Tech&Society: “Technological Frontiers”
Aspen Institue España and the Telefónica Foundation hosted the second public lecture of the new Tech & Society Program on April 27. Dario Gil, Vice President of Science and Solutions at IBM research, was the key note speaker.
“The scientists and engineers committed to technological advancement possess a unique power in our society. From an economic point of view, technological progress is the principle driver of growth in GDP per capita. From the point of view of the labor market, technology is a fountain of extraordinary value in terms of the creation of opportunities. From a sociological point of view, technological advances transform the way in which we live and work. In this talk I will explore, from the perspective of my role as a professional as well as one responsible for a global research organization, the most recent advances in information technology (with a special focus on Artificial Intelligence and quantitative computation) and analyze their economic, labor, and social consequences. A central part of my presentation centers around the role of scientists in a generation and the advancement of these “beautiful ideas” and around the power that consensus (or a lack thereof) has in organizations to create values from these scientific and technological advances.”
The new Tech & Society Program aims to establish a forum for reflection upon the big questions posed by advances in digital technology, and its widespread impact on multiple sectors of society, including human relations, politics, education, economics, and medicine.
Digital technology is radically changing almost all that we do, from the way in which we conduct business to how we educate the next generation, to the ways in which we remember to coexist in a democratic society. What are the most important technological changes and tendencies and in what we can we prepare to face them? What specific forms of technological change are improving our both individual and collective lives? What is technology´s impact in terms of political participation? How does technological development affect the work force, productivity, and the perception of health and of life?
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Darío Gil is a leading technologist and senior executive at IBM. As Vice President of Science and Solutions of IBM Research, Dr. Gil directs a global organization of some 1,500 researchers across 11 laboratories. He has direct responsibility for IBM’s science agenda, with a broad portfolio of activities spanning the physical sciences, the mathematical sciences, healthcare and the life sciences. Dr. Gil is also responsible for IBM’s cognitive solutions research agenda, which aims to create scientific and technological breakthroughs to differentiate IBM’s solutions businesses and serves as an incubator for future cognitive industry solutions for IBM and its clients.
Dr. Gil is a passionate advocate of collaborative research business models and is the creator and Founding Director of two research consortia: the IBM Research Frontiers Institute and the Smarter Energy Research Institute. An expert in the field of nanofabrication, he led the team that built the world’s first microprocessor with immersion lithography in 2004. Dr. Gil is a member of the Future Trends Forum, the Industrial Advisory Group of the Institute of Photonic Sciences and an elected member of the IBM Academy of Technology.
Web del Programa Tech & Society
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