The fourth edition of the “Italian Leaders Abroad” conference was inaugurated with a speech by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. The meeting gave rise to a proposal by Aspen Institute Italia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education to form a joint task force in order to reinforce the international network of scientists, researchers and companies active in the field of research.
It is a long story that began back in the 1990s and that is still very much a part of the debate today. We are talking about the controversial and syncopated story of deregulation in Italy.
The indestructible bond between art and the economy needs to be forcefully reiterated today, even at such a tough time for the global economy and for Italy’s economy in particular.
This national roundtable got underway with the observation that the digital revolution which began in the late 1990s has radically changed the world of television. Today, audiovisual content can be found on the internet, smartphones and tablet computers: transmission capacity has been boosted, general-interest TV is losing audience shares and the level of user customization is on the rise. Industry models are also changing – and fast. In the near future, the models for making television, delivering it to audiences, and making it attractive to advertisers will be very different.
Aspen Institute Italia, in collaboration with The Aspen Institute, organized the Aspen Seminar on Leadership, Globalization and the Quest for Common Values. The seminar, conducted in English, was based on the widely-acclaimed cornerstone program of The Aspen Institute tradition in the United States.
By way of an opening premise, the participants at this National Interest roundtable recalled that the 2007 security services reform law extended the scope of Italy’s intelligence system to the protection of the nation’s economic, scientific and industrial interests.
Those attending this second installment of the Aspen Bosphorus Dialogue embarked on a renewed consideration of the overarching issues stemming from the relationship between the trends unfolding within Europe and the transformations taking place in its neighboring regions.
For the sixth consecutive year and in collaboration with The Aspen Institute, the Aspen Seminar on Values and Society was held in Italy. Since 1951, this series of seminars, which is conducted in English, has been the widely-acclaimed cornerstone program of the Aspen Institute tradition in the United States. This latest event in the series was aimed at Italian and overseas participants who, through an analysis and discussion of selected readings from classical and contemporary authors, debated the major universal values and their relationship with the burning issues of today.
The latest Aspen Junior Fellow Breakfast meeting on the topic of Youth and Employment in Italy got underway with a number of key questions posed for discussion by those present. First and foremost, doubts were raised as to whether Italy could truly be considered a country geared towards young people. How then – on the eve of the resumption of national talks on employment – should the country go about reforming a system debilitated by generational self-interest? And based on what ideas, at what cost and with what resources?
At this Talk-Debate event organized in conjunction with ISPI to launch the latest edition of Aspenia, the members of the discussion panel underlined that 2012 is set to be a crucial year for the United States: not only a year in which anti-Obama sentiment and the presidential elections will play out, but also a period vital to understanding what America’s economic and political future holds. The economy, as in the days of Bill Clinton, will probably be the decisive issue.
The starting premise for the discussions at this National Interest conference was that the coupling of research and development (R&D) is, at least on paper, an inseparable one. Indeed, in any discipline, research – understood as human endeavor aimed at discovering or investigating objects, phenomena or processes using scientific methods – has a potential impact on society.
The participants at this Aspen European Dialogue session held in Istanbul observed that the problems being experienced by the euro area in the wake of the financial crisis are linked to certain global trends (particularly movements in commodity prices). These global pressures, it was noted, have in turn triggered or fueled popular uprisings in the Arab world, with glaring socio-political consequences.
This talk-debate was organized by Aspen Institute Italia to mark the recent publication in Italy (by EGEA) of Kishore Mahbubani’s book entitled The New Asian Hemisphere. During the event, it was observed that with Asia growing at a phenomenal pace, the continent is set to be the key economic player of the next century, yet at the same time it has still to find a stable footing within the international economic and political order.
The Aspen Mediterranean Initiative participants concurred that the Mediterranean area is becoming even more diverse than it has been in the past, a fact which calls for special attention to be paid to the situation unfolding in various locales in the region, especially at a time of uncertain political transition in which social forces have a potentially crucial role to play.
The discussion at this meeting of the Former Aspen Junior Fellows got underway with the observation that leadership, unlike management, is not a matter of technique. It is thus a rare quality, and, in the view of some the participants, difficult to instill. Nevertheless, by anticipating the future and capitalizing on past experience, leadership is crucial for progress. The historically-enduring values of leadership are well-recognized, namely: credibility, integrity and responsibility.
The key objective to emerge from the discussions at this National Conference was that of transforming a constraint into an opportunity. The green economy must be made the cornerstone of a new, more sustainable and enduring development model. It was observed that, in recent years, particularly in the wake of the protracted effects of the worst economic and financial crisis in recent history, the world has begun to stop treating the “environmental factor” as a possible limitation on freedom of enterprise, but rather to see it from a more comprehensive perspective.
It was remarked during this AJF Breakfast meeting that the Mediterranean has been an area of ongoing interest throughout the history of Aspen Institute Italia, particularly during the 1990s, with specially-themed conferences dealing with the subject, and over the last decade, with a focus on the impact of the socio-political prospects of the region on access to energy resources. Acknowledged as a place of encounter and of conflict for thousands of years, the participants also noted its role as a trading space, a “liquid plain” hemmed in by numerous borders, to use Braudel’s description.
This session in the latest round of Aspen Seminars for Leaders opened with the observation that the digital revolution is still underway, and that whilst the transformations so far have been radical, there are many changes – if not actual reversals – of direction yet to come. Even American authorities were aware of this when, not more than twenty years ago, they chose to expand the internet: today, there are 2 billion 500 thousand internet users worldwide.
