The focus of discussion at this year’s annual conference for the Aspen Junior Fellows was the political legacy of 2017, marked by the various outcomes of elections around Europe, the uncertain course of Brexit negotiations, the emergence of the new American administration’s policy stances, and the Catalan independence referendum.
The areas examined by the participants during this National Conference were twofold. On the one hand, the debate focused on the role of the banking system and how it is perceived by savers. It was suggested that banks deal in buying and selling trust, so safeguarding such trust is imperative. Nearly ten years on from the outbreak of the global crisis, such confidence has been severely dented. The media has helped fuel public hostility towards the banking world, as several polls demonstrate.
A report on “Digital disruption and transformation of Italian manufacturing”, which focuses particularly on the case of Piedmont within the context of Northern Italy, was presented at this International Conference as a catalyst for discussion on the topic of “digital disruption”, examining both the great opportunities as well the risks and social costs that this entails.
The presentation ceremony for the 2017 edition of the Aspen Institute Italia Award for scientific research and collaboration between Italy and the United States provided an opportunity to celebrate two of the Institute’s core values: that of promoting transatlantic relations and that of facilitating interdisciplinary debate.
Participants at this National Interest event noted that Big Data represents a great opportunity for the Italian system. In point of fact, the internet and digital technologies are radically changing the process of data collection, transfer, and storage, with far-reaching impacts on the business world and society in general. The pervasive spread of new technologies has ensured that a growing number of interconnected devices are simultaneously active, thereby generating increasing amounts of data.
Kick-starting discussions at this Aspen Seminar for Leaders session was the observation that the traditional concept of the “generation” has made a comeback in public debate. This, in the age of breakneck disruptive change and without there having been, as in the past, any war or pestilence between generations – at least, not in the western world. The return of the concept of the collective as embodied by generations might appear to be in contradiction with an era as “me”-focused as is the present day.
The self-driving revolution is at our doorsteps. Driverless and autonomous vehicles are becoming a reality faster than anyone would have expected just a few years ago. And, for better or for worse, the consequences for the socioeconomic fabric will be radical. Cities will be redesigned, roads will become safer, cars will turn into mobile offices, millions of jobs in the transportation industry will be displaced and free time will surge.
Participants at this Aspen Seminar for Leaders session noted that culture has played, and will definitely continue to play, a key role in Italy’s economic and social development. From a historical standpoint, it has been a strong factor in the formation of identity and in integration, for a country whose unification took shape in literature before doing so on the battlefields of the Risorgimento.
For the first time, recovery and optimism dominated the debate at this year’s Aspen Seminar for Leaders “Focus on Industry” session. Against the backdrop of an economic climate that has finally returned to growth, the seminar participants dwelt more on the strengths of the Italian system and the opportunities to be seized than on the country’s systemic weaknesses and lost opportunities. While acknowledging that the international scenario is unfavorable, with the headwinds of protectionism blowing from Trump’s America, it was highlighted that global trade is still ongoing.
“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.
