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)
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.
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.
The global imbalances reflected in demographic trends, in terms of economic and safety levels, are huge, and must be considered as a central factor in devising any realistic policy options. Whatever happens, there will be waves of migrants heading for Europe, as well as North America and the other wealthy countries in the world, with numbers undoubtedly increasing whenever there are any major conflicts underway. Faced with this reality and given the difference in the number of young workers compared to pensioners and the overall burden of the continent’s welfare syst
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
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 participants at this ASL seminar noted that Europe has made it past the most acute phase of the economic and financial crisis, but is still struggling to embark on a virtuous process of sweeping and sustained growth.
It was felt that in order to accomplish this, the Member States need to fully seize the opportunities offered by the digital revolution and confront the associated challenges and risks – including to the quality of democracy – arising from the change that this technological paradigm brings with it.
Kick-starting discussions at this ASL seminar was the observation that the consumer of today is an increasingly fluid figure that resists interpretation pursuant to paradigms superseded through the radical changes brought about by new technologies, as well as through an economic crisis that has altered individuals’ priorities and given rise to new patterns of consumption.
Debate at this ASL session focused on examining the impact in Italy of global developments in tourism, with the participants acknowledging from the outset that both quantitative and qualitative changes in the industry require the country to formulate appropriate strategies if it wishes to ensure that the sector remains a key lever of its economy.
Participants at this Aspen Seminar for Leaders session were unanimous in their agreement that social networks are neither good nor bad per se, but that what is open for debate is the way in which social media interact with democracy, and the way in which governments are responding to the growing power of new communications tools. While those in attendance were left in no doubt that the popular protests of today – such as those that erupted in North Africa – take off and gain momentum online, the internet does not always suffice to ensure that any resulting change is permanent.
Proceedings at this Aspen Italia City of Venice Forum got underway with recognition by those present of the difficulty in unambiguously defining what constitutes a “smart city”. On the one hand, it can be associated with the integrated application of innovative technologies to the management of a city, and on the other, it evokes the adoption of methodologies to optimize and coordinate low-cost solutions and best practices already in use, or at least already known of.
