Artificial Intelligence and a new generation of opportunities
On November 24, 2021, the Italian government adopted a 2022-2024 strategic artificial intelligence program jointly drafted by the ministries of university and research, of economic development and of technological innovation and digital transition. In the global race for technological development, the program traces a roadmap for policies aimed at promoting the country’s competitiveness by strengthening national level professional competences and research in the field of artificial intelligence.
Space: The new frontier for economy and research
The history of human presence in space consists mainly of two phases. The first of these, more political – and in hindsight, military – in nature, was entirely in the hands of the United States given the high cost of investments. In the second phase, which spawned the “new space economy”, has reduced government participation and opened the doors to private interests eager to offer auxiliary services to institutional operators as well as to develop new activities.
Digital markets and the real economy
Italian industry is compelled to face the prospect of a future digital market, along with the continuing paradigm shifts that technological transformation is imposing on the economic and social fabric. The radical transformation of manufacturing, consumption and habits is having a significant impact not only on daily activities but also on the capacity for near-future analysis and forecast.
Focus on Industry – Policies for recovery
The pandemic experience and consequent evolution of the global economic picture make even clearer than before the need for Italy and Europe to cultivate an attractive environment for industrial investments, primarily those strategic to national growth and security. This along with the promotion of adequate public and private level competences and a deep reform of the public administration aimed at higher quality and rapidity in decision-making.
Many factors have converged to bring radical change to the scenario:
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence
On September 24-25, 2021 Aspen Institute Italia, TIM and Intesa Sanpaolo organized the international conference “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence”, under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic and with the cooperation of Aspen Institute Germany, Institut Aspen France and the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute.
Why post-covid recovery needs women Empowerment, financing and rights
Post-covid recovery needs women. Women’s empowerment is pivotal to tapping our society’s potential and meeting the challenges of the coming years. The digital revolution and the ecological transition are processes poised to stimulate the raising of a new development model above the wreckage the pandemic will have left behind. The need to draft new paradigms is precisely what makes diversity and broader vision at all levels, starting with decision makers, fundamental.
Governing a community. Public administration and citizenry
In corporations and in cities, it is people that make the difference. This was the theme of a discussion with Marco Bucci, one-time corporate manager in Italy and the United States and now mayor of the city of Genoa.
Scientific and technological research: new ways to transfer technology
Technology transfer is critical to generating solid economic recovery. Nevertheless, in Italy, the knowledge transformation underway in applied technologies research finds itself having to contend with a shifting scenario: although the country boasts a good number of national champions, the aggregate data show delays in a range of areas, which impacts heavily on its capacity to create critical mass and competitiveness.
Creating Excellence
Creating excellence is one of Aspen Institute’s cardinal objectives, and one of the strategic factors in generating the country’s recovery. To this day, Italy remains an advanced European economy despite its relatively low percentage of university graduates. That percentage could be augmented through a different interpretation of education that embraced those hubs of excellence that flourish thanks to their ability to interface with the business world.
Training as a development strategy: human capital and growth
The relationship between human capital and development has been a topic of study since economic policy has existed. Nevertheless, training and skills enhancement have long been underestimated by theories that have foregrounded other productive factors as decisive to economic growth.
Intellectual Property: Protection and Enforcement
At just over a year from the outbreak of the pandemic, the attention being given to the delays and difficulties of the vaccine campaign is overshadowing a fundamental fact: it took less than 12 months for scientists to produce a successful anti-covid vaccine. This is an astonishing result, and is thanks to public/private collaboration. That atmosphere of cooperation must not be allowed to fail now as efforts are made to manage its production and distribution.
Recovery Plan for the new generation
The European Union response to the pandemic’s economic consequences has been the unprecedented mobilization of 2.4 billion euro in resources. The largest slice of the pie – 672.5 billion – will be earmarked for financing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, half of which is to be disbursed in the form of subsidies and the other half in loans. The end of austerity and renewed Member State solidarity have made it possible for Italy to count on 200 billion euro in such subsidies and loans.
The challenge for the young Italians in technological innovation
Although Italy continues to offer proof of excellence in a broad array of fields, there is still considerable margin for growth in younger generations’ understanding and application of technological advances. The current Covid-19 pandemic and the possibility of stemming its spread with the mRNA vaccine have further underscored the need to invest in research and innovation in the interests of creating social and economic value.
Investing in R&D: why should Italy do it?
Research is one of the assets that Italy needs to tap as it strives to jumpstart the economy. The pandemic and the science community’s rapid response to the virus have further emphasized the importance of a competitive ecosystem in this sector. Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan offers an opportunity to invest both in basic research and in subsequent development and technology transfer stages. The country can claim a certain amount of progress over recent years, but intervention is still necessary in a range of areas.
The Power of Resilience in a Changing World
Globalization, new technologies, social media, migrations, racial tensions, and now the Covid-19 pandemic, have completely changed the face of society and are revolutionizing the business world for large and small firms alike. The pandemic, in particular, has sorely tested our systems’ capacity for resilience and foregrounded many fragilities, not only from a financial standpoint, but also in a more sweeping sense that encompasses public health, the environment, employment security and social equilibrium.
Southern Italy: the key to relaunching the Italian economy?
Southern Italy needs a new vision for the future built on consideration of its system strongpoints and on a deeper scrutiny of its problems, with a view to identifying alternative proposals focused on the competitive capacity of those regions, with the goal of improving the business environment.
Research and innovation for life sciences in Italy
The daily effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on every individual and organization are clearly foregrounding how wealth and health go hand in hand. The quest for health – the focus of the political agenda and objectives of every government – will influence every government’s process of reconstruction for months to come.
Generational turnover in Italy
Business is the fundamental agent in the recovery of an economy struck as dramatically by the pandemic as Italy’s has been. To determine whether that recovery will be a success we need to consider the system’s economic armature of countless small and medium-sized family-run enterprises. Today’s generational hand-over becomes even more important than it has been over recent decades. At stake is the result of the major challenges awaiting national manufacturing: the digital transformation and the environmental transition.
Doing business in Italy
“Doing business” is a term that evokes complexity and challenge, especially when paired with “in Italy”, a country well known for its structural problems and irreconcilable contradictions: Structural problems consisting of a slow and chaotic bureaucracy, lack of legal certainty – due to repeated impulsive legislative modifications as well as to inconsistency and sluggishness in the judicial application of the law – and excessive difficulty accessing credit; irreconcilable contradictions in the form, first, of constant references to entrepreneurs as the drivers of economic recovery clash, wi
Science, politics, society: different speeds, common challenges
The relationship between politics, science and society is playing an increasingly prominent role in rising to the challenges of modernity. A strong alliance of political institutions, scientists, experts and citizens is essential to defeating the global pandemic, but also an essential prerequisite for the success of policies aimed at inverting the advance of climate change and introducing new technologies and new solutions for boosting the quality of life, prosperity and wealth of modern societies.
Aspen Institute Italia Award 2020 for scientific research and collaboration between Italy and the United States
Orbital angular momentum microlaser[1] – A semiconductor laser of micrometric size that produces twisted light by exploiting an “exceptional quantum point”: this is the study that won the fifth edition of the Aspen Institute Italia Award for collaboration and scientific research between Italy and the United States.