ONLINE WEBINAR | MAY 20TH | 09:00pm EDT

Webinar: Debunking Tech Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy

We are excited to announce our next “WITSA Viewpoint” Webinar series, entitled: “Debunking Tech Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy”. 

Technologies and tech companies are routinely accused of creating many societal problems. Join us for a lively fireside chat with the authors of a must-read new book “Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy”, by Dr. Robert D. Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and David Moschella, Nonresident Senior Fellow at ITIF.

In this fireside chat, Dr. Michael R. Nelson - Senior Fellow of Technology and International Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - will ask pertinent questions to Dr. Atkinson and Mr. Moschella about their rebuttal of widespread myths about Big Tech, Big Data, AI, privacy, trust, polarization, automation, and similar fears, while exposing the scapegoating behind them. The Webinar will provide a balanced analysis of technology’s impact on society and its overwhelmingly positive impact and will also serve as a call for tech insiders, policymakers, and the general public to restore the West’s faith in technological progress.

SPEAKERS:

Robert D. Atkinson | President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

As founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), recognized as the world’s top think tank for science and technology policy, Robert D. Atkinson leads a prolific team of policy analysts and fellows that is successfully shaping the debate and setting the agenda on a host of critical issues at the intersection of technological innovation and public policy.

He is an internationally recognized scholar and a widely published author whom The New Republic has named one of the “three most important thinkers about innovation,” Washingtonian Magazine has called a “tech titan,” Government Technology Magazine has judged to be one of the 25 top “doers, dreamers and drivers of information technology,” and the Wharton Business School has given the “Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award.”

A sought-after speaker and valued adviser to policymakers around the world, Atkinson’s books include Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths About Privacy, AI and Today’s Innovation Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024), Big is Beautiful: Debunking the Mythology of Small Business (MIT Press, 2018); Innovation Economics: The Race for Global Advantage (Yale, 2012), Supply-Side Follies: Why Conservative Economics Fails, Liberal Economics Falters, and Innovation Economics is the Answer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), and The Past And Future Of America’s Economy: Long Waves Of Innovation That Power Cycles Of Growth (Edward Elgar, 2005). He also has conducted groundbreaking research projects and authored hundreds of articles and reports on technology and innovation-related topics ranging from tax policy to advanced manufacturing, productivity, and global competitiveness. He has testified before the United States Congress more than 30 times.

More information available on the ITF website: https://itif.org/person/robert-d-atkinson/ 

David Moschella | Nonresident Senior Fellow, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

David Moschella is a nonresident senior fellow at ITIF. Previously, he was a research fellow at Leading Edge Forum (LEF), where he explored the global business impact of digital technologies, with a particular focus on disruptive business models, industry restructuring and machine intelligence. For more than a decade before LEF, David was in charge of worldwide research for IDC, the largest market analysis firm in the information technology industry, responsible for the company’s global technology industry forecasts and insights.

A well-known international speaker, writer, and thought leader, David’s books include Seeing Digital—A Visual Guide to the Industries, Organizations, and Careers of the 2020s (DXC Technology, 2018), Customer-Driven IT (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), and Waves of Power (Amacom, 1997). He has lectured and consulted on digital trends and strategies in more than 30 countries, working with leading customers and suppliers alike.

INTERVIEWER:

Dr. Michael R. Nelson | Senior Fellow of Technology and International Affairs atCarnegie Endowment for International Peace

Mike Nelson is a Senior Fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Technology and International Affairs Program, which works with policymakers and others to harness the potential of emerging technologies. His research focuses on Internet governance, technology standards, innovation, and data policy (including Machine Learning). He works closely with Carnegie India, the Asia Program, and colleagues in Europe and Israel. 

Prior to joining Carnegie, he started the global public policy office for Cloudflare, a startup that has improved the performance and security of more than 10 million websites around the world. Nelson has also served as a principal technology policy strategist in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group and before that was a senior technology and telecommunications analyst with Bloomberg Government. In addition, Nelson taught courses and doing research on the future of the internet, cyber-policy, technology policy, innovation policy, and e-government in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University.

For almost 10 years, Nelson was director of internet technology and strategy at IBM, where he managed a team helping define and implement IBM’s next generation internet strategy. He has served as chairman of the Information, Communication, and Computing Section of the AAAS, serves as a trustee of the Institute for International Communications, and was selected to be a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum. From 1988 to 1993, he served as a professional staff member for the Senate’s Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and was the lead Senate staffer for the High-Performance Computing Act. In 1993, he joined Vice President Al Gore at the White House and worked with President Bill Clinton’s science adviser on issues relating to the Global Information Infrastructure, including telecommunications policy, information technology, encryption, electronic commerce, and information policy.

For more information, or to order the book, see the ITIF Website at https://itif.org/publications/2024/05/26/technology-fears-and-scapegoats/