If all we do is listen to the technology industries - in all their various shapes and sizes - there is but one truth: digitalization is good. Or if you'll permit a line of Orwellian poetry: digital good, analog bad.
Truths are seldom so simple or one-sided. Even in the digital world, we have the Boolean values "true" and "false," "on" and "off," and zeros and ones. And even these ignore the grey zones in between.
It's a reality that leading researchers, industry heads, politicians and others representing civil society meet head on on Tuesday in Berlin at the "2016 Forschungsgipfel." It's a research summit on digitalization of the highest order, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel giving the keynote address.
"Digitalization is the biggest topic of our times," say the organizers, and we need to come together to mold a digital future.
Questions and … answers?
Representatives from across business, science and innovation - but predominantly huge industry names such as BASF SE, Evonik, Google, Pfizer - face three main questions.
How can digitalization improve knowledge and skills?
How is digitalization affecting collaboration in research and innovation?
And how can Germany secure the best of digitalization's potential?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: does she have the answers to the summit questions?
These are hefty questions and they are unlikely to find comprehensive answers in a one-day summit, where about 40 speakers all hope to make a point.
"We'll each get a maximum of 3-5 minutes to speak," says Markus Beckedahl, founder of netzpolitik.org, a platform for digital civil liberties. "It'll probably be a massive hodgepodge of demands and desires on a contemporary policy issue and I don't expect a lot to come of it."
Digitalization: positives
So let's focus on what appears to be clear. Professor Dr. Malte Brettel says the "biggest change through digitalization will be in teaching."
Brettel researches entrepreneurship and innovation at RWTH Aachen University and is one of the many speakers at the event. He says entrepreneurs are "disruptive" and we need them. He has his own history of entrepreneurship.
"MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] is starting a MOOCs in mathematics. Everyone can share them. So why do we need a mathematics department if we can license MIT courses?" asks Brettel. "How many mathematics professors do you need in the world, except for research? Five? One for Chinese, one for English, one for Spanish, and two for the backup, and that's it? This may change the business models of universities."
