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Event
05/07/2015
Antall József Summer School Opening Ceremony

With the aim of offering a more comprehensive picture of the Central European Region and the Visegrad Cooperation, the Antall József Knowledge Centre organises its third international Antall József Summer School between the 6th and 17th of July 2015.

The Knowledge Centre aims to provide participants coming from the V4 countries, the Western Balkan, as well as the Eastern Partnership member states with a cross-border educational programme that enables them to know more about the most pivotal cooperation of Central Europe. During the twelve days of the event, participants can listen to and attend lectures and seminars in English, which puts under scrutiny the economic, political and cultural relations of the Cooperation, as well as the experiences connected to being an EU member state. Beyond the transmission of knowledge, the aim is to enhance intercultural dialogue. 

The Antall József Summer School 2015 will heavily focus on the relationship between the Visegrad Countries and the Western Balkan states. The year 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which put an end to the Balkan Wars.

Meet us at the opening ceremony of the Summer School at the Károlyi-Csekonics Residence, tomorrow, on the 6th of July.

Please, find the detailed programme below:

http://www.ajsummerschool.com/courses.php

 

News
23/06/2015
What Knowledge Workers Stand to Gain from Automation

It is by now an obvious statement that companies compete on the strengths of their knowledge workers – people who “think for a living” by applying convergent, divergent, and creative thinking skills.

Yet, more than 50 years after Peter Drucker devised the term knowledge worker, it is quite disappointing to peer inside the operations of any large organization and see how little of their time knowledge workers actually spend on higher-order thinking tasks. 

Largely to blame is the approach their companies have taken in applying office technologies. Faced with the choice, to either automate or informate, they have tended toward the former – transferring tasks from the hands of workers to machines, rather than endowing people with greater capacities and having them work symbiotically with technology.

Recent research indicates that, as cost barriers fall, workplaces will naturally gravitate toward teams of humans and robots working together to accomplish goals, each assigned the tasks for which they are ideally suited. Robotic Process Automation is one automation tool, but not the only one, that will help to bring about this future of operations. As cognitive intelligence tools like IBM’s Watson are adopted, those will be game changers, too. Combining these technologies, human knowledge workers might soon, in the midst of creative tasks, call on multi-tasking robotic coworkers to perform supporting work as needed — boosting their output even in novel processes with “robots-on-request.” In this way, contrary to today’s worst fears, robotics could facilitate the rise, not the demise, of the knowledge worker.

For more information, please, have a look at the HBR article:

https://hbr.org/2015/06/what-knowledge-workers-stand-to-gain-from-automa...

 

News
19/06/2015
Personalized Technology Will Upend the Doctor-Patient Relationship

In a few years, the idea of receiving medical treatment exclusively at a doctor’s office or hospital will seem quaint. Wearable technologies, implanted devices, and smartphone apps allow continuous monitoring and create a ubiquitous, 24/7, digitized picture of your health that can be accessed and analyzed in real-time, anywhere. Data gathering isn’t the only force moving treatment out of the doctor’s office; telemedicine, home diagnostics, and retail clinics increasingly treat patients where they live and work. In the next decade, these trends will create a veritable gold rush in patient data and consumer options.

Professionals believe, two principal business models will emerge: Goldminers, who dig deep in one major area, and Bartenders, who offer customized and convenient options to address routine needs.

The Goldminer approach represents progress. But it is incremental progress within the current healthcare model. Bartenders, by contrast, will accelerate the transformation of the industry by profoundly challenging the industry’s current “one-size-fits-all” standard of care and centralized clinical authority.

For more information, please, have a look at the recent HBR article:

https://hbr.org/2015/06/personalized-technology-will-upend-the-doctor-pa...

 

 

Event
20/05/2015
Visegrad in the EU: how much do we matter?

The conference organized by the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Hungary) in cooperation with the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (Slovakia), the Europeum (Czech Republic) and the Institute of Public Affairs (Poland) will analyse and critically evaluate the track record of the V4 membership in the EU, since the accession, by analysing the achievements as well as shortcomings (individual as well as joint) in four crucial EU policy areas. It will likewise assess the potential for future collaboration in these areas by analyzing the V4 countries strategic interests and by assessing the degree of convergence among them.

Objectives include:

  • To analyse in-depth the track record of the V4 co-operation within the EU in major policy areas constituting important elements of its development
  • To analyse the current strategies / interests of the individual V4 countries in the policy fields examined
  • To identify the main points of convergence as well as divergence in the given policy areas
  • To critically evaluate the potential for future V4 co-operation in the given policy areas, including ensuing recommendations for the V4 co-operation

Policy areas that will be examined in detail:

  • EU constitutional and institutional set-up and EMU
  • EU single market
  • Freedom, Security and Justice
  • EU external relations

Meet us at the conference, in Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, on the 26th of May 2015 at 10:00 AM.

Event
18/05/2015
From Lima to Paris: climate change stakes and opportunities in the EU and the V4 region

In 2015, France will be hosting and presiding the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11), otherwise known as “Paris 2015” from November 30th to December 11th. COP21 will be a crucial conference, as it needs to achieve a new international agreement on the climate, applicable to all countries, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C. France will therefore be playing a leading international role to ensure points of view converge and to facilitate the search for consensus by the United Nations, as well as within the European Union, which has a major role in climate negotiations.

The conference is going to bring together around 40,000 participants in total - delegates representing each country, observers, and civil society members. It is the largest diplomatic event ever hosted by France and one of the largest climate conferences ever organized.

France has two major responsibilities:

  • As the host country, France will need to provide the participants with the best possible working environment, transport and accommodation.
  • As the holder of the Conference presidency, France will need to facilitate discussions between countries and ensure the negotiations are transparent and inclusive. 

The stakes are high: the aim is to reach, for the first time, a universal, legally binding agreement that will enable to combat climate change effectively and boost the transition towards resilient, low-carbon societies and economies.

Along key priorities of COP21/CMP11, let's discuss the climate change stakes and opportunities in the EU and the V4 region, at a Visegrad Four conference organized by the French Embassy of Budapest, in partnership with the Regional Environmental Center, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Institute in Budapest, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Budapest, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Budapest, the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Hungary and the Representation of the European Commission, sponsored by Air France, GDF Suez, Lafarge and Veolia, in Institut Français (1011 Budapest, Fo utca 17), on the 26th of May from 9:30 AM.

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