by Editor | Nov 6, 2022 | News
On November 3, 2022, Boston Global Forum leaders congratulate the birthday of Governor Michael Dukakis, co-founder and Chair of the Boston Global Forum, co-founder of the AI World Society (AIWS), who turn 89 this year. He is a high respectful, kind leader of BGF since its foundations. He fully dedicates and enthusiastically contributes to BGF, directly moderating events and conferences BGF. Many distinguished thinkers are surprise about his capacity, energy and adaptation of new things such as AI and digital when he chairs BGF discussions, especially for someone of his age.
BGF’s CEO Nguyen Anh Tuan and Governor Michael Dukakis prepare for ten anniversaries of Boston Global Forum and its significant event on November 22-23, 2022 at Harvard University, Loeb House.
From the success of BGF at the Riga Conference 2022 and Symposium “Technology for Peace and Democracy in the Age of Global Enlightenment” at John Cabot University in Rome, and recently meeting with UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology Amandeep Gill, leaders of BGF is developing the Manifesto “AIWS Actions to Create the Global Enlightenment Age.”
Based on standards, norms, concepts, principles, ideas from the book “Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment,” the Manifesto lead by doing, now it is the time for actions.
by Editor | Nov 6, 2022 | Global Alliance for Digital Governance
As a fundamental of the United Nations Centennial Initiative, the Global Alliance for Digital Governance will develop the plan “AI World Society Actions to create the Global Enlightenment Age” to support goals and targets of the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact and Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, the Summit of the Future in September 2023.
BGF will announce this plan at the conference on November 22, 2022 at Loeb House, Harvard University with attendence of United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology Amandeep Gill and distinguished leaders, thinkers to celebrate 10 years anniversaries of Boston Global Forum.
On November 2, 2022, in New York, United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology Amandeep Gill, Mr. Ramu Damodaran, co-chair of the United Nations Centennial Initiative and BGF CEO Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan had a significant meeting for collaboration between BGF and the Office and key programs of United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology.
On November 15, 2022, at Stanford University, Boston Global Forum CEO Nguyen Anh Tuan will discuss with Stanford scholars and business leaders at Silicon Valley about this plan.
by Editor | Nov 6, 2022 | Event Updates
On November 15, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm, PST, at Stanford University, Boston Global Forum CEO Nguyen Anh Tuan and MIT professor and Stanford Visiting Scholar Alex Pentland, BGF Board Member, will discuss with Stanford scholars and Silicon Valley business leaders about “AI World Society actions to create the Global Enlightenment Age”.
The United Nations established the Global Digital Compact, Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, and the Summit of the Future in September 2023, under leadership of the Envoy on Technology of UN Secretary General Amandeep Gill and his office.
The Boston Global Forum and UN Academic Impact established the United Nations Centennial Initiative, its fundamental is AI World Society (AIWS) and the book “Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment” (AI International Accord, the Social Contract for the AI Age, etc.). Awareness of need to consolidate actions urgently, BGF and World leadership Alliance – Club de Madrid established the Global Alliance for Digital Governance (GADG) to coordinate global resources for actions for this mission.
Working with Technology Envoy Amandeep Gill, BGF collaborate and support programs of the United Nations such as the Global Digital Compact, Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and Summit of the Future of United Nations by the United Nations Centennial Initiative and GADG, special actions for a peaceful, secure and prosperous world.
In this meeting, participants also will discuss about products and services of Silicon Valley for the Global Enlightenment Age, and how Silicon Valley business leaders can contribute to the United Nations Centennial Initiative through the Global Enlightenment Club.
by Editor | Nov 6, 2022 | News
Franco Pavoncello, President of John Cabot University
Rome, October 25, 2022
Governor Dukakis, Distinguished panelists, ladies and gentlemen, I am Franco Pavoncello President of John Cabot University, and it is with great pleasure and honor that I welcome you all to JCU, for this Symposium: on Technology for Peace and Democracy in the Age of Global Enlightenment.
Organized by our “Institute of Future and Innovation Studies” in partnership with the “Boston Global Forum” and the “United Nations Centennial Initiative”, with the support of UN Under-Secretary-General, Tech Envoy Amandeep Gill.
The symposium is an official event of the “Global Alliance for Digital Governance (GADG)” An initiative launched in 2021 by the Boston Global Forum and the World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid.
And it is part of the Yearly Festival of Diplomacy which takes place each fall in Rome.
This is an important inaugural symposium, which brings together Europe ,Asia and the United States, In fact governing the challenges and promises of technological progress has never been as pivotal for the future of mankind as it is today. A time in which we are faced with the dilemma of the relationship between technology and democracy. We do indeed live in an age of scientific singularity with unprecedented planetary opportunities and challenges, where everything is connected, and the very concepts of time and distance appear to have been eliminated, in a world pulsating in unison 24/7.
The revolution ushered in by the arrival of internet and planetary communication, the concentration of technological means in the hands of the few, accompanied by the consequent concentration of wealth, poses important challenges, and new calls for decentralization and localization are rising. This is compounded by the fact that technological transformations have not been accompanied by ideological renewal, and the world appears still significantly ruled by ideological schemes produced by centuries old problems, in which scarcity, hunger, diseases were the norm.
We do live in a world of great problems, but let us be sure, also of great promises. We cannot ignore the enormous material progress of mankind and the expanding awareness of what it means to be free and to live a decent life. a widely shared, growing realization that is increasingly making our global civil societies reject violent, dictatorial deprivations of freedom and of the very basis of human existence. Sadly we have examples of that right before our eyes today.
But our hope for this march towards greater enlightenment rests first and foremost on the extent to which our younger generations share this aspiration and commitment.
As educators we should ensure that commitment, not by instilling in the mind of our students ready-set recipes about the future based on ideas of the past. Instead We must provide them with the empathy and curiosity, the attention to the unfamiliar, and critical and agile minds capable of capturing evolving future trends and challenges. But most of all we must alert them to the promise that constantly evolving scientific and technological progress offers, in the not too distant future, to the solution of problems that today look insurmountable and at times stop humanity’s progress.
That is why holding this symposium at this University, which is celebrating this year 50 years of serving as a bridge between culture and nations, takes on a special meaning, and so allow me to thank you all again for being here today on this important occasion. Welcome all to John Cabot University.
by Editor | Nov 6, 2022 | News
Francesco Lapenta, Ph.D., Director, John Cabot University’s Institute of Future and Innovation Studies
Rome, October 25, 2022
Rarely in human history have the high stakes of the relationships between technology, peace, democracy, and the future of Humanity and the planet been so clear. Or the relationships of the current interconnected crises with the technological choices of the past. The legacy of our modern technological history reverberates ominously today in the current crises, the concept of technological innovation as a form of perpetual competition, whether military, industrial, economic, or political, in which technological leadership and innovation are not viewed as a collective shared path toward the betterment of the human condition. But, as a permanent confrontation of ideologies, values, social and economic systems in constant competition or conflict, based not only on actual technological innovation and achievements, but also on the ability to direct and lead the future through technological and societal aspirations and goals.
Pragmatically, we cannot expect or even desire geopolitical competition to disappear, competition serving an important role in innovation and evolution. However history and nature have recently shown the high cost of various merely utilitarian choices in technological development that, although enormously socially transformative, have also contributed to a growing global social divide, rising economic inequality, the current climate crisis, an increasing number of health and social crises, and an unsustainable reliance on depletable and scarce resources for economic growth.
The history of technology also teaches us about the dynamic and complex relationship that has always existed between technological advancements and democratic principles and practices. Technology can be imagined and designed to be a tool for both private and public democratic participation. However when we look at even the most advanced democracies in the world, where new forms of corporate power and centralization, as well as changing forms of digital influence and surveillance, seem to undermine the very basis of fair and democratic participation, it becomes clear that the relationship between technology and democratic values and processes is never simple.
If democracies are to survive and win the battle against both authoritarian regimes and domestic challenges, they must be able to elaborate a future vision of the fair and democratic use of existing and emerging technologies. A future vision that views technological innovation’s sustainable development agenda as a necessary, collective, systemic effort to address what are increasingly seen as interconnected socioeconomic-ecological-geopolitical dynamics and global challenges. A vision and plan that can imagine how the world might change if technological evolution were driven and directed by a common vision of a future based on peace and the common good of the planet and humanity, even in the face of political and economic rivalry.
by Editor | Nov 4, 2022 | News
Boston, October 25, 2022
We were deeply saddened to learn of the recent death of Ash Carter, the former United States Secretary of Defense, who was an important contributor to Boston Global Forum (BGF)’s work on cybersecurity and peace.
In 2020, Secretary Carter addressed the BGF Global Cybersecurity Day Forum to speak about the technological risks posed by cyberthreats mounted by state and non-state actors. The Secretary’s background as a technology specialist and diplomat provided an important perspective for participants as we assessed the use technological tools in conflict situations. He stressed the importance of addressing these threats to multilateral organizations and non-profit groups with expertise on these issues.
Secretary Carter was a distinguished contributor to the book Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment is a joint initiative by the Boston Global Forum and the United Nations Academic Impact as part of the United Nations Centennial Initiative.
The book proposes pathways toward a more humane, peaceful, and secure world, largely by harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and other Digital Age technologies. A key proposal is the adoption of an AI International Accord that would bind nations to constructive uses of AI and prohibit destructive uses. In addition, Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment advances the Social Contract for the AI Age as the theoretical and ethical foundation of the Accord. The book also proposes the AI World Society (AIWS) as a vehicle through which individuals and civic organizations can help foster an Age of Global Enlightenment.
The Boston Global Forum executive team and leadership extends our condolences to the family and friends of Secretary Ash.
by Editor | Oct 31, 2022 | News
Boston Global Forum CEO Nguyen Anh Tuan was a speaker of the Riga Conference 2022. At the conference, Boston Global Forum and LATO introduced pioneering principles, concepts and actions to build the US, EU, Japan, India to become pillars for world peace and security.
Tuan met and discussed with leaders who were speakers of the Riga Conference 2022. Here are some pictures:
Meet and discuss with Tobias Winkler
Meet and discuss with Anna Kovalenko
Meet and discuss with artist Katrina Gupalo
by Editor | Oct 30, 2022 | News
On Oct. 25, 2022, Global Enlightenment Leaders Governor Michael Dukakis, Prime Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija, LATO Chairwoman Zaneta Ozolina, BGF CEO Nguyen Anh Tuan and State Minister Yasuhide Nakayama spoke at the John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, to announce and highlight keynotes of Manifesto “Tech for Peace the Global Enlightenment Age.”
President of John Cabot University delivered opening remarks with recognition of significance of this historic initiative and honored of its announcement in Italy, the Renaissance country, the precursor to the Enlightenment.
On behalf of the Boston Global Forum and authors of the Manifesto, Prime Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija presented the keynotes, four parts of the Manifesto: 1. Why, 2. The Global Enlightenment Age, 3. Models and concepts of “Tech for peace and security in the Global Enlightenment Age,” 4. Solutions to implements. He confirmed that AIWS.net, AIWS City, and Global Alliance for Digital Governance will be a platform to this manifesto.
Zaneta Ozolina highlighted the role of the Riga Conference and collaboration of the Riga Conference with this initiative.
Former Japanese State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama contributed views and actions from Japan to the Manifesto.
Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan introduced special notes of the Manifesto:
- Technology helps people to access truth, justice, rationality, norms, standards, and values. Tech must assist, help the world to justice, make right, concise, true perception, awareness of people in the world, avoid dictators, totalitarian countries using their propaganda system to lie to people.
- Technology must support, assist to reduce threats and dangers of world peace.
- Governance tech to minimize its negative impacts.
- Respect for privacy and Public-Private and individual collaboration, combining to support management of societies to be more secure, safer, and peaceful. Tech serves people, makes people more powerful, smarter in thinking, decision making and doing.
- Technology helps and assists in building an Innovative, Smart, Tech Economy: every person can become an innovator. Technology help to create equality of opportunities in education for developing countries, special in Middle East, India, Africa.
- Apply technology to make people be more powerful, more knowledgeable, more innovative and more intellectual; people use technology to supervise governments and politics, societies. Make a smarter society, do not need to argue or debate issues that can be easily checked in expert systems already.
Mr. Tuan said “the Manifesto is not only a document of concepts, ideas, models, it also includes roadmap for actions, and doing.”
by Editor | Oct 30, 2022 | Global Alliance for Digital Governance
- Introduction
Technology has changed everything.
We are all technologists, as we use devices that help us receive and process information throughout our daily lives. Every interaction with the outside world, related to health, well-being, learning, finance, economics, relationships, involves technology in some way.
While technology has improved life and made many things more convenience and effective, it has had negative consequences that must the addressed and remedied. In politics especially, there are new threats and real dangers to world peace driven by technological tools and strategies: religious extremism, racism and ethnic divisions, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, extreme nationalism. The most powerful countries suffer from these problems and grapple with solutions.
- The Global Enlightenment Age
There are existing structures and networks that are serving to guide us to a better place. The United Nations Academic Impact and Boston Global Forum founded the United Nations Centennial Initiative and published the book “Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment” in May 2021. Numerous forums, non-profit groups, conferences and high-level discussions have begun to counter the rise of technological malfeasance. The ‘Remaking the World” book outlines the potential for an Age of Global Enlightenment, potentially a much more peaceful, secure, and lawful age of humankind.
- Models and concepts of “Tech for peace and security in the Global Enlightenment Age”
These high-level discussions among the world’s leading thinkers have developed concepts that can be used to deploy technology in the service of world peace and security, including cybersecurity:
- Technology helps people to access truth, justice, rationality, norms, standards, and
- Technology must support the reduction of threats and dangers to world peace;
- Technology must assist in building a just world, where truth and accurate perception is a fundamentally respected value;
- Political leaders who manipulate information and technology to spread lies, undermine respect for the Rule of Law and Freedom of the Press should be identified and discouraged from participating in civic life;
- Laws and regulations for digital technologies must be developed and implemented in an unbiased fashion to minimize the negative impacts of technology;
- Respect for privacy in the public and private spheres should be paramount in developing policies;
- Technology must be harnessed to assist in building an Innovative, Smart Economy, enabling opportunities for every person to become an innovator;
Technology must be directed to enable individuals to become more knowledgeable and active participants in local, national and international civic and political life;
Model for Discussion:
Two groundbreaking works outline the promise of AI in the future as a core strategy and tool for ensuring peace and security:
- Potential Solutions for implementation
AIWS proposes the following steps to help resolve emerging issues
- Building the capacity of Pillar Countries as a paragon and practical model: Initially the Four Pillars are: United States, European Union countries, Japan, India
- South Korea, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Canada, Singapore are the next tier of Pillar Countries;
- Encourage and assist other nations, such as South Africa, Chile and others, to join Pillars community;
- Strengthen and propagate the Global Alliance for Digital Governance (GADG) to coordinate in this mission. GADG can supervise the process, making sure data is not biased, and conducting campaigns to fight disinformation and misinformation;
- Building the capacity of AIWS.net, a global community of distinguished people, organizations and institutions to implement, help bring into practice the Manifesto under the guidance of the GADG.
- Encourage and respect all contributions from any people to apply and build the Global Enlightenment Age through AIWS.net. All meaningful contributions will be recognized and introduced on AIWS.net.
- Establishing a Group of Global Enlightenment Leaders to lead this mission.
- Help to build AIWS City, a digital city, to recognize, honor, hold and share information about achievements.
- AIWS City is a place to organize events and conferences to apply the Manifesto and build the Global Enlightenment Age;
- Building tech solutions in order to contribute, assist and help in bringing education to all people, especially in developing countries. This is a fundamental solution to reduce extreme nationalism and religion;
- We will assist in building a special education program (Innovation Education Program in the Global Enlightenment Age) to educate people in the world to have awareness and perceptions about the Global Enlightenment Age and their opportunities, obligations and responsibilities;
- We call for public-private cooperation to find tech solutions to manage threats, dangers to world peace from extreme nationalism from major countries and religious extremism;
- Every nation must help build the Innovation Community Economy: Every person can be an innovator;
- We call on the United Nations and all countries to support and implement this Program.
