Vision’s initiatives can be divided in three different fields of interest each of these become on the web-site a “factory of ideas” supposed to associate to the projects (editorials or of a specific proposal to the policy maker) further experiences, competences and people. The three areas are related to the impact of information and communication technologies on production modalities and services (public health, transportation and public safety), on society and its fundamental structures’ transformations (family, generations relationships, culture in forums on society and globalization), finally on the challenges that Democracy (globalization and democracy) itself has to face on a national or international scale. Vision’s forums are still in progress, just like the process that Vision proposes, and therefore in some cases all the elements, that will define its structure, are not present (opinion polls, links…).
The first “factory of ideas” holds the elaboration of the projects that are part of the series that Vision has started a couple of years ago on “The Rise of the Information Society”. The series is divided by fields and analyses the improvements that technologies can make in the quality of the services that condition the well-being of a great number of people. The first project (The Return to the Net) published in 2002 described the impact of technologies on Public Health. The second (The Machine that changed the World, 2004), analyzed its effects on vehicles and on the future of the transportation system. Vision has just recently started the third and last research on the transformations that technologies accelerate in the organization of safety (Internet vs. Internet, to be concluded by 2005).
The second lab developes projects focused on cultural and habit mutations, relationships between generations, and the transformations that the family itself is undergoing. The collection Sport and Globalization, started from a Vision position paper on Olympics as a metafor of globalization, gathers under this original viewpoint contributions from young opinion leaders coming from several European countries. The Sleep of Reason (Reset-Marsilio 2004) is a collection in which are gathered the opinions of fifteen among economists, historians and journalists on the issue of “the crisis of rationality” opened by the attack to the World Trade Center. It is in definition process the study group that will analyze the Generation X’s Revolution: the intention is to verify – through a social analysis of different Countries - the hypothesis that a class – politically relevant - is being born marked by professional elements but most of all generational and of international mobility. To be elaborated is instead the position paper of the project on the Future of Families: the idea is to identify the initiatives that will solve some of the contradictions that split Society and the concept itself of family.
The challenges that globalization poses and the opportunities that technologies present seem to exceed the response capacity of traditional democracies. The Future of Democracy (will be published by 2005) identifies some of the structural problems of the types of democracies. The essay on the Reform of the United Nations (published in 2003 – in May from openDemocracy.net in England and in July from Reset in Italy) it is made of a collection of ideas on which Vision is developing the most ambitious of its projects. First meetings on the UN project are scheduled on October 29 in Bruxelles and on November 22 in London. Finally, Vision has always dedicated particular attention on Europe and on the future of the constituting process. After the recent transformations of the Union (the enlargement, the new Constitution) Vision is relaunching the project of a European Think Tank Lab.
The paper gathers articles written by Vision’s editorial staff or journalists friends to Vision: each contribute will be dedicated on present issues and interests and its purpose will be to stimulate answers and letters from the readers and launch opinion polls on issues of particular relevance.
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