Socrates Seminar: “Technology, Freedom, & Voice: On Being Human Today”
Moderated by Leigh Hafrey, Professor of Ethics and Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Aspen Institute España held this fall its annual edition of the Socrates Seminar. This Seminar is part of Tech&Society Program, organized in colaboration with Fundación Telefónica. Leigh Hafrey, Professor of Ethics and Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management, moderated the Seminar.
Following the lines set forth by The Aspen Institute in the US, the Socrates España Seminars provide a forum for emerging leaders (between the ages of 28 and 45) from various professions to convene and reflect over contemporary issues through expert-moderated dialogues. These seminars enable participants to explore current and pressing leadership challenges. Discussions are built around contemporary texts, and are led by expert moderators who engage and encourage participants to share their views. At the core of these Seminars is a remarkable group of emerging and recognized leaders including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, representatives from the public sector and journalists, among others.
This program, co-organized with Fundación Telefónica, aims to establish a forum for reflection on the issues raised by advances in digital technology and its influence in areas as diverse as human relations, politics, education, the economy or medicine. Digital technology is radically changing almost everything we do, from the way we manage our business to how we educate the next generation or the way we coexist in a democratic society. What are the most important changes and technological trends and how can we prepare to face them? What are the specific ways in which technological change is improving our individual and collective lives? What is its impact on political participation? How does technological development affect the workforce, productivity or the perception of life and health?
Since its first edition in 2017, the Program incorporates a Socrates Seminar as part of its activities. In the first edition, the seminar was moderated by Connie Yowell, CEO of Collective Shift, and discussed “Change and opportunity: The future of work and learning”. The second edition of the Program, in 2018, incorporated a Socrates Seminar moderated by Leigh Hafrey, Professor of Ethics and Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and titled “Brave New World: Humanity, Technology and the Future of Work”.
