The UC Museum of Visual Arts hosted the launch of the twelfth version of Congreso Futuro 2023, the most important platform for the exchange of ideas and thought in Latin America, a free event co-organized by Fundación Encuentros del Futuro and the Challenges of the Future Commission of the Senate of Chile.
This will take place from January 16 to 21, 2023. It will also be broadcast online through the event’s website and social networks.
Among the outstanding novelties of the 2023 version is the return to face-to-face. This will be held at the Teatro Oriente, located in the commune of Providencia, an instance in which more than 100 national and international exhibitors from the various spaces of knowledge, such as sciences, humanities and the arts, will be present.
Among them are some Nobel Laureates, MIT academics, neuroscientists, specialists in Artificial Intelligence and also in different aspects of the Metaverse, a concept that will lead this year’s theme.
“Every new technology means a loss of capacity. If we continue to outsource our lives, perhaps we will lose the ability to feel and be excited, and we will become more dependent on machines. In the metaverse we will live through avatars, so there will be new challenges and we will have to set up new laws and regulations, but there are also opportunities. I would love to be able to teach biology to children, doing a scientific expedition inside a cell or for a teacher to take the children to ancient Greece and for them to walk alongside the ancient inhabitants. The point is how we make opportunities prevail over threats,” reflected the executive vice president of Fundación Encuentros del Futuro, Guido Girardi.
In this sense, the interest of Congreso Futuro is to invite the necessary social discussion to protect the rights of the population of the future in an unknown present, where technology advances faster than the human capacity to adapt and regulate it.
The stage will mix palpable reality and the virtual future we face. For this version, there will be several innovations that are contemplated.
“We are working with a new technology, which through different artificial intelligence software, allows us to build avatars of the exhibitors who will be present, and specific works are being generated to automate functions and services offered by Congreso Futuro, such as real-time translation through Artificial Intelligence and without human intervention. There will also be other surprises that we cannot anticipate yet,” said Nicolás Fernández, executive director of FEF.
In turn, the public in Santiago will have the opportunity to be part of the experience of the Metaverse in public places of the city so that societies can know a little more about a concept that is still distant for many.
“We made an intervention with a group of universities, where free of charge and thanks to the alliance with Metro de Santiago, from January 4, users will be able to experience the metaverse through lens-type devices that will be available in different stations, and together with more than 100 volunteers we will explain different aspects of the metaverse we will have surprises for users. We will make a circuit between Pedro de Valdivia, Baquedano, Los Leones and Tobalaba,” added Fernández.
For those who want to go in person to the January event there will be 10,000 tickets available for free from this Friday, December 16 at 12:00 pm on the web and the Punto Ticket system. There, those interested must select which day and what talks they wish to attend.
Also on the website of Congreso Futuro you can find the complete program; biographies of the exhibitors; and all the communication campaign that is carried out around the event.
World-class exhibitors
The 2023 edition will present a range of exhibitors who will make available the best of their experience to expand the frontiers of citizen knowledge and discuss the changes that the planet and its societies will have.
Among them stands out the participation of the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky who invites us to question the role of science as an answer to all our problems; the Nobel Peace Prize and World Food Prize 2020, Rattan Lal who will present on the challenges of responsible agriculture with the environment; Bioethics specialist in technology and health virtual, Jodi Halpern; the American sociologist and specialist in digital revolution, Shoshana Zuboff; the visionary of Artificial Intelligence applied in forensic analysis, Rita Singh; the computer scientist and philosopher, Yuk Hui, the academic and doctor, Víctor Montori; the doctor of philosophy, Francisco Martorell; marine biologist and National Geographic documentary author Sylvia Earle and transgender activist and first openly trans woman in the Hasidic community, Abby Stein.
In this text, Abby Stein highlighted that the opportunity to participate in an outreach event that has a local view of global issues, “especially as it relates to gender and religion, is important for me to engage with diverse communities. The issues of gender and sexuality, in addition to the fight against fundamentalism, are international: they impact everyone. I see Future Congress as a powerful opportunity to reach people and communities that would otherwise not reach, build relationships and community, and work together to create a better world, with freedom and justice for all,” Stein said.
Future Regions Congress
Congreso Futuro seeks to democratize and decentralize knowledge, so scientists and experts will also be present in regions during the week of celebration, through days of talks and panels in parallel to the main event.
Together with 50 universities and research centers, it seeks to give rise to 34 international speakers, who with local panelists, will talk about relevant issues for the community. The main scientific dissemination event in Latin America will be held, for the first time, in person in the 16 regions of the country.
The regions will have two international guests who will address – with panelists from each region – topics such as: climate change, digital revolution, food security, territorial governance, sustainable cities, new energies, artificial intelligence, paleontology, neuroscience and education, to name a few.
Great personalities such as Catriona Mckinnon (Magallanes), Anna Forés (Arica and Parinacota), Víctor Montori (Bío Bío), Divya Chander (Valparaíso), Miguel Alcubierre (Tarapacá), Bruno David (Atacama), Nora Volkow (Antofagasta), Raphael Milliere (Coquimbo), Sir Partha Dasgupta (Maule), Yngve Torgersen (Los Lagos), Flavia Costa (Aysén), María Martinon (O higgins) and Marina Otero (Ñuble) among others, will be part of the programming of Congreso Futuro Regiones 2023.
“We will issue a Future Congress at the national level, from Arica to Magallanes, allowing us to decentralize access to science, technology, innovation and knowledge. That is why the work we are doing with regional universities – public and private – with each of the relevant social actors, National and International Awards, is so important,” said Senator Francisco Chahuán, President of the Future Challenges Commission.
Futuristic Maule
At the launch it was also announced that another big event is coming. Because science does not rest, after the realization of Future Congress, during the first months of 2023, Futurists will be held, an event of dissemination of knowledge and content laboratory for girls and boys in school stage organized by FEF, and that this time will be held in the Maule region, in an effort by the organization to continue decentralizing knowledge.
This instance will be executed by FEF together with the Autonomous University of Chile, bioquímica.cl; Government of the Maule Region and the Seremi of Education of the Maule Region and will seek to increase the motivation and attitude of children towards science through interactive, playful and entertaining scientific experiences.
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