Geography matters, but in a very different way than it used to in the past.

Ancient cities always wanted to be close to a river or to a port for trading engagements. Today, geography has a different meaning: it is about creating a thinking atmosphere, or being a "thinking city."

Thinking cities –and thinking jobs– have become the most important poles of attraction today. Economies and societies are under continuous transformation, and technology is the main source of disruption. Today, we coexist in a variety of micro-worlds that are day-by-day more diverse. The unit of analysis has switched from the country to the city.

It would be interesting to introduce the dichotomy of thinking cities vs. doing cities. The unit of analysis of emerging and developing countries is not sufficient to explain the asymmetry of economic development across the world anymore. Geography can foster both virtuous (thinking–high value jobs) or vicious (doing–low-paid jobs) cycles. Nowadays, we find doing cities in developed countries, and thinking cities in emerging economies.

Digital technologies have reshaped employment and how we work. The possible perils of technology on unemployment might be one of the most impactful threats we are facing: Industry 4.0 and ‘uberisation’ seem to be the killers of thousands of jobs.

While AI might seem like a future phenomenon, it is actually happening today in many productive sectors. Sectors such as manufacturing, medical diagnostic, distribution, cybersecurity, marketing, transportation, shopper personalization, warehouse, advertising, legal, and human resources, among many others, are being highly impacted by the development of AI.

Today, the impact of algorithms, big data, and machine learning is growing in every kind of job. In addition, recent digital advances have also allowed for a fast transition to remote work, which

has become necessary due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For many, a hybrid future is imminent.

We need to radically rethink companies’ cultures and leadership styles and find ways to adapt them to this new and complex environment. How can we best cope with the novel challenges of a hybrid work environment? What managerial skills are required to lead remote and in-office teams simultaneously?

Algorithm firms are not just born from an idea, but remain an idea. This business model follows the concept of Strategy Orchestration. Strategy Orchestration flips traditional strategy on its head. Rather than starting with what you control, and looking for ways to leverage it, managers begin with an opportunity and then assemble the required resources in its wake.

Strategy Orchestration happens when a firm pursues an opportunity, not by leveraging strategic power, and not by controlling all the required resources, but by assembling and managing a network of partners (nodes). The musical instruments clearly have an intrinsic value by themselves, just like a product does, but the coordinated interplay of the sounds of the different instruments plays a unique story. Clearly, the value of the orchestra –like the value of the network– brings an emotional, and not just a transactional, impact to the audience.

In the field of strategy, we observe successful firms expand their value content from product-focus to network-focus. They accomplish this through the deliberate orchestration of nodes around their platforms. They strengthen their strengths. They orchestrate their weaknesses. They migrate from “product-transaction with a customer” to “story-impact into the audience”. Products are transactional. Stories are emotional.

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, private cryptocurrencies entered the financial scene through the launching of bitcoin. Since then, thousands of private cryptocurrencies have flooded the financial system. However, they are still not used as medium of exchange due to their high volatility. But new technologies are bringing new developments into our monetary system.

On the one hand, stable coins and cryptocurrencies with stability algorithms are improving the performance of private sector money. On the other hand, Central Banks around the world are preparing plans to launch Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to incorporate some of the advantages of cryptocurrencies: global payments, interoperability, speed of transactions and accessibility, among others.

What will the future await? Will CBDCs completely debunk cryptocurrencies? Will cryptocurrencies remain, as an asset class, as a means of payments or both? Can these developments help entrepreneurs in emerging economies harness their business and ideas through a much wider reach? Can cryptocurrencies debunk regular currencies in countries with failing official currencies? Will CBDCs and cryptocurrencies coexist? How will governments react to this challenge from the private sector?

The humanistic perspective is generally pessimistic about technological processes because technology seems to take us away from governing ourselves.

Algorithms have begun to structure our lives, as they are being used to determine whether someone is hired, promoted, offered a loan, or provided housing, as well as to decide which political ads and news articles consumers see.

We used to think of digital transformation in terms of personal isolation. Certainly, many thinkers have argued that society is generated by the need that human beings have for each other. However, there are other thinkers (including philosophers as far back as Cicero and Hegel) who understand that the most human thing is to relate not out of need, but out of freedom.

If this idea is transferred to a new humanism, it implies that the way in which we relate to each other will also have to be redesigned: society will have to find new ways in which we relate to each other, with our families, at work, in entertainment, and in education. Digitalization does not mean isolation.

This conference asks for papers dealing with ethical, humanistic, and legal aspects of digital transformation.