Data, migration and local development as main topics at the Tunis Forum on Innovation in Politics

"The world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data", according to a publication of The Economist.   

With these words, the first chapter of the Tunis Forum on Innovation in Politics (TIP) begins.   

On Saturday, December 11, the most important event in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) took place, which "is a two-day event that aims to expose pioneering policy work, bringing together brilliant minds from the field, making use of their expertise to identify innovative approaches to policy, as a study or as a practice" according to the official website.   

The event kicked off with several interventions, the first of which was initiated by Yara Asmar, Regional Strategy Manager at Friedrich Naumann Foundation MENA.   

Yara Asmar, speaking about the Middle East and North Africa region, kicked off her speech by addressing the problems the MENA region has had to face and their consequences, taking the Arab Spring as the first example.   

"Ten years of transition in the region have taught us that change is not a moment, it is not an instant, it is a process that has to be embraced, accepted, designed, implemented and then tested, and this exercise has to be repeated again and again," he added.   

Yara also affirmed that the forms of oppression previously used are no longer applicable thanks to the changes that have taken place, referring to innovation, which "increases the level of citizen participation.

Following his speech, Clinton du Preez, Master of Ceremony and associate at Anew, spoke.  

"When we think about innovation and solutions, the conversation tends very quickly to technology," Clinton communicated, kicking off the first chapter of TIP, which "explores the role of data in driving innovation and transforming our future."  

Clinton du Preez is followed by a presentation highlighting how Artificial Intelligence and data are changing today's democracies.   

Bachar El-Halabi, Lebanese activist and geopolitical analyst specializing in the MENA region, continues the event by pointing out that "innovation is critically important in contemporary economies", and that it " contributes to the strength of the economy through job creation, income generation and long-term economic growth".  

Bachar El-Halabi then introduces the rest of the team, made up of experts in different sectors such as David Carroll, Associate Professor of Media Design, Teresa Wildok, Head of Civil Rights and Rule of Law, Noomane Fehri, former Minister of Technology and Communication and Ana Perez Garcia, expert in Commercial and International Business Development. 

Noomane Fehri's speech begins, noting that "it's no longer about data being a tool to produce, but data is actually a source of wealth."  

"Data is transforming the way we do things. It started transforming (...) business models, hotels and travel, it's like a tsunami," added the former minister.  

However, Noomane points out that data gives rise to new dilemmas.   

"Data means knowledge, and knowledge creates gaps, gaps between people who know and between people who don't know," Noomane communicated.   

One of the gaps, the former minister points out, would be that of "expectations," due to the fact that "people, specifically young people, have access to data globally, so they have a global expectation globally, while their leaders have local means. This means that everything has been changing with the exception of even political governments."  

Following Noomane's line, David Carrol explained that "the relationship between data, the attention to manipulation (...) can potentially lead to negative effects (...), it may potentially not be supporting democracy, but may be having effects on democracy that are detrimental", taking as an example the assault on the Capitol after the U.S. elections.   

Next, Ana Perez Garcia highlights the importance of data in startups or emerging companies.  

"Data is the new oil, we have seen it before, I believe it is the goal," expressed Ana Pérez García.   

She also emphasizes "how powerful data is as a tool to create new business models, and to bring this business model to new solutions to existing problems."  

"Data is a tool to make decisions, a data-driven decision is an important part of any startup," she added ending her speech.  

Back to David Carroll, he makes a brief intervention in which he expresses that the United States and to other countries have not really implemented data protection as a basic human right, which he believes is the main problem.   

"We have not understood the relationship between data and dignity," David expressed.   

"We haven't gotten out of the definition of privacy and companies take advantage of that, and then democracies suffer," he explained ending his speech.

"Demographic movements create new energies, new opportunities, changes in populations, stimulate creativity, human migrations create new jobs (...)", with these words the second day of TIP begins.   

Dirk Kunze, Regional Director, opens the first chapter of the day by pointing out that "for thousands of years, millions of people have migrated (...) they went to other lands, and they went to other lands for one reason or another, but very often to seek a better life for themselves and their children."  

"Emigrants change the culture when they come to another country, but they also introduce new ideas, new costumes, new cuisines, they are all this," adds Kunze.   

During the event, there was also the participation of Sana Afouaiz, co-founder of Womenquake, who pointed out that the concept we have today of migration is very biased since, when we think of the term, we don't think of ourselves when we travel to other places, but we think directly of foreigners coming to our country.

Yusuf Mansur, president of the Board of Trustees of Talal Abu Ghazaleh University, expresses that "innovation is not about inventions, it is not about creativity, it is about the application of ideas, new ideas are applied to create a new way of producing something." 

"Innovation is about disruption, not about the status quo, and what better disruptor than immigration," Mansur added.   

"Europe needs talents, and talents need Europe, it is a mutually beneficial relationship, it is a two-way relationship," as communicated by Luis-Miguel Bueno Padilla, Regional Media Officer and EU Arab Spokesperson in the MENA region.  

He added that "migration is not a problem, migration is a phenomenon that has always been there and will always be there (...) it is a natural phenomenon".  

The last chapter of the event "explores the impact of digital transformation and e-governance on the process of sustainable development and analyzes the impact of innovation in rural areas and cities in the MENA region," according to the official TIP website.  

Radu Magdin, global analyst, consultant, trainer and think tank, begins the presentation of the rest of the experts, and starts his speech by pointing out that local development needs innovation. 

Warwick Chapman, consultant to political parties and startups around the world clarifies that "we are going to experiment, and that experimentation is so crucial to innovation, you can't innovate without experimenting".