Event description
On May 12, as part of the Open Forum of the Science Diplomacy Week in Geneva, Diplo is organising the session Tech Diplomacy: New Impulses for the Geneva Ecosystem?
Friday, May 12, 8am – 9.30am EDT (14:00–15:30 CEST), Campus Biotech, Geneva
During the session, participants will share key findings and lessons from the recently conducted research on the practice of tech diplomacy in the San Francisco Bay Area, including:
- Tech diplomacy has matured, moving from informal engagement to more structured, formal engagements, which brings both benefits and issues to the parties involved.
- Both governmental representations and the structures within tech companies that act as partners to the conversation have become more diverse and complex, adding challenges in reaching one another.
- There is an important cultural and language divide between the tech and diplomatic world, which requires specific support.
- Over the past years, there has been increasing collaboration between diplomatic representations and tech companies in achieving common goals, thus bringing multilateralism to the Bay Area.
With the Geneva launch of Diplo’s report Technology and Diplomacy: The Rise of Multilateralism in the Bay Area, we aim to bring this important conversation to Geneva.
We will dive deeper into the various forms of interactions between tech and diplomacy, and highlight lessons for the Geneva ecosystem and the future of diplomatic practice.
This session brings diplomats and representatives from tech companies together. It also emphasises the perspective of diplomats from the Global South, as well as the opportunities and challenges for countries from the Global South in practising tech diplomacy.
This event is organised in partnership with Swissnex in San Francisco and République et Canton de Genève.
Note: Please note that this is an in-situ event. You need to be registered in order to gain access. Registration closes on May 3.
Speakers
- Amb. Umej Bhatia, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN in Geneva
- Ms Beatrice Ferrari, Director of International Affairs, Canton of Geneva
- Ms Claudia Taboada, Director, Science, Technology and Environment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dominican Republic
- Ms Thato Morokong, Assistant Director, Africa Multilateral Cooperation, Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), South Africa
- Mr Yannick Heiniger, Swissnex, San Francisco
- Ms Pavlina Ittelson, Executive Director, Diplo US
- Ms Katharina Höne, Director of Research, DiploFoundation