On Wednesday, Feb. 21, NetOne together with the NGO New Humanity in collaboration with the Holy See Mission to the United Nations, co-organized the initiative “AI: A Pathway to Global Peace and Integral Human Development,” which took place in New York, UNHQ, Conference Room 6, from 1:15 to 2:45 p.m. and was followed online from different parts of the world.

The Opening remarks by His Excellency Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, set the tone for the reflections, We stand at the precipice of a technological revolution unlike any other in human history. The emergence of AI is reshaping our world in profound and unprecedented ways. From revolutionizing industries to transforming the way we live, work, and interact, AI has become a driving force of change in the 21st century”.

In recent years, digital progress has brought significant opportunities and challenges, with serious implications in all areas of society. In this era of rapid technological change, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most powerful tools with the potential to transform societies, advance peace and achieve sustainable development. However, its ethical implications remain a subject of intense debate.

Maddalena Maltese, journalist and representative of the NGO New Humanity, moderator of the event’s panel discussion, recalled that “on January 1, Pope Francis, in his message for the International Day of Peace, raised urgent questions about AI: “What will be the consequences, in the medium and long term, of these new digital technologies? And what impact will they have on individual lives and societies, as well as on international stability and peace?” She also highlighted that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, discussing priorities for 2024, stressed that AI will affect all of humanity, reiterating the need for a universal approach to address it.

The panel discussion with multi-stakeholder dialogue on the ethical challenges posed by AI and strategies discussed the interplay between technical, ethical, political, legal and economic considerations.

Father Philip Larrey, professor of philosophy at Boston College, former dean of philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, and president of Humanity 2.0. laid out a number of pressing issues starting with the theme of peace. “ChatGPT or Gemini could write a perfect peace plan, looking at the situations we are living, but would we be willing to follow its directions?” Fr. Larrey said, emphasizing the human factor as decisive in the decisions to be made, even when it comes to lethal weapons. Another central theme of his talk was the empathy that machines can demonstrate and are sometimes preferred over the human element. “Humans understand meanings. Machines don’t, as much as machines are getting very, very good at simulating what we consider meaningful,” the Boston College professor insisted, warning of the increasingly difficult challenge of discerning what belongs to humans and what belongs to technology, with machines that in the future may even be programmed to feel feelings.

Laura Gherlone, a researcher in semiotics at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research in Argentina and a professor at the Catholic University of Argentina and a member of NetOne’s International Commission, spoke about Artificial Intelligence and, more generally, digital technologies in light of the thinking of digital decolonization. She argued that: “today, post-colonial contexts are at a crossroads: either falling behind or catching up. They are obliged, in other words, to dramatically accelerate certain processes that today embody a techno-centric, supposedly universal, model of knowledge: digitization and the implementation of AI systems are among these processes.”

She states that this process ” almost always comes at a very high cost, on at least three levels: at the economic and technical-structural level, at the social level and lastly, the accelerated and forced adoption of technological progress as a path towards a universal model of knowledge. She suggests: “the The ethical debate on AI could be greatly enriched through decolonial reflection, integrating, for example, the work of those collective movements committed to rethinking and redesigning technical architectures “from the South”, that is, theoretical-methodological and practical solutions that are often sidelined because they are far from profit logics”.

Closing the event were two best practices from civil society. Marianne Najm, a communications engineer based in Beirut, spoke on the ethics of AI and the concept of the digital oath for engineers and anyone active in the digital world. The project started in 2019 inspired by the Hippocratic Oath, the oath that most doctors take at the end of their academic journey. Just as the Hippocratic oath aims to awaken the human obligation of doctors, similarly the digital oath aims to awaken the human obligation of digital actors by directing their work toward ethically human-centered design.

Marcelle Momha, Cameroonian living in the United States, policy analyst and researcher specialized in artificial intelligence, emerging technologies and cybersecurity, had prepared an intervention on the AI 2030 community, which due to timing was not possible to illustrate, but her paper is available on this link bellow. “AI 2030 is a vibrant community of business leaders, data scientists, technical builders, and pioneering researchers dedicated to harnessing the transformative power of AI to benefit humanity while minimizing its potential negative impact.” She explained in his theme.

In his message for the World Day World Peace, the Holy Father remembers that “technological developments do not lead to an improvement of the quality of life all humanity, but on the contrary aggravate the inequalities and conflicts, can never be considered a real progress.” As organizations of civil society, we want to accompany the efforts of the United Nations and all those institutions that are working for an ethical commitment in the field of technology that sustains digital developments as a contribution to the promotion of human principles of peace and fraternity.

To review the live stream, you go to link: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1h/

To see the speeches again and for more information, go to: https://www.net-one.org/ia-una-via-per-la-pace-globale-e-lo-sviluppo-umano-integrale/

Source https://www.net-one.org

L'articolo AI: A Pathway to Global Peace and Integral Human Development proviene da New Humanity.

The journey 

Christianity and Socialism – two movements with very different characteristics – have been for long at loggerheads with each other, but have nevertheless both shaped world history in past centuries. It is based on the idea that the biggest challenges of the world today cannot be solved alone, DIALOP fosters dialogue of good willing persons, with secular and religious backgrounds, especially between Socialist/Marxists and Christians to create a transformative transversal ethic.

Bringing DIALOP to the World Youth Day is part of the “DialogUE Project” which, in collaboration with the European Community involves 14 civil society organizations, explores and develops the often challenging dialogue between different groups, in order to shape a Europe that is ever more an expression of that “unity in multiplicity”.

The preparation involving both Christian and Marxist-socialist experts started 6 months before the event, a committed and laborious path towards the WYD. The challenges were many, such as finding a dynamic way of mediating heavy content like conflict and communication, different languages, countries and backgrounds. “The emotion of standing before a generation that is hungry for a calming, reasoned, clear truth and hope and being able to give some of this”, Luisa Sello, one of the coordinators of the project shares her impressions.

Youth in dialogue

War and its destructive potential influence the structure of communication, transform the perception of facts, and instrumentalize language and mindsets. In such context, social media and digital technology may become traps of conspiracy and tendentious interests. Can we approach the truth? Can we react or are we convicted to destroy relationships with humans, countries, populations because of lies and misinformation? How can we keep making choices, build relationships, and stand with truth and justice?

The workshop addressed all these challenges and engaged the youth to build on proposals for the European Union, which will be collected and presented to the EU within the European Commission funding project CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme) in March 2024. After panels and dynamics discussions, the question “what can we do?” resonated among the youth. The desire of being part of a transformation as a changemaker is at the heart of each young person present.

Steven, from the USA, wants to become a priest and travel overseas to help people shared his perplexities: “I can’t even tell my parents to stop reading sources of information that are problematic. When Jesus returned from Nazareth he was rejected by his family. So many of us have lost hope. Where do we get our hope back? That’s why we’re here at the WYD.”

Adriana, a journalism student from Argentina felt encouraged by the workshop “Our role as the youth is very important to fight against disinformation and it can be done also in a fun way. If we create community we can be stronger.”

Towards a transversal ethics

The course of history depends not only on the strength of ideas but more heavily on the evolution of political and economic interests that integrate more than once only pale reflections of these ideas. The calling of Pope Francis in 2014 that inspired DIALOP to initiate a transversal dialogue continues to unfold.

When asked by a young person how to create a common ethical framework when there is so much division, Walter Baier, the President of the Party of the European Left answered: “Pope Francis said that we have to accept conflict as something natural, what we need to know is what to do with the conflict. The fact that Christians and marxists coming from very different traditions, even with very different languages, can sit together and work on a common framework is an example of dialogue.”

Angelina Giannopoulou, from transform!europe and José Manuel Pureza from Bloco de Esquerda also lectured besides Michele Zanzucchi and Ana Clara Giovani from Sophia University together with Maria Chiara de Lorenzo from the Focolare Movement. In the future, as part of DialogUE Project, DIALOP will hold other symposia on ecology and social policies. For more information, access https://dialop.eu

First published by focolare.org

L'articolo Communication in times of war: a transversal dialogue for a common ethics proviene da New Humanity.

L'articolo United World Project: a dream of fraternity is born proviene da New Humanity.

 Summary:

The project “Breaking Rays” will be implemented by 10 organizations both from EU MS and partner countries, involving 4 different continents.

In the light of high unemployment rates youth is facing nowadays worldwide, there is an economic as well as a personal cost: young people are not being allowed to work to their full potential and this could often lead to vulnerability and social disengagement of a generation full of energy that should contribute to inclusive growth in their countries.

One particular area today presents an opportunity for young people: In recent years in fact the ICT (information and communication technology) sector has been a large driver of GDP growth in many ACP, Latin America and Asian countries, primarily due to growth in mobile technology and internet use.

Inside the ICT field a sector that shows high potential is the news production and distribution: as the world becomes more globally interdependent, it is vital for people to understand that what is happening outside their countries has a direct impact on their lives and their country (as migration flows towards Europe demonstrates), in order to share problems and best practices, underlining solutions useful to influence decision making processes and prevent crises

For this reason the project aims to combine training activities oriented to develop in young people professional skills on reporting and communication of news, with a very modern approach, together with the civic purpose to offer visibility to local communities’ needs and experiences, giving space and value for citizens’ participation. The project will be developed through 3 mobility training activities in IT, BR and PHI which are complementary in order to build up some film-makers’ professional profiles.

The project title “Breaking rays” (quoting the technical journalism expression “Breaking News”) underlines the will to focus on positive and constructive social commitment of associations and grass roots NGOs, connecting them in an international platform which could amplify the impact of such actions and stimulate the replicability in other communities: this so called “glocal” approach will contribute to overcome a feeling of isolation and “not being listened to” by centres of power that local contexts are suffering and to raise the quality of local reporters in communicating their stories.

In this sense, the established network owns a strong potential putting together international NGOs, an enterprise working in communication/media and local NGOs in 4 different continents, offering a possible way to face educational challenge and unemployment through synergies among various stakeholders.

Acquired skills will foster the quality of staff in partner organization of partner countries and their potentials to elaborate successful projects thanks to a more powerful communication strategy: on the other side local communities’ capacities to influence all levels of decision-making will be reinforced.

Key-words:

Youngsters, Reporter, Audio-Video, Positive news.

Plan of Activities:

3 mobility activities:

• 29 June -7 July 2017: 9 days of  training in Castelgandolfo (Italy) about social documentary and story-telling (goals and production-making). For 22 young people (2 from each partner)
• 3-10 February 2017: 8 days of training at the “Mariapolis Ginetta” Center (Brazil), about social communication, including study-visitis to NGOs engaged into the fraternity promotion and possibility to realise interviews and reports from the local situation. For 22 young people (2 from each partner).
•  27 June – 4 July 2017: 8 days of training in the Philipines, about live communication management of an international event. For 50 participants (40 young people and 10 trainers) during the days before the GenFest event.

Each local partner will realise a least 3 audio-video reports about relevant experiences at the end of the training period.

Audio-visual material about the GenFest will be gathered and produced on the occasion of that international event as well and will promote all the good practices linked with the promotion of the principle of fraternity.

An internet platform will gather and promote such good practices. A mobile/tablet application will be created and further managed by New Humanity.

Project Partners

New Humanity International NGO (Italy), leading partner
CSC Audiovisvi Soc. Coop. arl (Italy),
Starkmacher (Germany),
Opus Mariae (Kenya),
Focolare Ireland (Ireland),
UJ Varos (Hungary),
Pag-asa (Philippines),
Civitas (Brazil),
Focolare Society Bombay (India),
YayasanDuniaBersatu (Indonesia)

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Phase 1

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Phase 2

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Phase 3

Check all the Video realised by the Young Reporters for Change!

More Information

Vimeo

Co-financed by: 

L'articolo Breaking Rays Project: “Young Reporters for Change” proviene da New Humanity.

New Humanity shared its vision on the topic of children’s rights in relations to the digital environment, in order to contribute to the General Comment that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is writing on this topic.

Shared Responsibility. As expressed by prof. Juan Garcia Gutierrez, a New Humanity expert in this area, the NGO of the Focolare Movement believes that the protection and promotion of children’s rights with respect to the digital space should be a shared responsibility among families, educators and public and legislative institutions, and it should follow a human right-based approach.

Priorities. Here are the top priority issues for New Humanity:

•    Considering the right of access to the Internet, including its neutrality, as a right of its own, is particularly valuable to guarantee other rights to children and young people, such as the right to education or freedom of expression;

•    Reflect on the scope of children’s right to play and to free time (as recognized by Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), and its translation into the digital world;

•    Promote a permanent education in the technological field (digital or media literacy, literacy with respect to codes, etc.), as a digital competence that covers in a unified way the various levels of use and meaning.

Download the full text of the contribution offered by New Humanity (Spanish)

L'articolo New Humanity offers its vision on minors and cyber space at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) proviene da New Humanity.

The Project “Breaking Rays” is completed and it’s the moment to show what the young people involved in the project accomplished.

So far, they put together more than 50 videos to give visibility to the needs of local communities in different areas of the world, in a way that gives space and value to citizens’ participation while developing new professional skills in reporting and sharing news.

Here are the reports made so far:

Breaking Rays Video-summary: First Phase

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Second Phase

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Third Phase

More Videos

July 2017

September 2017

November 2017

February 2018

April 2018

June 2018

Genfest 2018

30-06-2018

05-07-2018

06-07-2018

07-07-2018

08-07-2018

09-07-2018

13-7-2018

18-07-2018

30-07-2018

10-08-2018

 27-08-2018

September 2018

December 2018

L'articolo “Breaking Rays”: Find all the videos that the young people involved in the project made! proviene da New Humanity.

Read the Report
Read the card of the 9 projects presented by New Humanity

40 Good Practices and Policies. “We believe – the Report reads – that the time is ripe to circulate a compendium of good policies and practices that relate directly to Compact goals and that Member States, Civil Society and other actors have already implemented with shared interest, effort and commitment.”

The Host-Spot Project is presented as an international initiative funded by the European Commission, promoted in 2016-2017, with the purpose of “spreading a culture of understanding and of promoting respect for human rights”. The project engaged “young volunteers from 9 countries volunteering at welcoming centers in Jordan” where they experienced “face-to-face encounters with refugees and what they experienced each day”.

Goal 17. The report also highlights how the documentaries on the stories of migrants produced by the young people involved in the project helped spread real-life stories of refugees at a European and international level, thus contributing to “eliminating all forms of discrimination and promoting a public debate based on factual data in portraying the phenomenon of migration”, as envisaged in Goal 17 of the Global Compacts for Migrants and Refugees.

Contribution to SDGs. The report also highlights how the Host-Spot Project contributes directly to the achievement of Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and it is in agreement with paragraph 8 of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants (NYD) and paragraph 84 of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).

The other projects presented by New Humanity although not present in the final version of the report are Back to Africa, Together for a new Africa (Africa, 2018-2021), Interfaith Welcome Coalition (San Antonio, USA, 2014 to today), Sewing Peace (Syria, 2012), Creating a system – Beyond the Initial Welcome (Italy, 2016), The Village of Joy (Seoul, South Korea, 2003-2016), Africa’s Friends (Freiburg, Switzerland, 2002 to today), Maison Notre Dame (Lebanon, 2005 to today), Social Cooperative “Missione Famiglia (Italy, 2018).

L'articolo The HOST SPOT Project of New Humanity Among the Good Practices Promoted by the NGO Committee on Migration (CoM) proviene da New Humanity.

“Breaking Rays”, Third Phase

The third phase of the Breaking Rays Project (composed of 3 phases respectively in Italy, Brazil and the Philippines) ended on 9 July, 2018, in Manila on the occasion of the Genfest event – the international meeting by the New Humanity Youth Section (Youth for a United World), entitled “Beyond all Borders”.

Marco Aleotti, Kim Rowley and Paola Cipollone – the initiative coordinators – provided us with a full report of the event while trying to follow the rules of good journalism, according to the 5 “W”s: Who, What, Where, When, Why.

Why

Genfest 2018. The third phase of the project was strategically planned to take place at the Genfest event: an international youth meeting entitled Beyond all borders.
What a better occasion for an international group of media operators than to work for an event with 6,000 young people from all over the world, from many cultures and religions?

The Genfest provided fertile ground to experience first-hand what it means to overcome stereotypes, to tell real stories that are more convincing than any theories.
The task was to tell why those young people were there, share how they were trying to go “beyond” their differences and expand on the reason behind an experience shared on stage, or a song or a dance, a workshop, or a social project.

The task was also to tell stories that give visibility to important choices that can have an impact in a given territory, stories that tell about small daily gestures of forgiveness, proximity to the poor, attention to the environment.

What

Work Experience in the Field. This phase of the project was clearly different from the previous ones. In fact, the Breaking Rays program in Italy and Brazil consisted mainly in training workshops, while this time it was pure work experience in the field.

The work carried out was primarily the documentation and dissemination of audio-visual content on the Genfest event. Breaking Rays, however, offered participants a new perspective: not so much to document an event but to tell stories, the stories of the young people present, of the promoters of the event, of the actors on stage, of the young people that attended from all over the world.

The purpose? Offer content in which youth can identify themselves and feel challenged by the Beyond All Borders motto.

The program was articulated in a few parts:
– Introduction and getting to know one another (teambuilding with 50 young people from 12 different countries)
– Finalize the communications plan of the Genfest and Youth for a united World event and share it with the whole group
– Breaking up into working groups for video production, photographers, the IT department for recording and cataloguing the main video feed of the event, streaming and publication on YouTube of the entire 3 day event program divided into 56 thematic clips.
– Management of social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) of the Genfest and Youth for a united world event.
– Production of over 30 short videos for YouTube Genfest and Youth for a United World channels
– complete photo documentation published in 8 thematic albums on Flickr on the Genfest website and made available to the press team.
– Creation of a 47-minute video program with documentation and interviews on the Genfest, behind the scenes and parts of the program – and 4 reports on social projects and cultural initiatives in the Philippines :

Genfest 2018 – Video Summary
Genfest 2018 – “Tulong tulong”, Helping one Another
Genfest 2018 – Open Hands
Genfest 2018 – Erick’ s Eatery
Genfest 2018 – “Pag-asa”: There is Always Hope

Who

The 50 participants in the Breaking Rays project came from 12 countries (Philippines, Indonesia, India, Burundi, Kenya, Italy, Ireland, Malta, Hungary, Germany, and Brazil).
They worked together with a large group of about 50 Filipinos youth involved in the media field in various ways. All together they formed the International Communications Team – ICT of the Genfest 2018 “Beyond all borders”.

About half of the 50 participants had participated in the previous sessions of Breaking Rays and were like yeast that positively mixed with the rest of the group offering motivation, teamwork skills, problem-solving and storytelling skills.

In the ten-year long activity of New Humanity as a promoter / organizer of events, it was probably one of the first times when the communication of an event – in this case the Genfest – was managed by a group that was so diverse in age, geographic origin and skills.

The Project participants included filmmakers, photographers, journalists, social media managers and IT experts. Those already established professionally were generous with their knowledge and were constantly available to share, offering support and guidance through the various stages of production. As in the other stages of Breaking Rays, we experienced how working side by side – adults and young people – was beneficial to both groups.

The adults discovered new creativity and communication techniques and the young people matured career choices and learned about the responsibility that comes with communications, including dealing with ethical questions, fostering respect for different cultures and religious affiliations.

When

The Project took place from 2 to 9 July 2018 and was structured in three phases. The first, from 2 to 5 July, was dedicated to content creation to promote and get to know 1) the Philippines as the host country, 2) Youth for a united world who were promoting the event, 3) stories related to the issues that would be addressed at the Genfest, 4) the ‘behind the scenes’ of the Genfest. The second phase, from 6 to 8 July, was dedicated to documenting the event itself along with the immediate dissemination of the contents produced. The third phase, on Day 9, was dedicated to finishing up various tasks and sharing impressions.

Where

In Manila, the ICTeam set up base camp in a conference room at the hotel where the participants were housed, and then transferred to a room in the World Trade Center where the Genfest took place.

Once again the true novelty of Breaking Rays was the attention to relationships. The job of a communicator risks becoming more and more individualistic, dependent on the logic of power and consumption.

Breaking Rays, instead, promoted strong and mature group work in interviewing, choosing images, music, graphics. Every choice was the result of an open exchange in great respect for the creativity of each person and openness to the other person’s contribution.  This created a work environment that was inclusive, attentive to minorities, while also catering to the needs of end-users rather than imposing a message.

So, all-round relationships: within the group, with colleagues from other sectors, with the people interviewed, with the social media users, with the surrounding environment…. This also made it possible to overcome the inevitable logistical difficulties, unexpected issues, tensions due to the workload and pressure to plan, shoot, edit and deliver in a very short amount of time.

During the sharing and debriefing session on the last day, everyone expressed the desire to continue the project. They urged us to continue this kind of work together, since this experience of life within their profession that was so fruitful.

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Phase 3

L'articolo “Beyond All Borders”: Last Phase of the “Breaking Rays” Project proviene da New Humanity.

“Breaking Rays”, Second Phase

Twenty young people from different countries (Brazil, Italy Hungary, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Kenya and Burundi) and with a variety of skills, gathered at Mariapolis Ginetta for the second training phase of the “Breaking Rays” Project. Their work will be coordinated by professional trainers
Read more on focolare.org

Read more on focolare.org

Breaking Rays Video-summary: Phase 2

(Photo by © Davi Teixeira Breaking Rays Brazil)

L'articolo Reporters of Change: Second phase of the project “Breaking Rays” proviene da New Humanity.