SOCIAL DIALOGUE WITHIN THE GREEN TRANSITION
18/04/2024
Climate change significantly impacts health, livelihoods, and quality of life, making mitigation and adaptation essential. However, these measures can have unintended consequences, necessitating careful planning for a fair transition.
A major challenge is the lack of social acceptance, leading to local opposition to green initiatives like wind turbines and waste-to-energy facilities. Globally, projects such as biogas initiatives, waste-to-energy schemes, offshore wind farms, hydrogen cities, and the decarbonization of heavy industries face similar challenges.
In 12th Nordic Talks Korea, we delved into the importance of dialogue for achieving social and local acceptance within the green transition. The event aimed to foster a cross-regional dialogue on strategies, sharing insights and examples to overcome obstacles in realizing green infrastructure. Our discussions highlighted the need for collaboration and understanding to ensure sustainable and community-friendly development.
Tech talks transforming the future of food
21/11/2023
Transformation of the global food system is an urgent for human health, climate sustainability and the well-being of the planet. Food, being a fundamental aspect of human life, not only shapes local economies but also defines our communities and culture. Recent challenges like the pandemic, inflation, and conflicts have accentuated the importance of ensuring a stable and accessible food supply for all. This moment prompts us to ask critical questions – what are we eating, what are our local resources, how do we avoid wasting food?
The 12th Nordic Talks Korea focused on sustainable Food Tech, which involves cutting-edge technology to discover new ingredients and create innovative food streams. Food tech recognized as a response to challenges like food shortages and the imperative for sustainable food production. This includes advancements in new ingredients, long-term preservation methods, and the integration of smart cooking appliances and cooking robots. The discussions and examples during Nordic Talks Korea centred on emerging ingredients and their technologies, exploring sustainable ways to food production.
Bridging the gender divide in entrepreneurship
08/03/2023
Female entrepreneurship represents a potent untapped resource for economic growth. However, women are largely under-represented among entrepreneurs, especially in high-growth industries such as ICT and technology. How to effectively promote female entrepreneurship has become an important issue in many countries. The 11th edition of Nordic Talks Korea aimed to open discussions and create dialogue on the underlying issues such as bias and stereotypes, lack of access to capital and resources, and the challenges that women face in balancing family and work.
The event included a blend of presentations by Nordic and Korean experts and a subsequent panel discussion. The panel featured ambassadors from Finland and Sweden, and the presentations and discussion centered on key questions related to female entrepreneurship. These questions included the current state of female entrepreneurship, the significance of female entrepreneurship in emerging industries, and approaches to increasing the number of women entrepreneurs.
Nordic Innovation & circular economy
22/09/2022
For decades, the Nordics have been the forerunners of sustainable, energy-efficient, and eco-friendly innovative solutions for the Circular Economy. In 2021, The Korean government announced an implementation plan for the so-called Korean circular economy ("K-Circular Economy") with various policies to reduce waste and strengthen resource circularity using digitalisation.
This Nordic Talks Korea 10 addressed the following questions: what role will communities, companies and governments play in the conversation about the circular economy partnership? How can digitalisation, new technologies and design help the transition of the circular economy?
The 10th Nordic Talks Korea focused on ‘Nordic Innovation & Circular Economy’ consisting of two sessions
● Session 1: Close loop for circularity: Keep materials and customers in closed loops and sales ecosystems. Extend the lifespan through service, take-back, reuse and recycle of waste.
● Session 2: Rethink and Replace: Shift production to a circular production with renewable materials. Support the health of all ecosystems by designing products to recirculate and turn recovered biological resources back to the biosphere.
Air Quality & Health Impact
17/11/2021
The 9th Nordic Talks Korea will focus on the health related consequences of air-pollution. Ambient air pollution is a serious issue in South Korea — the country has the highest share of population exposed to excessive PM2.5 concentrations among all OECD nations, with Seoul doubling the WHO guidelines and levels of other major cities in development.
In recent years, Korea aims for a green transition, which will lead to beneficial effects as regards the public health. This Nordic Talks Korea event will highlight and discuss the positive effects of green transition as regards public health, e.g. cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases and cancer.
The 9th Nordic Talks Korea will focus on ‘Air Pollution’s Impact on Health” and deep-dive into two topics:
● Session 1: Air Quality - The Link to Climate Change and Need for Global Response.
● Session 2: Air Quality - The Health Impact and Long Term Costs.
AI, TECHNOLOGY & DEMOCRACY
06/14/2021
Some of today’s most far reaching societal changes are driven by technological disruption. The impact of AI and automation on the future of jobs; Big data on the protection of personal information; Social media on democratic dialogue and elections; Internet of Things on cyber security; Digital business models on taxation systems; and crypto-currency on global financial architecture. These trends - sometimes grouped together as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ - are international per design, transcending borders with an unprecedented speed, transforming almost all sectors of society, and impacting not only domestic markets but the global balance of power and established values and institutions.
Multinational tech companies driving this technological innovation have become extremely influential to the extent that their economic and political power match - or even surpass - that of governments. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult for policy-makers at all levels to keep up with the pace and impact of new technologies. The transformative nature of emerging technologies combined with the rise of powerful non-state actors are shaping foreign policy and geopolitics in new ways. As an example, cyber security have risen to top of the national security agenda, and 5G networks have become a contested issue internationally. As the Center for Long Term Cyber Security at UC Berkeley points out: ‘Digital geopolitics is no longer a layer superimposed on conventional geopolitics; digital is creating new alignments among new actors, and not only states.’
The 8th Nordic Talks Korea will focus on ‘AI, Technology & Democracy’ and deep-dive into two difficult but important topics:
Session 1: Governments & Tech Giants - Defining the future of mankind.
Session 2: Tech for Good - Impacting society, industries and planet earth.
Innovation for a Green Transition
02/25/2021
Korea has the potential to become the “climate champion” of Asia, as argued in an op-ed in JoongAng Daily (23 December 2020) signed by nine ambassadors including Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The Nordic countries have taken notice of Korea’s recent ambitious announcements and significant investments to move on a green path to the future. Implementing these ambitions will require great efforts to decarbonize energy production, transport, all industry segments, and consumption. Greener policies can create jobs, drive growth and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable economy. The return on investment will not be purely environmental but also social and economic.
From experience, we know such a green transition is possible. An innovation leader like Korea will find enormous stimulation in the challenge of transitioning to carbon-neutral or carbon-negative alternatives. At the 7th Nordic Talks Korea event we will share and discuss best cases, insights and learnings, as we in our own countries are also committed to creating low emission societies. We invite professionals and the public to review our examples and discuss how collaboration between industry, policy and society can create conditions to invest towards fossil-free competitiveness and accelerate innovation for green growth.
Sustainable Foods for All
05/11/2020
The world is not on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030. After decades of steady decline, the number of people who suffer from hunger has begun increase again in 2015, and it is estimated that if the current trends are set to continue, the number of people affected by hunger would surpass 840 million by 2030.
The 6th edition of Nordic Talks Korea focuses on the food technologies and innovations that aims to find solutions to end world hunger and ensure healthy lives. The Nordics are some of the leading countries within sustainable food innovation, and we aim to create discussions and give the Nordic perspective on how the world collectively can implement or start new initiatives and projects technologies.
COVID-19 and Health Tech: The Nordic Experience
23/10/2020
With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the world as it has been, there is now more need for countries to share their experiences on health tech responses and solutions than ever before.
In this Nordic Talks Korea event we will look at how COVID-19 has impacted Nordic health tech, and how the Nordics have used different untact health tech solutions and responses in their handling of COVID-19.
Genomics & Biobanks - Ensuring a Healthy Future
24/09/2020
As the fertility rate continue to decrease and a growing elderly population, South Korea is seeing huge demand for optimization in the public sector. With COVID-19, it is relevant more than ever to listen and learn from experts to find new solutions in healthcare and prevent new diseases.
Nordic Talks Korea IV focuses on the science and economics of biobanks and genomics with the aim to open discussions and create dialogue on the demographic challenges and economic constraints within the public sector. How will we use bio- and genome data in planning national health policies and prevention plans? Can we securely and efficiently manage bio- and gene banks? What are the challenges and benefits of using publicly available health data in product development?
Climate Change & Green Transition
27/06/2019
Artic explorer, Børge Ousland, a genius astrophysicist, Michael Linden-Vørnle from Denmark, and 11-year-old Junsu Hong attended as inspiring guest speakers for the event.
Welfare, Gender Equality and Quality of Life
25/04/2019
A project manager of Män from Sweden, Shahab Ahmadian, and Yako Kuosmanen from University of Helskinki in Finland attended the speech and outh Korean prosecutor Jihyun Seo had opening remark for the event.
Education & Employment in the Industrial Revolution
31/01/2019
EMERGE’S program director, Karolina Miller from Finland and Louise Prebo-Nielsen who is an author of ‘Future Navigator’ and futurist from Denmark, attended as inspiring guest speakers for the event.
