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.”
