Dukakis Center at ACT to host a session at Beyond 2025
The Michael and Kitty Dukakis Center for Public and Humanitarian Service will organize a session at this year's Beyond Technology forum and exhibition, to take place at the Metropolitan Expo Centre, Athens, on April 4-6, 2025. David Wisner, Executive Director of the Dukakis Center, will host a fireside chat on "AI L iteracy" with Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody (2008) and Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education at New York University.
Named a "Top 100 Global Thinker" by Foreign Policy in 2010, Clay Shirky has published six books and appears frequently in the mainstream media. At New York University since 2001, his current role includes designing, developing, and enhancing all academic aspects of technology-based teaching and learning. Mr Shirky also has teaching affiliations at NYU with the Arthur L. Carter Center of Journalism and the Tisch School of the Arts. In 2014-2017, he served as Chief Information Officer at NYU Shanghai.
According to the event organizers, "BEYOND is an international digital technology and innovation exhibition that has been taking place in Thessaloniki since 2021. From artificial intelligence to virtual reality, the exhibition serves as a hub for networking, knowledge sharing, and hands-on experience with pioneering innovations. Beyond 2025 will focus on confronting artificial intelligence's practical and sometimes harsh realities as it integrates into various aspects of society."
The Dukakis Center session will take place on Saturday, April 5, and will focus on three principal themes,
- how Professor Shirky's thinking about technologically enhanced social interaction has evolved since the late 1990s;
- how AI is altering this picture;
- how one attains "AI literacy" in a learning environment like New York University.
Named in honor of former Governor of Massachusetts (and Greek-American) Michael Dukakis, the Dukakis Center is an independent, non-partisan administrative unit of the American College of Thessaloniki, the university division of Anatolia College. The primary mission of the Dukakis Center is to encourage young people to take an active interest in public affairs. The Center is celebrating its 25th anniversary season of public service initiatives in 2024-25.
The Dukakis Center has organized events previously with two of the principal organizers of Beyond, now in its fourth year. Both Anastasios Tzikas, President of the Board of Helexpo, and Mihalis Stangos, Managing Director and CEO of MSCOMM, have spoken under the Dukakis Center banner, most recently in May 2020, when Mr Tzikas appeared in the Zoom webinar entitled "Φέτος το φεστιβάλ θα είναι διαφορετικό." David Wisner has appeared at Helexpo, presenting Spyros Katsoulas' book "Διλήμματα στο Τρίγωνο" in May 2023 at the Thessaloniki International Book Fair.