Technological Influences on Visions of Humanity

Globally, there exists a stark dichotomy between countries that have chosen to embrace technology in a globalized system and nations that have been slower to adopt it—which has built a division that has proliferated today with the rise of superpower nations and the developing world. Technology has been at the forefront of creating this divide—and more specifically, certain types of technologies have resulted in greater growth and impact than others. In Asian markets, the adoption of new technologies has been a relatively new phenomenon in the grand history of Asian nations, especially in the age of the semiconductor and computational software. However, the change that integration with technology has caused in Asian systems has often outpaced the West, with Chinese corporations centralizing data and utilizing QR codes to India’s rise of FlipKart and Jio. Technology empowers people—and when it is mixed with commerce, it gives birth to new ways of living that revolutionizes the lives of individuals within nations.

This panel will focus on the past, present, and future of technology in amplifying human ability to solve problems, with an emphasis on new technologies at the forefront of adoption and how they could be integrated into the lives of people. A discussion of genetic engineering, the moral sides of robotic intelligence, and the future of energy are among a few of the many topics that will be discussed in this analysis of technology, leaving delegates with a greater degree of appreciation for its potential and future.