The third Aspen University Fellows round table focused on the digital revolution’s impact on democracies. The world is currently experiencing a sort of mingling of physical and digital continents. In its early years, the web was seen as an extraordinary invention that would have made it possible to govern existing communications systems by fostering the birth of a more pluralistic society.
Every year there are millions of premature and preventable deaths owing to air indoor and outdoor pollution. Various sources provide differing data, but still there are millions of deaths (between 7 and 9), and 88,000 of these in Italy alone. Diseases that strike all the organs – brain, lungs, heart, and metabolism – and are always traceable to the effects of pollutants, many of which even cross the blood-brain barrier and are therefore neurotoxic. Of particular concern is the impact on the more fragile segments of the population, such as pregnant women and children.
The 2019 annual Aspen Junior Fellows conference was dedicated to the choices that must be made to reconcile environment and development, and the importance of the time factor. As the perception of climate change spreads, the emergence of the “Greta phenomenon” and demonstrations by young people around the world demanding attention, are proof of the individual and collective ethical questions that have come to the surface and of the increasing intergenerational friction. Some doubts remain on the conclusions of some scientific analyses and related responses.
Wealth creation, energy demand and CO2 emissions continued even through 2018, building on the trend of the previous year. With every day that passes, the problem of reducing emissions becomes more urgent and its complexity more evident. A complexity that began to emerge at the very beginning of annual emission measurement but that does not offer a holistic rendering of the phenomenon.
The global economy is undergoing deep and rapid changes that are revolutionizing how production is organized. The very concept of the “job market” seems outdated in a world where skills are increasingly becoming the real currency. If the most innovative firms’ main demand is for talent, however, it is impossible to imagine a future without policies tailored to the transition that the majority of workers are going to have to face as they adapt to the continuing changes imposed by digitalization.
The second conference of the Aspen Corporate Initiative for the directors of external and institutional relations and communications of Aspen’s corporate members opened with a session on the future of transatlantic relations. The crisis in relations between Europe and the United States is not owed solely to Donald Trump’s recent policy decisions, but has much older roots and, most importantly, has had a considerable impact on the entire international geopolitical scenario.
The early years of the Internet were marked by a liberal optimism about its decentralizing and democratizing effects. Information would be widely available and undercut the monopolies of authoritarian governments. However, the world seems to have undertaken a radically different path.
While certainly not exhaustive, this summary clearly reveals one of the principle reasons for the European crisis and the current tensions between the EU and national identities that has raised its ugly head thanks to sovereigntist and populist pressures. Excessive focus on the rules, especially by an increasingly weaker Commission, further distances the development of a politically empowered community system; at the same time, distancing citizens from institutions and revealing how low governments’ faith in each other is.
Globalization and technology have radically changed the tourism industry over the last decade. The processes of globalization have led to a dramatic increase in demand that has resulted in the two-fold effect of lower travel costs and increased connections that has made travel accessible to a growing number of people across the globe. At the same time, technology has made it possible for everyone to read and publish their reviews on where they have been in real time.
The new industrial triangle (Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli) is currently one of the European continent’s most dynamic drivers behind growth in GDP, exports and value added manufacturing. A performance made possible by an intersection of business, universities and public administration anchored to major technological and research platforms. The data are gratifying but, at the same time, they raise questions. In a country characterized by such exasperated dualism, it becomes urgent to understand how the new industrial triangle can bring the rest of the country with it.
The healthcare ecosystem is changing very rapidly and we need to drive that change – not be driven. In rethinking health, welfare and the lifecycle, innovation is key: it is a social priority, we might even call it a “Renaissance of Innovation”. We need to recall our core values and apply them to modern discoveries
The empowerment of women calls for a combination of measures capable of invoking the Sustainable Development Goals and their social, economic and environmental dimension; and in equal measure the financial dimension, which is gaining growing importance in this contemporary world and where women are under-represented. What is needed are policies and actions aimed at a sustainable finance sector that sees women as essential players in economic growth and, even more importantly, in all aspects that regard inclusion.
Italy is, by far, leader of Europe’s circular economy, recuperating double the European average of raw material, much more than the Germans in all sectors, but especially in hypercompetitive ones such as wood/furniture. Much needs to be improved, however, in the proper management of every phase of the waste cycle (from collection to recovery to disposal) which is an integral part of the circular economy. A single southern Italian region – Sardinia – reports recycling and reuse percentages far above the European average.
Given the important links between research, innovation and regulation, businesses, universities and institutions are being called upon to work in unison to reinforce and improve Italian competitiveness and with it the economy. Indeed, highly innovative businesses, for example, consider regulation an effective aid to economic progress and the creation of value added benefits.
Widespread and well-rooted start-ups – recently formed and highly innovative companies – are often seen as proxies for competition in a given territory and its ecosystem. Starts-ups in the field of life sciences are contributing to a substantial transformation of that ecosystem and to modifying relations among actors, nevertheless in a context in which the Open Innovation paradigm is less applicable and where the need to protect intellectual property prevails.
