Aspen Seminars for Leaders

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.

Participants agreed that this year has been particularly complicated for the world economy. Risks are popping up in new places and the key role played in the past by the BRICS has faded to some extent. Geopolitical insecurity abounds in Europe (given the Brexit referendum, elections in Spain, difficulties in Greece, conflict in Ukraine, etc.) and the big question mark hanging over the American elections is also a source of instability. Turning these changes into opportunities requires reviewing the cards on the table and shuffling the deck.

Big Data is now ubiquitous. No longer confined to niche fields like astrophysics, genomics and machine learning, the analysis of massive databases is now applied to such diverse areas as retailing, human resources, traffic management, energy consumption or healthcare. Big Data already provides imaginative solutions to countless social, economic, and commercial problems that seemed intractable just a few years ago.

The consensus which emerged from this Aspen Seminars for Leaders session was that an innovative approach to the issue of infrastructure in Italy requires the notion itself to be redefined and its boundaries redrawn. Indeed, if the term “infrastructure” is considered to extend to that which is useful to the development and competitiveness of the country, then it would seem unavoidable for any analysis to be expanded to include all those systems that enable individuals and businesses to live and operate as best as possible.

The most common tendency in times of need, in times of crisis – and today is no exception – is to turn to the state. The context, however, is different today. A full-blown Copernican-style revolution is underway in society, the economy, politics and culture. Competitiveness and investments need boosting, the public debt needs reducing and private savings are not in the best of health either thanks to the downturn. The factors that generate productivity need rational reconsideration.

Underpinning discussions at this Aspen Seminar for Leaders session devoted to the future of healthcare was the acknowledgement that major advances in research and the boost in diagnostic capabilities ensured by Big Data are shifting the development of medicine in the direction of personalized treatments, which are characterized by a stronger focus on prevention.

This Aspen Seminar for Leaders session focused on the prevailing industrial scenario, characterized as one in which all stages of production are increasingly being swept up in the move towards digitalization and the advent of manufacturing 4.0, raising crucial questions regarding how to seize the opportunities afforded by the revolution underway.

This session of the 2015 round of Aspen Seminars for Leaders focused on the key role of health and wellbeing in ensuring Italy’s development and prosperity. It was noted, in this regard, that medicine has taken incredible strides in recent years thanks to new discoveries, a case in point being the advances made possible by the mapping of the genome, which enable diseases that were untreatable up until a few years ago to be successfully fought.

The opportunity to restart work on the country’s infrastructure involves and brings together those operating in the transport and services sector, public administrators and those who use it.

The picture that emerged from the work of the 2014 Focus on Industry session of the Aspen Seminars for Leaders was of an Italian industrial system that was holding up well, even through the crisis, and particularly so in those sectors exposed to international competition. This year’s session saw the participants aiming higher, with a view to putting forward an agenda for Italian industry growth, the goal being not merely to ensure resilience, but rather to provide the underpinnings for a veritable industrial renaissance.

Discussions at this Aspen Seminars for Leaders session centered around trust, accountability and meritocracy as the keys to piecing back together a country suffering for some time now from serious afflictions and dysfunctions. The picture painted was one of institutions that do not trust the general public or private enterprise, with the result that the country’s political and economic life is marked by growing hyper-regulation. This excess of rules was characterized as the product of a lack of trust, and, in turn, as producing greater corruption and disreputable behavior.

There can be no denying that a huge paradigm shift underway and that both the crisis and the irruption of new technologies are undoubtedly contributing factors.  It means there is more information available and that it is accessible by a great many people and we are witnessing a strengthening of the relationship between “equals”.  This means that when deciding to buy one thing rather than another, consumers are increasingly likely to place greater trust in the opinions of other consumers who have actually tried out the product in question than in the information provided by compan