Chairman Funabashi featured in the Global Technology Governance Summit (GTGS)

News / 2021/08/02

Dr. FUNABASHI Yoichi, Chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative, participated in the Global Technology Governance Summit (GTGS) organized by the World Economic Forum on April 6-7, 2021.

Chairman Funabashi moderated the panel session entitled “Leading Industry Transformation” on April 7, 2021, attended by Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chairman, Siemens AG; Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of Serbia, Office of the Prime Minister of Serbia; Hanzade Dogan Boyner, Chairwoman, Hepsiburada; and KOIKE Yuriko, Governor of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

During this session, the participants discussed the following points:

  • The world is facing two crises – a pandemic and climate change. By pushing through digitization, we will need to enhance resilience to pandemics and tackle climate change so as to achieve a more sustainable economic recovery.
  • COVID-19 has sharply accelerated digitization. In order to build a better world through digitization, we will need to adopt a human-centric approach. Among other approaches, it will be important to (a) pay attention to privacy and trust; and (b) promote digital education while being “inclusive” in that technology should adjust to people, not the other way around.
  • Digitization will not replace the existing economy and society. Off-line and on-line are not a trade-off and can co-exist. That being said, in keeping with the progress of the fourth industrial revolution, speed matters and companies are constantly required to reinvent themselves. COVID-19 should not be used as an excuse for failures of management.

The session can be viewed at:
https://jp.weforum.org/events/global-technology-governance-summit-2021/sessions/leading-industry-transformation-4732783a72

(Reference)
1. The details of the GTGS are available here.
2. Asia Pacific Initiative, together with the World Economic Forum and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), in 2017 jointly established the World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Japan (C4IR Japan / C4IRJ). Information on C4IRJ is available here.