just a few weeks ago in this very same
building scientists policymakers and
business people from all around the
world got together to try to make a
better world the science and technology
in society forum explored the light and
shadows cast by rapid innovations things
like gene editing artificial
intelligence and robotics many
approaches were discussed but one thing
I’m sure of is this we need to build
strong inclusive and global institutions
to manage this change or it will manage
us throughout my career I have had an
opportunity to serve this from various
perspective I started as an engineer
working at a factory any medium-sized
firm is a microcosm of society with
various people working on different
pieces that ultimately need to function
together as an integrated whole my
curiosity and passion for model building
led me to economics because I wanted and
had the desire to understand how
societies organize themselves later on
my activities as an academic as a policy
maker and more recently as a diplomat
have allowed me to serve how different
economic sectors and countries try to
manage for success sometimes they reach
their goals and prosper sometimes they
fall short it is very clear to me the
big thing that explains human success in
relation to other species is our ability
to coordinate at a water scale and
coordination among humans is done
through institutions Engineers know this
economists know this and diplomats do
too institutions are what put ideas into
motion and coordinate our actions given
our specific circumstances and
constraints the theory of institutions
encompass a wide range of concepts from
informal customs to hi Lisa
systems of law today I want to focus on
formal organizations created to deal
with collective challenges and goals we
hear about so many terrible things these
days
so how many of you believe the world is
getting worse well despite what you may
think the facts showed that we have made
significant progress in recent years in
reducing hunger sickness and war this
improvement did not happen just by
recognizing the problems they represent
an ongoing relentless process of moving
forward inch by inch millimeter by
millimeter using agreed-upon method in
pursuit of common goals institutions
such as firms
markets Nations and international
organisations have made this happen the
best of them in the best of time do not
stifle individual objectives to the
country they provide the muscle and
momentum to make them possible extreme
poverty is said to be less than half of
what it was 30 years ago part of the
reason is that essentially all the
world’s countries agreed upon a goal of
eradicating extreme poverty by the Year
2015
they said this as one of the Millennium
Development Goals in a summit in a year
2000 it was organized by an institution
which they all belong the United Nations
other institutions like the World Bank
and most Regional Development Bank’s got
involved the fact that some poverty
still with us does not diminish the
indisputable improvement progress does
not require perfection now let’s take a
survey raise your hand if you use the
internet now raise your hand if you
organize the Internet well if you don’t
do it who do you think does
the answer is an institution ICANN the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and numbers that started a as a United
States control entity to its credit the
u.s. wisely recognized that the internet
had become a global entity that deserved
a global institution in the year 2016
the US government allowed ICANN to go
along its way as a nonprofit institution
I can now mix decision through what it
calls a multi-stakeholder model it
explains the meaning this way Internet
Governance should mimic the structure of
Internet itself borderless and open to
all thank that institution the next time
you go to any site ending on comm or co
dot JP or somewhere else and finding it
where you expected it to be the world
has changed from hunting and gathering
to agriculture production to farming to
industry and manufacturing to services
to communications to information thus
institutions need to change to to handle
the new realities one of the most
significance of this realities is
internationalization which builds upon
the foundation of nation-states
positives and negatives do not stop and
national borders developments in
technology transport information and
communications have made the world
smaller and more interconnected in
production and distribution systems we
talked about global value chains what we
were today what you see around what we
eat depend on the technological
development and the production capacity
of various countries at the same time
our technology and production systems
are affecting our environment the
sustainability of our planet and are
continuously reshaping our label markets
and required skills humanity is facing
more and more global challenges
my simple definition of technology is
the limit of what is possible given what
we have and the constraints that we face
we need to be prepared and respond to
the new technological environmental and
educational challenges that leads me to
two main points the first the growing
speed of technological change and its
effects on the environment and work
requires new and revised institutions to
address the upcoming challenges and
second we must accept and even embrace
our global interdependence in particular
they need for multilateralism to face
growing worldwide challenges you don’t
have to look far for examples
multilateral treaties limiting the
stockpiles of certain types of weapons
multinational medical cooperation
through the World Health Organization to
arrest the spread of pandemics
international trade flows through
predictable rules supervised and
enforced at the World Trade Organization
or international crime-fighting through
Interpol some newer innovations call out
for institutions to manage the issue
they create things such as artificial
intelligence the Internet of Things Big
Data cyber security robotics
gene-editing were never with our
challenges the most important thing we
cannot take institutions for granted
they may become big and sometimes they
might seem remote however they are made
out of people like you and me and
moreover and more importantly they are
the product of our actions and decisions
recently some countries even become
prominent ones have decided to
concentrate only on their national
interest and on the short run yet their
problems and challenges we face are
global and if not occurred now will be
unmanageable in the long run
I think they will eventually realize
that we cannot afford to look inward
when the action we take or don’t take
determine the future of humanity even if
we only consider the defects on our own
children we’re bound to act together for
even now and certainly more in the
future
our children may be living anywhere
around the world look around this room
and I believe you will find many
examples of people that did not start
their lives in this country a wiser
course of action is to accept and
internalize the idea of interdependence
initiatives like the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights or the
sustainable development goals
initiatives have this intention but the
world is full of examples of delays in
accepting them and including them in our
decisions and actions interdependence
can only be dealt with in an inclusive
way through multilateral institutions
the sustainability of our planet and the
pace of technological change very
clearly won’t wait
the challenges are growing and coming
ever faster regardless of whether we
choose to keep up and work together or
fall behind and go it alone the more we
work together through institutions the
more likely that change is to turn in
our favor thank you very much
[Applause] [Music]
building scientists policymakers and
business people from all around the
world got together to try to make a
better world the science and technology
in society forum explored the light and
shadows cast by rapid innovations things
like gene editing artificial
intelligence and robotics many
approaches were discussed but one thing
I’m sure of is this we need to build
strong inclusive and global institutions
to manage this change or it will manage
us throughout my career I have had an
opportunity to serve this from various
perspective I started as an engineer
working at a factory any medium-sized
firm is a microcosm of society with
various people working on different
pieces that ultimately need to function
together as an integrated whole my
curiosity and passion for model building
led me to economics because I wanted and
had the desire to understand how
societies organize themselves later on
my activities as an academic as a policy
maker and more recently as a diplomat
have allowed me to serve how different
economic sectors and countries try to
manage for success sometimes they reach
their goals and prosper sometimes they
fall short it is very clear to me the
big thing that explains human success in
relation to other species is our ability
to coordinate at a water scale and
coordination among humans is done
through institutions Engineers know this
economists know this and diplomats do
too institutions are what put ideas into
motion and coordinate our actions given
our specific circumstances and
constraints the theory of institutions
encompass a wide range of concepts from
informal customs to hi Lisa
systems of law today I want to focus on
formal organizations created to deal
with collective challenges and goals we
hear about so many terrible things these
days
so how many of you believe the world is
getting worse well despite what you may
think the facts showed that we have made
significant progress in recent years in
reducing hunger sickness and war this
improvement did not happen just by
recognizing the problems they represent
an ongoing relentless process of moving
forward inch by inch millimeter by
millimeter using agreed-upon method in
pursuit of common goals institutions
such as firms
markets Nations and international
organisations have made this happen the
best of them in the best of time do not
stifle individual objectives to the
country they provide the muscle and
momentum to make them possible extreme
poverty is said to be less than half of
what it was 30 years ago part of the
reason is that essentially all the
world’s countries agreed upon a goal of
eradicating extreme poverty by the Year
2015
they said this as one of the Millennium
Development Goals in a summit in a year
2000 it was organized by an institution
which they all belong the United Nations
other institutions like the World Bank
and most Regional Development Bank’s got
involved the fact that some poverty
still with us does not diminish the
indisputable improvement progress does
not require perfection now let’s take a
survey raise your hand if you use the
internet now raise your hand if you
organize the Internet well if you don’t
do it who do you think does
the answer is an institution ICANN the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and numbers that started a as a United
States control entity to its credit the
u.s. wisely recognized that the internet
had become a global entity that deserved
a global institution in the year 2016
the US government allowed ICANN to go
along its way as a nonprofit institution
I can now mix decision through what it
calls a multi-stakeholder model it
explains the meaning this way Internet
Governance should mimic the structure of
Internet itself borderless and open to
all thank that institution the next time
you go to any site ending on comm or co
dot JP or somewhere else and finding it
where you expected it to be the world
has changed from hunting and gathering
to agriculture production to farming to
industry and manufacturing to services
to communications to information thus
institutions need to change to to handle
the new realities one of the most
significance of this realities is
internationalization which builds upon
the foundation of nation-states
positives and negatives do not stop and
national borders developments in
technology transport information and
communications have made the world
smaller and more interconnected in
production and distribution systems we
talked about global value chains what we
were today what you see around what we
eat depend on the technological
development and the production capacity
of various countries at the same time
our technology and production systems
are affecting our environment the
sustainability of our planet and are
continuously reshaping our label markets
and required skills humanity is facing
more and more global challenges
my simple definition of technology is
the limit of what is possible given what
we have and the constraints that we face
we need to be prepared and respond to
the new technological environmental and
educational challenges that leads me to
two main points the first the growing
speed of technological change and its
effects on the environment and work
requires new and revised institutions to
address the upcoming challenges and
second we must accept and even embrace
our global interdependence in particular
they need for multilateralism to face
growing worldwide challenges you don’t
have to look far for examples
multilateral treaties limiting the
stockpiles of certain types of weapons
multinational medical cooperation
through the World Health Organization to
arrest the spread of pandemics
international trade flows through
predictable rules supervised and
enforced at the World Trade Organization
or international crime-fighting through
Interpol some newer innovations call out
for institutions to manage the issue
they create things such as artificial
intelligence the Internet of Things Big
Data cyber security robotics
gene-editing were never with our
challenges the most important thing we
cannot take institutions for granted
they may become big and sometimes they
might seem remote however they are made
out of people like you and me and
moreover and more importantly they are
the product of our actions and decisions
recently some countries even become
prominent ones have decided to
concentrate only on their national
interest and on the short run yet their
problems and challenges we face are
global and if not occurred now will be
unmanageable in the long run
I think they will eventually realize
that we cannot afford to look inward
when the action we take or don’t take
determine the future of humanity even if
we only consider the defects on our own
children we’re bound to act together for
even now and certainly more in the
future
our children may be living anywhere
around the world look around this room
and I believe you will find many
examples of people that did not start
their lives in this country a wiser
course of action is to accept and
internalize the idea of interdependence
initiatives like the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights or the
sustainable development goals
initiatives have this intention but the
world is full of examples of delays in
accepting them and including them in our
decisions and actions interdependence
can only be dealt with in an inclusive
way through multilateral institutions
the sustainability of our planet and the
pace of technological change very
clearly won’t wait
the challenges are growing and coming
ever faster regardless of whether we
choose to keep up and work together or
fall behind and go it alone the more we
work together through institutions the
more likely that change is to turn in
our favor thank you very much
[Applause] [Music]
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