digital with the physical, the accelerated with the slow.
