“The healthcare system of the future will look very different, with a crucial change being the move to ‘consumer-centric’ healthcare, allowing citizens to have much more responsibility for managing their healthcare and that of their families”. (World Economic Forum)
The crisis afflicting the Old Continent is not just financial and economic, but rather risks becoming systemic. Within a very short space of time, there has been a great degree of change, like never before throughout history. Old differences have been heightened, and new ones have come into play, made keener by the crisis. These all have had difficulty being absorbed, until what has prevailed is conformity, which is far-removed from the tolerance and dialogue between diversities that has always been Europe’s Grundnorm (or ground rule).
Participants at this National Interest event observed that economic and demographic trends in advanced economies point to an increasingly strategic role being played by research and innovation in the pursuit of growth and improved standards of living. This role was seen as very evident in the life sciences field, the focus of a study on “Italy’s competitiveness in a new scientific research scenario” conducted by Farmindustria and Fondazione CERM for Aspen Institute Italia.
Africa is changing. Some countries are growing and forging ahead, while others are moving more slowly. The whole continent has major potential, and yet it often remains unfulfilled. The most important thing in the midst of this change is to envisage a sustainable scenario. Updated legal systems are crucial to any future progress: without regulations, it is more difficult to attract private investments. Innovation must also be an ingredient of this progress and the way business is done needs to be tweaked. This applies particularly to the strategic energy industry.
Though acknowledged as unpredictable in its consequences like every momentous turning point of the past, the fourth industrial revolution was hailed by participants at this national roundtable as entirely unique in terms of its pervasiveness, the profundity of the transformations induced, and the speed of the changes occasioned, marking something of a “progressive watershed” between one age and another.
Looking at the Trump presidency, the international media – and actually, the American media, too – have lost sight of some background data that have to do with America in general, and far less with the White House. This point emerged from a discussion with Walter Russell Mead, known above all for his studies on the various schools of American foreign policy (from this standpoint, Trump is a “Jacksonian President”) but also thoroughly versed in the United States’ political culture and electoral cycles.
The starting premise of discussions at this roundtable on migration, organized by Aspen Institute Italia, was that current tensions within Europe demonstrate how Italy has effectively become – and is being seen by its continental partners – as a buffer state: a country deputized to serve as a “shock absorber” in the new geopolitics of the Mediterranean.
Kick-starting discussions at this national conference was the observation that it is customary to consider creativity as an expression of individual genius, or to associate it with an extravagance and fancifulness far removed from the workings of the economy and corporate business. Moreover, the concepts of artistic or aesthetic creativity and economic or productive creativity are often perceived as antithetical.
The participants at this national roundtable vehemently challenged the veracity of a popular – now verging on hackneyed – belief that the Italian education system only churns out mediocrity. Nothing – it was felt – could be further from the truth. The tenor of education and training at an international level leans favorably towards the traditional system adopted in Italy which is based, in its essentials, on the Giovanni Gentile model.
The starting premise of proceedings at this Meeting for The Aspen Junior Fellows group was that any discussion regarding energy of the future entails an examination of technological considerations as well as geopolitical prospects, both of which were seen as hinging on the energy transition currently underway.
The participants at this national conference recalled, by way of introduction, that two objectives are pursued through taxation systems, namely: the social purpose of ensuring there are resources for essential community services, and the economic aim of fostering business and investment. It was underlined that these systemic objectives are undermined when fairness and certainty are wanting.
Participants at this national roundtable highlighted smart energy and smart building as key components of the smart city concept. “Smartness” in urban contexts was seen as entailing the pursuit of two main objectives: efficiency in the face of resource scarcity, and a higher standard of living. To achieve these goals, it was deemed essential to focus efforts on three fronts in particular. Firstly, infrastructure is a necessary though insufficient precondition for services to be able to respond to complexity, which in urban contexts stems from an admixture of markedly varied needs.
A key premise of discussions at this annual conference for the Friends of Aspen group was that the phenomenon of migration, which has emerged in recent years as a major factor of change, not only presents obvious difficulties but also opens up Italian society and the national economy to an injection of new vigor. This is – it was suggested – has been demonstrated by the high level of dynamism of the many firms established, including through years of crisis, by foreign nationals.
The pursuit of security and a desire for greater certainty were recurrent themes in discussions at this national roundtable on the future of government in Italy. It was observed that Western democracies – beset by populist movements of various ilks and engulfed by ongoing economic crisis – are struggling to arrive at a new order and are, above all, failing to fully meet the needs and demands of their citizens.
The participants at this national roundtable emphasized that the steadfast development of Italy’s southern regions (the so-called “Mezzogiorno”) is an indispensable precondition for kick starting the national economy. To that end, in a pragmatic spirit and leaving rhetoric aside, it was deemed essential that the South be viewed as offering real prospects for boosting the country’s level of growth.
The attendees at this National Conference kicked off their discussions by observing that the “Made in Italy” label boasts major successes and a strong ranking in the world economy as regards quality products. Yet it cannot survive on past laurels alone: the sharp contraction of the domestic market calls for firms to seek out opportunities in far-off countries and to win over new cohorts of consumers.
