Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak, original name Ehud Brog, (born February 12, 1942, Mishmar HaSharon kibbutz, Palestine [now in northern Israel]), Israeli general and politician who was Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001.
Amandeep Gill
‘A pioneer of international cooperation on the governance of artificial intelligence (AI), a passionate advocate of inclusive, responsible and collaborative applications of data and AI to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology’ Ambassador Amandeep Singh Gill is Under-Secretary-General and United Nations Envoy on Technology. He leads the UN’s efforts on digital cooperation. He was previously Executive Director and Co-Lead of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation that presented a field-shaping report “Age of Digital Interdependence” in June 2019. Prior to joining the United Nations in 2018, he served as an Ambassador for India. As a diplomat, Ambassador Gill led the negotiations on regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in lethal autonomous weapons systems in Geneva from 2017-2018. The principles and building blocks adopted under his chairmanship by 125 countries by consensus are an important contribution to ensuring that international humanitarian law continues to apply to AI systems and humans remain accountable for life and death decisions by machines. Subsequently, he was part of the group of global experts that put together a draft Recommendation on the Ethics of AI at UNESCO, which has since been adopted by the UNESCO membership in November 2021. He helped set up the first Task Force on AI for India’s Socio-Economic Transformation in 2017. His research and writings as Professor at the Graduate Institute of Geneva have contributed to a greater appreciation of the digital divide and the need to democratize the AI opportunity for all countries and regions. He has forcefully argued that inclusive, responsible, and collaborative use of data and AI can accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). As inaugural CEO of the International Digital Health and AI Research Collaborative (I-DAIR), a multistakeholder initiative based in Geneva, he helped focus attention on access to cutting edge research on digital health and artificial intelligence for clinical researchers, policy makers and patients, particularly in small States and the Global South. Amandeep Gill studied Electronics and Electrical Communications at Panjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. He worked as a telecom engineer briefly before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1992 and serving in Geneva, Tehran, Sri Lanka, and at headquarters, including as Director General for Disarmament and International Security Affairs. He has a post-graduate diploma in French language and history from Geneva University and a Doctorate in international learning from King’s College, London. He is a published poet and brings a unique transdisciplinary perspective to questions of technology policy and governance.
Francesco Lapenta
Francesco Lapenta is the Founding Director of the John Cabot University Institute of Future and Innovation Studies. Currently, he is also a Mozilla-Ford Research Fellow. and the Technical Editor of the I.E.E.E. P7006 standard on Personal Data Artificial Intelligence Agents. His research focuses on emerging technologies, innovation, technologies’ governance, and standardization processes, ethics and impact assessment, and future scenario analysis.
He holds a Ph.D. In Sociology from the University of London, joint supervision Goldsmiths College and the London School of Economics. The Ph.D. was awarded a research grant by the E.S.R.C. (Economic and Social Research Council, UK). He has worked as Associate Professor in New Media Studies and Business Innovation at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies at RUC University, Denmark (2009-2019), and Assistant Professor (2007-2009). Visiting Professor at New York University (2011-2012) and John Cabot University (2019).
He has organized many international conferences in the United States, Latin America, and Europe and participated in, and organized, countless academic and public events worldwide influencing the debate on emerging technologies. He has for years served on the executive board of the IVSA association. His latest works include the influential books: Research Methods in Service Innovation (F. Lapenta and F. Sørensen, Elgar 2017)), in which he explores the use of future-oriented scenario analysis for technology and innovation research. The 2016 book Data Ethics – The New Competitive Advantage by G. Hasselbalch and P. Tranberg (editor: F. Lapenta, Publishare) was one of the first books to describe the concept and establish privacy and the right to control one’s own data as key positive legal and business parameters. In 2011 he published Locative Media and the Digital Visualization of Space, Place, and Information, (Lapenta Ed. Taylor and Francis).
Prof. Lapenta has been teaching courses and seminars in Business and Information Technologies, Digital Rights and Media Ethics, New Media Studies, Advanced Media Based Research Methods, Ethics and Impact Assessment of Emerging Technologies. He has supervised countless student-industry collaborative projects. as part of his Master’s courses.
Marcel R. Zutter
MARCEL R. ZUTTER, born in 1961 in Basel/ Switzerland, has more than 30 years of international experience in financial services and technology. He is the Founder and Chairman of Parsumo Capital in Zurich, a quant asset management company leveraging investor behavior research. He is also an Angel Investor in the ICT and Fintech area and supports young entrepreneurs in Europe.
Mr. Zutter has worked in the institutional services business in Europe, Asia and the U.S in executive as well as board capacity. He also advised for many years some of the most sophisticated institutional investors across the globe on strategic, technology, asset and risk management topics. Already early in his career he developed a keen interest in understanding how technology can help change business models profoundly. It started at university with the development of a new approach to market research for innovative products and has never stopped to fascinate him.
Prior to founding Parsumo Capital in 2010 he was executive vice president/chief operating officer of State Street Global Markets in Boston and a Member of Executive Management. He had responsibility for strategy development, Fintech business, technology and operations. He led many of State Street’s initiatives to become a global market leader in new, alternative business platforms, thereby using technology, algorithms and processes in smart ways. He was also a key part of State Street Associates, an investment research think tank collaborating with academics from Harvard and MIT which combined unique information with big data processing/analysis
His previous role included responsibility for State Street’s Executive Operations and Strategy Group. During that time he lead key projects that helped to further advance State Street’s global expansion and positioning. Prior to this he was a managing director based in Zurich, Switzerland, responsible for the business build-up in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Prior to joining State Street in 1997, Mr. Zutter was a managing director at Credit Suisse Group. He held various management positions in asset management and securities brokerage over his 10 years there. He also worked as a research analyst for Baring Securities in Hong Kong and Singapore. Prior to his career in the financial services industry he was a consultant for Prognos AG in Basle, specializing in market analysis and strategy development for innovative products/new technologies, supporting major multinational organizations.
Upon his return to Switzerland in 2010 he founded Parsumo Capital and Axopa Partners, a global initiative to create a conflict-free trading platform for buy-side institutions only.
Marcel R. Zutter holds a Master’s Degree in Business and Economics from Basle University, Switzerland. He is a graduate of the International Bankers School in New York and the Swiss Banking School in Zurich and also completed the Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School in Boston
He is married and the proud father of three children. He enjoys various sports, music and is curiously learning every day.
Lyndon Haviland
With more than 25 years experience in domestic and international public health, Dr. Haviland has worked with a wide range of organizations including UNAIDS, the UN Department of Public Information, the UN Foundation, UN Women, the UN Development Program, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Medical Corps, the CUNY School of Public Health, the American Public Health Association (APHA), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), the American Legacy Foundation, Earth Echo International, GAVI, Darkness to Light, Policy Wisdom, Forest Trends, and the Aspen Institute.
Highly respected as a leader, moderator, speaker, and fundraiser, Lyndon has advised heads of state and agency leaders on maternal and child health, access to vaccines, sexual and reproductive health, tobacco control, and health promotion/disease prevention. She is a passionate advocate for human rights and is dedicated to bringing individuals and organizations together to achieve lasting social change.
Žaneta Ozoliņa
Chairwoman of the Board of Latvian Transatlantic Organization (LATO).
Žaneta Ozoliņa is a Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science, University of Latvia. Her research interests focus on European integration, Transatlantic security, strategic communication, regional cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.
Žaneta Ozoliņa is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and editor of several books, including such as “Rethinking Security” (2010), “Gender and Human Security: a View from the Baltic Sea Region” (2015), “Societal Security: Inclusion-Exclusion Dilemma. A portrait of Russian-speaking community in Latvia” (2016), “Re-defining Euro-Atlantic Values: Russia’s Manipulative Techniques” (2017), “Stratcom Laughs. In search of an Analytical Framework” (2017). She is a member of the editorial boards of several journals, such as Journal of Baltic Studies, Defence Strategic Communications, Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review, and is Editor in chief of the journal Latvijas intereses Eiropas Savienībā (Latvian Interests in the European Union).
She lectures at the Baltic Defence College, the Lithuanian Military Academy, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and many others. She was a chairwoman of the Strategic Analysis Commission under the Auspices of the President of Latvia (2004-2008) and a member of the European Research Area Board (European Commission, 2008-2012).
She was engaged in different international projects commissioned by the European Parliament, the European Commission, NATO, the Council of the Baltic Sea States and other international bodies. She chairs the Foreign Affairs Council of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Latvian Transatlantic Organization Association, is a member of the ECFR (European Council of Foreign Affairs).
Brigadier General Kevin Ryan’s Speech at the Conference “Remaking Ukraine – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment”
First, I would like to thank the organizers and the people who put together this conference for a herculean effort and for taking the time to do this. I think that most of the people in this conference are familiar with the current state of the war in Ukraine, so I won’t dwell on talking about active battles. Instead, over the next five minutes I will get straight to the issues that you’ve mentioned and that the organizers asked me to focus on, namely thoughts about resolving the conflict in a way that upholds the international order and norms.
Today as we hold this conference, I believe we are seeing the final phase of the current fight which began on 24 February. I call it the current fight because the war with Ukraine, the war with the West, started as the ambassador pointed out in 2014, maybe even before, and it will continue on after this current fighting ends, so we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the war is ending anytime soon, but the current fighting will end.
And when it does, how do we proceed? Russian president Putin and his military leaders have told the Russian people that they have successfully completed the first phase of their war and are now turning their forces to what they say has all along been their main goal, Eastern Ukraine. And whatever happens in the next few weeks in Eastern Ukraine will determine how and when the fighting ends. Both sides, Ukraine and Russia have achieved major victories, but both have also suffered major losses. Ukraine has held off the largest land forest in Europe with an army one-fourth the size of its adversary. Ukraine successfully repelled an attempt to take Kyiv and has stalled Russian advances in several other areas. It seems certain to me that Ukraine’s military has prevented the disappearance of the state of Ukraine, but Ukraine has lost large swaths of territory in the south and east and will likely not be able to kick Russia out of Ukrainian territory that it has already taken. Russia for its part has seized almost all of Ukraine’s southern land along the Black Sea, from Kherson to Donetsk regions, and they have about 80 percent of the Donetsk in Luhansk regions already, but Russia has clearly failed to get all that it wanted. It failed to take Kyiv or to depose the government.
For a variety of reasons including manpower and equipment losses, Russia is running out of forces to continue their war. Almost all the available ground in airborne forces are already committed to the war, so there are no new units available to replace losses. Ukraine on the other hand has an almost endless supply of materials coming to it from the West, so the clock is working against Russia. Perhaps the most damaging loss to Russia will be the loss of the deterrent power of its ground forces, since during the cold war Russia’s security has rested on two pillars: a mighty conventional ground force and a nuclear deterrent. After the cold war, the ground force fell into decay. Beginning in 2008, the Russian military began an ambitious reform program to restore the ground forces to their role as a co-equal pillar of Russian security. The war in Ukraine was supposed to be the re-launching of that new pillar of power, which would then have become the main tool for threatening neighboring states or NATO. But instead, the ground forces have been shown to be a weak tool. The result is that going forward, Russia will rely more heavily on its nuclear deterrent to coerce NATO or European neighbors and to ensure its security against external threats.
So given a war that ends with ambiguous successes and failures on both sides, along with a weakened but still belligerent Russia, we must strive for a resolution of the conflict which does not leave either side unsure of its own security. The US and the West must ensure that Ukraine is as secure and whole as possible, maintaining the end goal of a reunited Ukraine. The US and the West though must also engage Russia to prevent an increased reliance on nuclear weapons in Europe, a situation which could take us back to the 1980s, with medium-range nuclear missiles able to strike all European capitals in under 10 minutes.
So I have five steps to take to begin this process. The first is to make clear to Russia that the use of nuclear weapons will result in, using Putin’s own words when he launched this invasion, consequences greater than any you have faced in history. This is a clear red line stated by the United States, another nuclear power. The second step is to agree to a ceasefire as soon as possible all across the entire territory of Ukraine. The third step is to begin negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and between the United States, NATO, and Russia. The fourth is to remove sanctions on Russia only as Russia itself takes concrete steps to meet the Western and Ukrainian demands. And finally, to begin Western investment in Ukraine’s rebuilding. Many of these steps have been reiterated in the documents that Tuan passed to us last night. Thank you.
EY Global Tax Innovation Leader Jeff Saviano’s Speech at the Conference “Remaking Ukraine – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment”
Thank you very much. Thank you, professor Patterson and Tuan, professor Zaneta. What an honor to be included today. I know that we are running a bit late on times. I will be brief. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today for such an important event. My family spent five weeks in Ukraine 13 years ago at the beginning of the war. That’s actually that same week we entered the country on an adoption mission as a family of four, and we left a family of five, so this is very very personal for me. My daughter Natasha is from Maryinka just outside of Donetsk, and we have had such a tremendous conflict for a long period of time. So when Tuan asked me to come today and to talk about the role of innovative technology, and we’ve had some discussions today, seeing department from MIT discussed the role that technology can play. I’m a tax lawyer by training, so I’m going to speak in a few comments about tax policy at the end but there are three points that I want to raise about innovative technology, and how the role that technology can play in the rebuilding of Ukraine.
First, we’ve talked a bit today about refugees and the importance of supporting refugees in Ukraine, and we’ve found that there are tremendous technology platforms that have been available for example in Syria to support the Syrian refugees, blockchain and other distributed ledger technology to track refugees so families can stay together, to provide digital identity systems that are so necessary in order to return to life in their home country, and also providing one place to look for work permits and many other devices to receive subsidies from the government, so these technology systems are developed. It’s not as though that I stand here today looking for money to develop more technology. We have these open-source systems in the world, but how do we advance and how do we use this technology to help refugees? so that is the first, how technology will support refugees. The second, and it’s so exciting to see the premise behind AI world society and artificial intelligence, and in our work the most important and I think the huge opportunities in the world for shifting to data-driven decisions that is performed through artificial intelligence. It’s happening in developed countries like the US, the UK, and Germany, and many of the countries represented here today. The council from Israel is a leader of advancement of technologies like artificial intelligence. And we think that as we look forward in recovery in Ukraine, there will be plenty of decisions that need to be made, and the combinatorial creativity of new data that’s available can help make better decisions, and we think as a premise of ai world society how can we encourage that shift from gut making decisions to actual data-driven decision-making. And the last point that I’ll make about technology is the role of new digital public infrastructure. We’ve seen this with the onset of the pandemic and throughout the last two years governments are shifting to new digital platforms that are decentralized, and they’re resilient in the face of resistance. And we think that, as professor [Alex “Sandy”] Pentland pointed out, what can we learn from the government of Estonia, there is an opportunity to shift to a distributed digital public infrastructure in Ukraine as they return and in the rebuilding of the country. It’s important to look at what technologies like blockchain could do. We have examples with countries like Estonia.
The last point I want to make, and I promise just a few points, and we’ve not had much talk today about taxation, but tax will be incredibly important. Now is the time, I believe, to be thinking of a redesigned taxing system for Ukraine. There are examples of countries that, as they are in the conflicts, they need to find ways to raise taxes. We heard today there’s a 70-billion-dollar deficit. How can they tax? For example, natural resources is one place that other similar fragile states have decided to impose taxes on extraction rates. There are opportunities to raise some revenue today, but the importance in the recovery is to go the other way, to keep taxes low. How do we encourage foreign domestic investment within Ukraine by keeping a low stable tax base? We want to make sure we at least had some discussion of taxation because I believe now is the time to form teams to actually redesign what that taxing system could be ideally coming out of this crisis.
So I want to thank you again for the opportunity to provide some remarks. Technology, innovative technology, will be incredibly important, and Ukraine will need a new tax system as well. Thank you.
Speech of German Consul General Nicole Menzenbach at the BGF Conference “Rebuilding Ukraine”
Good morning, everyone. I would like to start with a huge thank you to the Boston Global Forum for putting on this conference together. I would like to start with the fact that the horrors of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine mark a turning point in German foreign policy. This turning point, or Zeitenwende, as chancellor Olaf Scholz called it, is truly a sea change a sea change in foreign policy, a sea change in security and defense policy, and a sea change in energy and energy policy in Germany. For the first time, the German government is supplying weapons to a warring party, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a plan to spend more than one billion euro to modernize our military force.
The approval is brought not only in the German parliament but also in the German population. The German government has announced on Tuesday that it will always also deliver tanks to the Ukraine. Kiev is only two hours away from berlin by plane the war crimes committed by the Nazi regime against the people of Eastern Europe are part of our collective memory. Those historical memories and seeing that an outside aggressor is bringing death and suffering to the people of Ukraine once again are the reason why Germany fundamentally changed its course of its foreign policy. The German people are doing everything they can to support refugees from Ukraine. So far more than 330,000 refugees have arrived, and the German people are welcoming with open arms.
Putin’s war of aggression also marked the end of an illusion for Germany. The assumption that we can achieve change within Russia and its government through diplomatic engagement and trade has failed. In January 2022, Germany took over the presidency of the G7. We understand that G7 is a group of democracies based on common values and global responsibility. During its one year of G7 presidency, Germany aims to tackle global challenges in a multilateral way together with our partners. We are working towards a global energy transition, a strong post-COVID economy recovery, and the prevention of the next pandemic. The war in Ukraine has dramatically shifted the attention of the G7 in the light of Russia’s unjustifiable unprovoked and illegal aggression against an independent and sovereign Ukraine. Our main objective has become to strengthen and the coordinated action of G7 along with our allies and partners in the world. The G7 nations are bringing together their collective economic weight in order to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible. As a result the G7 in coordination with the EU has implemented and is implementing unprecedented sanctions against Russia and Belarus. My colleague, the consul general of France Arnaud Mentré already spoke about this. And of course at the G7 level we also coordinate arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Let me end by saying it has been two months since Russia launched its unprovoked attack against its people and its peaceful neighbor. Faced by the horrifying war crimes committed by Russian troops, the people of Ukraine are fighting back heroically. This war affects the world, the whole world, whether you go along with the sanctions or not, whether you believe in international rule-based order or not.
As one of the largest industrial countries in the world, Germany has a responsibility to Ukraine. Two months after the start of the war, the crimes committed by Russia continue to dominate every headline in Germany. The German people are watching, and we are horrified by the suffering inflicted on the Ukrainian people. We are determined to work with our partners and allies to end this war as quickly as possible by imposing the heaviest possible sanctions on Russia and sending civilian and military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, Germany is addressing the humanitarian crisis by welcoming Ukrainians that needed to flee their own country. We will remain in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and we are taking a long-term perspective on assisting Ukraine with military defense. I can also assure you that Germany will take a leading role in rebuilding Ukraine. Thank you.