At the annual meeting of the Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum (www.stsforum.org), Serageldin chaired a plenary session entitled “Dialogue among Political Leaders, Scientists and Industrialists (Society Changed by ICT – Security and Privacy –)”. The discussion focused on how the ICT revolution, with both the big data that it produces and handles, and the social connectivity it provides, is transforming social and economic relations on a global scale. Speakers on the panel were Hirai, Takuya, Chairman, Special Mission Committee on IT Strategy, Liberal Democratic Party; Member of the House of Representatives, JP; Khosla, Pradeep K., Chancellor, University of California, San Diego, IN; Piou, Olivier, Chief Executive Officer, Gemalto, FR ; Ito, Joichi, Director of MIT Media Laboratory, MIT Media Lab, JP; Screven, Edward, Chief Corporate Architect, Oracle Corporation, US. Serageldin triggered questions to the panel and took questions from the floor.
The STS annual meeting is held on the first Sunday of October every year in Kyoto, Japan, and gathers top policymakers, business leaders, scientists, researchers, media leaders and Nobel laureates from all over the world, to address science and technology issues in the 21st century. Serageldin is one of the forty founding members of the STS.
As board member of the Governing Board of the Regional Action on Climate Change (RACC), Serageldin also attended the annual meeting of the RACC which takes place the day before the opening of the STS forum. The meeting discussed “Climate Change Impact: Extreme Weather Conditions”. In a breakout session dealing with particular experiences of Knowledge Action Networks in Africa and Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Serageldin was rapporteur in a panel discussion on the impact of climate change and extreme weather in Africa and Europe. Discussion leader was: Adel El-Beltagy, Minister, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation of Egypt, and speakers were Adel El-Beltagy; Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK; and Rowan Douglas, CEO, Capital, Science & Policy Practice and Chairman, Willis Research Network, UK. The lessons learned and required solutions identified in the breakout sessions were presented to all at the end of the meeting.
RACC was created in 2009 as an adjunct session to the STS forum to bring issues of climate science to the attention of the worlds’ business, policy and scientific leaders at the STS Forum, so as to build bridges between those who have expert knowledge and those with the power to take action.