AIAS breakfast talk with Danish Tech Ambassador, Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard
TechPlomacy, technological diplomacy, was on the agenda at AIAS when the Danish Tech Ambassador Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark gave an AIAS Breakfast Talk.
In 2017, Denmark became the first country in the world to elevate technology and digitalization to a crosscutting foreign and security policy priority. The initiative is named technological diplomacy, or simply TechPlomacy.
Head of the Danish tech diplomacy, Tech ambassador Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard gave an inspiring and thought-provoking AIAS Breakfast Talk that was followed by interdisciplinary
discussions and dialogue with scientists and research leaders from several research fields at Aarhus University and from across the world.
Some of the key points and questions raised from Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard's talk, and the discussions were:
- In a world that is rapidly changing geopolitically alongside a technological arms race, tech diplomacy has been prioritized since 2017 in the Danish Government’s Foreign and Security Policy Strategy. In this, scientists will and should play a larger and more active role.
- Who are the diplomats we should address - Google or the nations?
- As a small nation, Danish Universities should bring their efforts together to collaborate, not compete. The same goes for the EU.
- What can Danish Universities learn from e.g. the US? The Danish universities should be ready to transform research into innovation - so a closer connection between research and industry (as with Stanford - Palo Alto).
Concerns raised by scientists
- Denmark is leading and cutting-edge within several fields as e.g. robotphilosophy, user-centered design and human-computer-interaction that are crucial for the ethical, moral and participatory developments within AI and other technologies. However, these positions of strength are not acknowledged and prioritized in our strategy and funding landscape.
- Does it matter to be a first-mover or a second-mover with e.g. quantum computing?
- Should Denmark develop our own LLM, large language model?
More about Techplomacy
https://techamb.um.dk/the-techplomacy-approach
Contact
Andreas Roepstorff, AIAS director
E-mail: andreas.roepstorff@aias.au.dk
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, AIAS
Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B
DK-8000 Aarhus C
Denmark