Ayaan Hirsi-Ali at Facing Tomorrow 2013: “The More Israel’s Enemies Wish for its Destruction, the Stronger It Becomes”
June 19, 2013 – Jerusalem, Israel – Leading academics David Agus and Dan Gilbert and activist Ayaan Hirsi-Ali debated the question “Will Tomorrow be Better” at the afternoon plenary session of the 2103 Israeli Presidential Conference.
Hirsi-Ali, a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Founder of The AHA Foundation, a women’s rights organization, focused on a number of different aspects of how she thinks tomorrow will look, but stressed the need for society to be unafraid of failure. “Cultures that encourage experimentation will outlast the others – as long as we continue trying and failing, we will be on top of the world.”
Discussing Israel’s tomorrow, Hirsi-Ali said the future of the Jewish State is not hard to predict. “Israeli leaders have put effort into maintaining a peace process with the Palestinians – but Israel has no peace, rather a modest word called quiet – Israel is stronger than it was 10 years ago, and the more Israel’s enemies wish for its destruction, the stronger it becomes.There will be a sustained campaign against Israel’s right to exist and Israel will consistently be painted as the aggressors,” she said. “If Israel’s tomorrow seems hard to contemplate, we must think about Israel’s yesterday – if you continue to be as resilient as you are, that tomorrow will be better.”
Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, focused on education as being the key to the success of tomorrow’s society. “Knowledge can be used for good or evil, but it is never in itself good or evil – we can decide which way our society goes by means of education – education is the magic bullet.”
In his remarks he took the time to point out that the shape tomorrow will take depends on how society responds to a variety of threats. “Our brains,” he said, respond to threats that have one of four factors: intentionality, immorality,
Facing Tomorrow 2013 takes place from June 18-20, 2013 at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. The conference is organized in partnership with Hebrew University.
Facing Tomorrow 2013: Education Experts Outline Visions for Future of Their Industry
Leadership, Technology and Passion Form the Core of Building A Brighter Future
June 19, 2013 – Jerusalem, Israel – Dr. Einat Wilf, former Member of Knesset who served as Chair of the Education, Sports and Culture Committee, led a panel of education experts who presented their visions for the future of education and outlined ways to overcome existing challenges in order to make their visions a reality.
Brandeis University President Professor Fredrick Lawrence said, “the challenge we face in universities today is to educate students not only for the day after they graduate, but also for a future that is literally unforeseeable and unimaginable. We have to give them certain skills that will be necessary – such as the ability to think clearly, analyze, communicate clearly, think creatively, and more than anything, the ability to turn raw information into knowledge. Access to more information is becoming easier and easier, making the ability to analyze an even greater challenge.” He emphasized that more focus should be placed on interactive learning, small scale learning and one-on-one teaching rather than the traditional large scale lecture model.
Dr. Jeannette Wing, Vice President, Head of Microsoft Research International and former Head of the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University stated, “my vision is that computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by middle of 21st Century.” This, she explains, is not just computer literacy or computer programing, but the ability to think like a computer scientist and “teach the concepts of computer science that can be used to tackle large and complex problems.” She says this vision is already starting to play out at higher education levels and hopes it will continue to grow. Although she acknowledges the challenge to find qualified teachers to support this effort, she believes it will be possible to achieve by the middle of the century.
Dan Shechtman, the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology and recipient of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry emphasized that, “You must differentiate between education and teaching. Teaching is providing knowledge. Education makes you a better human being. Two different things. We invest a lot in teaching and too little in education in Israel. This should be changed in the future.” He maintains that the future of education lies in instilling the love of learning in children’s minds, and the ability to present information in an interesting and fun way to even the youngest students.
Wendy Kopp, Founder and Chairman of Teach For America, and CEO and Co-Founder of Teach for All, a global movement for ensuring educational excellence and equity made up of a growing network of 26 independent organizations around the world, said that there are a number of different areas that must be addressed but that, “People, talent and leadership are at the center of the solution. “One fundamental part of the solution is to channel society’s top talent- our most promising future leaders – and channel that energy into classrooms.” She stated that while teachers are critical, we need to change the ways we set up our school systems, which will require tremendous commitment and leadership.
Professor Daphne Koller, the Co-founder of the online education start-up, Coursera, and the Rajeev Motwani Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University said, “I envision a world where great education from the best teachers is available anytime and anywhere. It is not a privilege for a select few, but available for anyone who needs.” She believes this can be made possible through the use of technology, by preserving teaching and making it available to anyone around the world.
Facing Tomorrow 2013 takes place from June 18-20, 2013 at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. The conference is organized in partnership with Hebrew University.
Facing Tomorrow 2013 – World Brain Experts: “Dementia will be a Worse Epidemic than AIDS in our Aging Population”
June 19, 2013 – Jerusalem, Israel – Professor Eilon Vaadia, the Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences led a panel of experts including Professor Yadin Dudai, the Sara and Michael Sela Professor in Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science; Professor Richard Frackowiak, the Director of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the CHUV University Hospital in Lausanne and Henry Markram, professor of neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (EPFL), who is also the founder of the Brain Mind Institute, founder and director of the Blue Brain Project.
According to Professor Richard Frackowiak, the future of brain research lies in the creation of a hospital database that would contain complete records of all brain disease related patients from around the world. This database, made available to all researchers and scientists, would consequently assist the accuracy of their diagnosis.
“Dementia is a disease that is going to be like a plague in our aging population,” said Frackowiak. “It’s going to be worse than AIDS – much worse, economically, personally each of you undoubtedly has someone who is already losing their condition or developing some other neurological disorder.”
The panel was supplemented by this year’s special exhibition on the brain, “Tomorrow: The State of Mind”, displaying the research of some of Israel’s top brain scientists and highlighting their contributions.
Facing Tomorrow 2013: Economic Principles vs. Social Values – Harmony or Conflict?
Israeli economist Manuel Trajtenberg calls for a “conceptual revolution” in relationship between government, private sector
June 19, 2013 – Jerusalem, Israel – Dr. Manuel Trajtenberg, whose committee submitted recommendations on social and economic reforms to the Israeli government following the country’s 2011 social protests, participated in an animated panel discussion on the challenges of balancing economic principles – particularly the aims of capitalism – with social values. The panel, moderated by Guy Rolnick, Editor-in-Chief of leading Israeli economics publication, The Marker, also included Sir Ronald Cohen (UK), Chairman of Big Society Capital; Adrian Gore (South Africa), CEO of Discovery; Abby Joseph Cohen (USA), President of the Global Markets Institute; and Lord Professor Robert Skidelsky (UK), author of an award-winning, three-volume biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes.
Trajtenberg attacked the “trickle-down” economic theory that wealth spreads from the top sectors of society to the benefit of all members of society, but emphatically noted that government cannot be expected to solve society’s problems by itself. He cited the example of Israel, which followed the “manual” of market-based economics that, while creating great wealth among the few, left many in society facing continuous financial difficulties. He attributed this to policies that placed an undue focus on the arithmetic of economics coupled with an insufficient emphasis on social values. As a remedy, Trajtenberg called for a “conceptual revolution” in how government and the private sector interact.
Sir Richard Cohen noted the vital role that private financing can play in “social impact investments,” adding that we can be as successful in social issues as well as we have been in technology and innovation issues. He proposed the idea of a “social stock exchange,” and added that we are “on the threshold of a revolution of social impact investment.”
Adrian Gore underscored that “the message that capitalism is a dangerous message,” noting that only business creates prosperity, not government, adding that government has a critically important role to play in ensuring that a society has universal healthcare and universal daycare and whose investment is a necessity for a more productive and healthy society. While assessing that basic economic principles work, he acknowledged that they need be carefully re-worked to address social inequities.
Abby Joseph Cohen said that growth and prosperity for all members of society require the investment of education, infrastructure, and research/innovation. As an example, she noted pre-recession unemployment figures in the United States contrasting college graduates (4%) with those with a high school diploma or less (18%).
The most spirited aspect of the discussion occurred when panel moderator Guy Rolnik asked about the correlation between economics and incentive. Cohen accepted the basic premise that there is a strong correlation, suggesting the need to re-assess and improve the incentives. Lord Prof. Skidelsky rejected the correlation, surmising that on average, people make decisions not based on rational considerations. Trajtenberg proposed that economic policies reflect the factors that comprise human decision-making: incentives, morality, and complex psychological processes. Skidelsky responded that economics is unable to simultaneously manage these factors.
Facing Tomorrow 2013 takes place from June 18-20, 2013 at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. The conference is organized in partnership with Hebrew University.
Director of UN World Food Bank Program, Ertharin Cousin: “We can have a vision, but a vision without investment is simply a hallucination”
June 19, 2013 – Jerusalem, Israel – Dr. Miriam Haran, Director of the M.B.A. studies at Ono Academic College, led an expert panel addressing the question “Is there Hope for a Greener Tomorrow?”
While participants are hopeful that tomorrow will be “greener”, they highlighted a number of potential obstacles that must be overcome, including greater global collaboration, investment and governmental support of green technology.
Prince Albert II of Monaco, whose foundation is dedicated to protecting the environment and encouraging sustainable development, opened the panel and stated that, “due to the tireless efforts of scientists around the world, our prospects for a greener tomorrow are growing stronger every day. Pulling international talents, resources and energies together can help create a greener tomorrow.”
Hon. Professor Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Mexico and the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. “We have to be optimistic but we also have to be responsible, realistic and critical of the fact that we have failed to seriously address the problem (of climate change).” He called on countries to challenge the status quo and to overcome issues like sovereignty and national pride in order to encourage collective action for global good. He warned, “If we continue along the same path we took in the 1990s and continue today, we will fail.”
Ertharin Cousin, the twelfth Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program echoed the need for global unification. “We can have a vision, but a vision without investment is simply a hallucination. We need the global community to come together, to invest in the value and change, in order to help those we serve. We can’t change our past but we can shape our future.”
Efi Stenzler, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KKL-JNF outlined several ways that Israel is leading in agriculture technology and suggested that Israel act as a beacon of light to the world by exporting its expertise in drip irrigation, unique planting methods, pest technology and desertification strategies.
Shai Agassi, Founder and former CEO of Better Place closed the panel by offering another perspective: “Tech innovation isn’t enough,” he said. “You must understand the business side and potential of that innovation.” He pushed for governments to help support green innovation, mentioning the use of taxation as a method to help either stimulate or kill local green innovation.
