the hammamet conerence 2018 - british council · the british council launched the hammamet...

Connecting, Creating and Empowering Leadership

THEHAMMAMETCONFERENCE SERIES

THE HAMMAMETCONFERENCE 2018TRANSFORMING ECONOMIES:THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES9 - 10 NOVEMBER 2018www.britishcouncil.tn/en/hammamet

#HammametConf

The British Council launched the Hammamet Conference series in 2012 after the ‘Arab Spring’, as an arena in which younger, emerging influencers from North Africa and the United Kingdom could meet and debate together with a more established cadre of leaders from the UK. The first conference “sought to look beyond the immediate needs of reconstruction and economic development, and to create a platform to enable shared understanding and trust to flourish between leaders in North Africa and the UK.” It succeeded in this, and a network of Hammamet alumni (sometimes known as ‘fellows’) was established, which continues to this day.

By 2018, both Europe and North Africa had changed a good deal. The heady days of 2011 seem long ago, and the countries of the North African coast have proceeded variously into reform, stasis, and civil war. In Europe, these years have seen recurrent challenges associated with austerity, political upheaval and the rise of populism. Racism and hostility to immigration have become unhappy features of political discourse. In the UK, a cocktail of different factors has led to a decision to leave the EU. ‘Brexit’ is the biggest single political reversal in British post-war history, and one, which has upset the political mould dramatically.

In a different-looking world, our needs and aspirations are different. Leadership is imagined in new areas and new ways. And the ‘Hammamet’ of 2018 is different, too. This year we are focusing on a key cross-cutting element in all our economies – that of tech-based start-ups, with their potential to stimulate growth, change, and disruption. The Hammamet participants gathering from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom will be the creators and facilitators of new kinds of business, based on the potential of the internet and the imaginative drive of a generation which understands, and feels, its potential to re-make economies, mentalities and nations.

With barriers to the movement of people being thrown up between Europe and North Africa, and still unresolved questions about the movement of trade in goods and services between the UK and the European continent, new ideas, new practices and new thinkers are needed. Assembling at Hammamet in November 2018, leaders, emerging and established, will be seeking ways of transcending, and making irrelevant, all such barriers – and of building a shared prosperity on foundations that were barely imaginable twenty years ago.

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We build links between UK people and institutions and those around the world, helping to create trust and lay foundations for prosperity and security globally.

We work with over 100 countries in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society.

Each year we reach over 50 million people direct (face-to-face, at events and digital social media), plus more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.

ABOUT THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE SERIES

ABOUT THE BRITISH COUNCIL

CONNECTING, CREATING AND EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP

01THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE SERIES | HAMMAMET, TUNISIA 2018

CONTENTSWELCOME

A WORD FROM OUR CO-CHAIRSClaire Spencer Co-Chair, Hammamet 2018Khaled Diab Co-Chair, Hammamet 2018

YOUNG MEDITERRANEAN VOICES: YOUTH DEBATE

THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE: PROGRAMME INTRODUCTION

THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE 2018 AGENDADay OneDay TwoDay Three

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02 THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE SERIES | HAMMAMET, TUNISIA 2018


WELCOME

As the only high-level forum bringing together the countries of North Africa and the UK, the Hammamet Conference series provides a unique opportunity for dialogue around the challenges faced by leaders in all countries in achieving social, economic, cultural and education reform and development. The conference takes place in a safe and neutral setting, allowing participants from North Africa and the UK - from a variety of backgrounds - to interact, create opportunities, build connections, promote trust and understanding, and learn from one another. We warmly welcome new and returning Hammamet participants, each of whom is recognised as a leader in their field and brings insight, energy, motivation and commitment that will inform the dialogue over the next two days. We are also delighted to welcome our new conference Co-Chairs, Claire Spencer and Khaled Diab, whose expertise, experience and knowledge will help shape our thinking.

This year, we address the challenge of the digital era and the innovative technologies which are affecting us all. This theme, chosen following consultation in North Africa and the UK, is more relevant than ever to the Hammamet ambition to promote stronger interactions across the region and build a greater mutual understanding between the countries of North Africa and the UK. So, we invite you to share your ideas and experience, embrace the spirit of collaboration and, indeed, enjoy yourself in what we have no doubt will be two stimulating days.

We very much look forward to the discussions that will follow. With best wishes,

Robert Ness,Director British Council Tunisia

It is our privilege to welcome you to this year’s Hammamet Conference 2018. The flagship Hammamet Conference Series has firmly established itself as an international platform for dialogue and the strengthening of relations between North Africa and the UK since first convened in 2012.


A WORD FROM OUR CO-CHAIRSCLAIRE SPENCER CO-CHAIR, HAMMAMET 2018

Welcome! It is a great honour to have been invited to co-chair this year’s Hammamet Conference, which I have attended as a UK participant on two previous occasions. I have worked with the British Council as an advisor to the Young Arab Analysts Network International (YAANI) launched as a regional programme across North Africa and the Levant in 2011 and co-authored a policy review of the Young Arab Voices – now Young Mediterranean Voices – programme in 20161.

I have recently moved on from the ‘think tank’ world, where I led the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the UK’s foremost foreign policy institute, Chatham House. My aim is to pursue a freelance career exploring global change through the prism of new technologies and the economic possibilities they give rise to2, creative writing and a reflection on the relevance of turbulent periods of history to the current day - all at the same time. Whatever our specialisms or focus, we all need to be flexible polymaths now to address the rapid changes going on around us, including in the unpredictability of our working lives.

The public policy world I entered as a junior researcher 30 years ago has changed beyond all recognition; at that time, ‘experts’ were drawn from very limited academic, foreign and security policy circles. Foreign and domestic policy decisions are now made under a much wider (and too often, narrower) range of influences than was apparent then; instant global communications and a dense web of geopolitical and economic interconnections now affect all of us in whichever sector we work, and wherever we live.

Specialisms, above all technical and scientific, still underpin the rapid innovations we are experiencing in the physical and virtual worlds. But just as important are the ‘so what?’ questions accompanying the impact of new technologies on specific geopolitical contexts. We are at the early stages of assessing the role of culture as more people connect and intermix, of convincing governments and funders to adopt and implement technological responses to global warming and the linked challenges of finite natural resources and damage to the natural environment, and of responding, inclusively, and within and beyond nation-state boundaries, to the ways in which people in different places react to, and engage in events taking place a long way from their everyday lives.

None of this is easy, but we live in an era replete with possibilities as well as risks. Nowhere is the potential of ‘disruption’ – both positive and negative – more evident than in the fast-changing digital world, many dimensions of which we will be discussing over the next couple of days. I invite you all to think outside your particular box to find new insights and connections whilst here and look forward to being part of the journey. The best ideas often start from a single new encounter.

Claire Spencer, PhD.

1Claire Spencer & Saad Aldouri ‘Young Arab VoicesMoving Youth Policy from Debate into Action’, Chatham House, May 2016

https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2016-05-13-young-arab-voices-spencer-aldouri.pdf

2My starting point for thinking about this dates back to 2012: ‘Reform, round twoThe Arab world has new politics—now it needs new economics’ Prospect Magazine, August 2012https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/claire-spencer-economic-impact-of-the-arab-spring-refor-round-two


KHALED DIAB CO-CHAIR, HAMMAMET 2018

It is a great honour to return to the Hammamet conference, this time as a co-chair. The theme is one of vital importance to the Euro-Med region, including the UK and North Africa, both for its present and for its future. Technological change has radically changed the way we work, socialise, shop, travel, and even how we relate to ourselves, our families, our friends and our societies - and this is as much the case for laypeople as it is for techies.

There is no reason to doubt that even greater change is around the corner, with enormous socio-economic implications. This will create massive new opportunities for disruptive and creative development, but will also carry the risk for bringing about destructive disruption. To maximise the positive potential and minimise the negative fallout requires anticipating tomorrow, today. We need to find ways of forecasting and monitoring the impact of technological developments.

When we think about and assess the technological landscape, we need to move beyond a narrow focus on economics and profit-maximisation, to take a holistic view of the socio-economic and environmental role we wish technology to play. This involves creating a national, regional and global regulatory environment which better utilises the benefits of new technologies, while removing, or at least minimising the harm. This may involve, for instance, accelerating automation, and, more radically perhaps, sometimes slowing down automation or even de-automating may be more beneficial.

As a journalist and writer, these questions fascinate me. My main interest in these areas is not so much the new technologies, amazing and mind-boggling as they undoubtedly are, but the intersection between technology, science and society. In my journalism and writing, I have explored the past, present and future of the MENA region and Europe. One question that especially fascinates me is what are the factors determining societal development and progress, whether these correspond to common perceptions, and whether they can be modelled and replicated elsewhere, or whether ‘success’ depends on a unique combination that differs from one place to another and one time to another.

I very much look forward to exploring these issues with you all and learning from such a singular gathering of experts in so many different fields.

Khaled Diab


The 2018 Conference will begin with a formal debate between two teams of young Tunisians, trained under the Young Mediterranean Voices (YMV) programme. They will debate the motion “This house believes that technological evolution is gradually making humans obsolete.”

YOUNG MEDITERRANEAN VOICES (YMV)

Since its launch in Tunisia in 2011, Young Arab Voices (YAV) has established a network of 60 debate clubs in schools, universities and civil society organisations covering all regions of Tunisia. Together they have organised debate training for over 7,500 young people and more than 900 public debates engaging over 10,000 young men and women.

The positive experience of the origin Young Arab Voices (YAV) programme created the ground for the launch of the new Young Mediterranean Voices (YMV) programme which is now funded by the EU. The objective of this three-year programme is to empower young people to embrace a culture of dialogue, to contribute to public policy and shape media discourses, and to create a shared understanding with peers across the Mediterranean on how to address issues of common concern to their communities.

We are strengthening the existing Young Mediterranean Voices (YMV) network by creating new hubs to ensure a greater geographical reach, whilst also engaging hard-to-reach and marginalised communities.

YOUNG MEDITERRANEAN VOICES: YOUTH DEBATE


THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE: PROGRAMME INTRODUCTION

In the six years since the Hammamet Conference series was founded the MENA region has changed a good deal, as has Europe, and it now seems to the conference organizers that a tighter focus is required to reflect some of the emerging complexities in our respective regions. Until now ‘leadership’ has been the dominating theme in various forms, but in 2018 we see the need for more specific questions and answers, and to prepare a more concrete road-map, building on the conference’s conclusions and connections. For North Africans, deeper involvement with Europe is as necessary as ever, but more difficult to achieve in a maze of tightening visa controls and growing security concerns. For Britons, with Brexit looming and new political and economic needs pressing, a much clearer understanding of North Africa is vital to exploring new ways of engaging with Europe’s neighbours.

One of the defining features of our time is the fast-changing interaction between technology and people. This raises numerous opportunities and challenges to explore: how digital technology can be used to build new possibilities for economic activity and answer social needs through employment and growth - above all for young people and marginalised communities who are suffering most from economic insecurity? How can technology be directed towards fostering greater social and gender equality as well as real opportunity, rather than concentrating wealth, impeding disruptive innovation, creating de facto monopolies and destroying jobs that cannot swiftly be replaced?

The digital skills-base across much of North Africa is growing rapidly, and the barriers to entry remain relatively low, but the legal, financial and digital infrastructures required for the sustained success of the region’s innovators often lag behind those of the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The beginnings of a new ‘eco-system’ are nevertheless being created, along with the potential to vault the traditional hurdles separating people and businesses. New digital applications are also transforming existing economic sectors through greater connectivity into the region’s hinterlands.

The 2018 Hammamet Conference will bring together thinkers and innovators from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Kingdom, to share solutions and understand the possibilities of collaboration. Tunisia is an appropriate host having passed a remarkable new start-up law in April 2018 and with a draft Social Enterprise law now being debated. These provide a useful basis for discussion and their architects will talk to the conference about the thinking behind them as well as next steps, as a stimulus to thinking about enabling environments more generally.

This year’s Hammamet Conference will look at a whole array of digital start-ups, clusters and success stories across a range of business and social sectors, sharing experiences


and best practice from all sides of the discussion. As the only conference that specifically brings North African and UK citizens together in the same discussion, Hammamet provides a unique forum in which to learn how others are devising solutions to similar global and local socio-economic challenges, albeit from different starting points and often very varied contexts.

For the next generation of digital entrepreneurs, whether British or North African, the horizons of international trade, commerce and social entrepreneurship are set to evolve in new and creative directions, notwithstanding the teething problems associated with regulating online security and privacy and the monopolising tendencies of some of the existing ‘tech giants’. How to sustain smaller and socially responsible endeavours in an increasingly inter-penetrated and commercially predatory global environment will be a key challenge, just as streamlining the interface between technology and the physical infrastructure will need more strategic attention for both the UK’s and North Africa’s emerging ‘unicorns’ to thrive internationally. Exploring new, supple and effective partnerships between the UK and North Africa is thus an important component of a larger discussion about the risks, benefits and opportunities offered by wider global digital trends.

Hammamet in 2018 will address this nest of issues, firstly through familiarising participants better with what already exists – as best practice and innovation - on both sides of the UK-North African experience. This will combine with areas of policy, infrastructure, funding and networking that need further development within and between the two regions. Although the conference will primarily be about the conditions needed to encourage growth in digitally-driven start-ups and innovative partnerships, it is not a technology conference per se. Its focus is broadly cultural, with a particular focus on the possibilities offered by digital technologies to increase socio-economic inclusion. How can new forms of connectivity construct new and productive links in and between all our countries, and how can we structure a more open culture of innovation and the optimal conditions for partnership? How can we do this in a way that is liberating and empowering for young people, women and minorities often denied access to more conventional economic market-places? And what are the wider implications of this kind of creative international association?

Much of the programme time will be spent in groups discussing individual aspects of the overall digital equation, but there will also be time for participants to propose themes of their own. Participants will go home with a clearer understanding of what a facilitating environment should look like, and how to get there; a much broader knowledge of each other’s countries and contexts; and a deep personal immersion in the thinking and achievements of key people in countries to which they may not conventionally have easy access.

From the Conference will emerge, amongst much else, some clear thinking about how to build on new and existing links across and beyond the region to create more responsive environments to sustain digitally-based endeavours that also embrace positive social change. The reflections of the Conference will be synthesized by the two chairs, who are both professional writers and thinkers, into a challenging and provocative report designed to underpin country-specific debate and policy-conversations in the British Council’s programme of ‘follow-up’ activities to Hammamet in 2018-19.


THURSDAY 8 NOVEMBER18:30 - 19:30 Young Mediterranean Voices (YMV)

DEBATE by Tunisian teams from ‘Young Mediterranean Voices’.Motion: Technological evolution is gradually making humans obsolete

20:00 - 20:30 Welcome Reception

20:30 Opening Dinner

THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE 2018 AGENDAThis programme is subject to change DAY ONE


FRIDAY 09 NOVEMBER07:30 Breakfast

08:00 - 09:00 Registration

09:00 - 10:00 Formal Conference Opening and Welcome

10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:15 Session 1: Seeing things differently. What’s at the cutting edge, and what does it mean for us?

Conversation between Mike Gogan (UK), Ali Kahlane (Algeria), Shane Leahy (UK), Hassan Mansi (Egypt) - chaired by Claire Spencer

11:15 - 12:00 Session 2: What can digital do for North Africa, and what’s holding it back?

Round table on the North African context, chaired by Khaled Diab, withHassan Mansi (Egypt), Majda Rahal (Algeria), Selma Kabbaj (Morocco), Douja Gharbi (Tunisia), Mallek Aggiag (Libya)

12:00 - 12:15 Breakout Groups Briefing

12:15 - 13:15 Lunch

THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE 2018 AGENDAThis programme is subject to change DAY TWO


FRIDAY 09 NOVEMBER13:15 - 13:45 Session 3: Laying down the infrastructure of tech development

Conversation between Rym Jarou (Tunisia) and Birgitte Andersen (UK)– Chair Khaled Diab

13:45 - 15:30 Session 4: Breakout Groups


16:00 - 16:45 Session 5: Lessons learned from policy reform

Conversation between Leila Ben-Gacem (Tunisia), Birgitte Andersen (UK), Fadeel Lameen (Libya). Chaired by Claire Spencer

16:45 - 17:15 Session 6: The Industrial Data Revolution: How AI, Analytics and Blockchain are Creating Massive Opportunities for Student Entrepreneurs.

Philip Treleaven (UK)

17:15 - 18:00 Session 7: Open Session, feedback and thoughts for tomorrow

Chaired by Khaled Diab and Claire Spencer

20:00 Dinner

Room A

Social Impact Investing – how can new tech reach new audiences – above all in new or neglected sectors of the economy (health, education, recycling, local services)?

Room B

In-Country Context: regulation, funding models, policy and best practice – Is the future in techno hubs or can different models work to create national and local eco-systems?

Room C

Global Context – how can new tech transform old economic models of trade through international connectivity? Do incubators, accelerators and funding models interact sufficiently at the transnational level, or are there still barriers to the free movement of goods and services?


SATURDAY 10 NOVEMBER07:30 Breakfast

09:15 - 10:00 Session 8: Young Entrepreneurs – What we know that the older generation don’t – and how to bridge that gap

Conversation between Hanae Bezad (Morocco), Rich Woolley (UK), Rostom Bouazizi (Tunisia). Chaired by Khaled Diab

10:00 - 11:00 Session 9: The UK and North Africa

There are longstanding relationships but, particularly in the Maghreb, the UK has not fulfilled its potential as a partner. What is the offer, post-Brexit? Is North Africa, with its huge potential, digital skills, and access to the south, a natural fit?

Conversation between Kate English (UK), Noomane Fehri (Tunisia), Claire Spencer and Khaled Diab Chaired by Hisham Hellyer



13:00 - 14:00 Lunch

THE HAMMAMET CONFERENCE 2018 AGENDAThis programme is subject to change

DAY THREE

Room A

Decentralisation, New Tech and Regionalism – does tech-driven regional development offer a solution to the apparently compulsive centralism of most North African countries? Is it a real engine for the spread across North African societies of more equitable development?

Room B

Internationalism, Tech and Collaboration – the synergies of North Africa and Europe/UK seem clear. But given growing barriers to the movement of people, and increasing pressures to migrate for opportunity, can new tech provide better models? Can tech help leapfrog political and security-driven exclusion?

Room C

Demographics, Digital Technology and Youth – can tech address the problems of the labour markets and the lack of access to opportunity? Is there a bottom-up pressure of knowledge and skills developing which will change (is changing?) the fundamental nature and structure of North African societies?


SATURDAY 10 NOVEMBER14:00 - 15:00 Session 11: Open Session

Chaired by Claire Spencer



16:15 - 17:15 Session 13: What is needed and how to get there?

Breakout by Country: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, United Kingdom

17:15 - 18:00 Session 14: What should the reports focus on? What are the key lines of future development and action to take forward in country-specific events?

Chaired by Khaled Diab and Claire Spencer

18:00 - 18:15 Thanks and Formal Close

19:30 Dinner and Close

Room A

Gender and Minorities – how can new technology best help build and support gender equity and inclusion?

Room B

From Old Economies to New – what does cutting-edge communication capacity offer to efficiency, change and the transformation of old economic models?

Room C

Sustainable Futures – how can tech help address the challenge of finite resources and climate change through green business and environmental action?


CONNECTING, CREATING ANDEMPOWERING LEADERSHIP

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the hammamet conerence 2018 - british council · the british council launched the hammamet...

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