Two members of the Millennium Project Silicon Valley Node was on a visit to Azerbaijan

1/03/2017 Two members of the Millennium Project Silicon Valley Node, including the co-chair, Brock Hinzmann, accompanied by former computer scientist at Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems, Eileen McGinnis, travelled to Baku, Azerbaijan, at the invitation of MP Azerbaijan Node Chair, Reyhan Huseynova, of the Azerbaijan Futures Studies Society. ADA (formerly the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, which also hosted meetings with the MP Planning Committee in 2013) and the Sapphire City Hotel sponsored the trip. Most of the meetings dealt with IT and the future of work and related topics, as set forth in the MP 2050 Global Work/Technology Scenarios report.

Basic themes could be summarized in 5 areas:

1. ‘Azerbaijan as a crossroads,’ including 100,000 years of continuous habitation, historical migration north-south-east-west, and current ‘multi-vector’ relations between Former Soviet Republics, Iran, China, and the West. We visited the Carpet Museum and the Baku Museum of Modern Art and marveled at the buildings of the world famous womanarchitect, Zaha Hadid, and many others.                                  

The US Embassy is supporting a Maker Space, including 3D printing, at the American Center in Baku. At a class on Current Global Issues at ADA, we discussed the influences of technology on future society, from the affect of private self-entertainment technologies on personal behavior to the use of guaranteed basic income to encourage entrepreneurship in socially beneficial activities.

       2. ‘Young Entrepreneurs,’ including a presentation we gave and discussion with students at ADA on “Your Life in the Gig Economy,” and our participation in an ‘expert panel’ on starting up your own company and a pitching event by 8 teams at the Azerbaijan State University of Economics.

In a separate meeting at ADA, we met with local entrepreneurs, a Russian bank, and faculty, to discuss alternative approaches to starting up and financing new companies in Azerbaijan and Silicon Valley.

      3. Industry support for new technologies, including a meeting with local representatives of US-based companies and others at the American Chamber of Commerce.

The vice-president for Human resources, IT and regulations of SOCAR discussed plans to revise its IT platform and to increase its use of artificial intelligence, which he expects will eliminate some jobs, but also create new ones, particularly in specialized services.

      4. Uncertainty about the role of government to help entrepreneurs in the post-Soviet era. Some entrepreneurs expect government to do more to finance startup companies and to provide them with various resources, such as free access to IT infrastructure and cloud support. From the US point of view, such ‘help’ for entrepreneurs and ‘industrial policy’ is very controversial, especially where government appears to be choosing ‘winners and losers,’ but as I said in an interview with an Azerbaijani online television service, each country needs to work this out in a way that fits its own culture and society. All the talks are available on 1NEWS.AZ website:

     5. Government research and development. We met with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Communications of Communities and High Technologies to discuss the IT infrastructure and Azerbaijan’s recent investments in satellite technology. While we were there, the Ministry received news that ‘and Transportation’ had been added to its name.

At a large assembly of faculty and students at the Azerbaijan Technical University, we heard how students there are already winning international competitions and being placed in other countries for further product development, but we also received requests for more information about future technologies in intelligent manufacturing machines and how to apply concepts like 3D Printing and additive manufacturing and AI to large-scale production.

At the Institute of Information Technology (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences) we presented to a large group and answered questions about venture capital investments in IT in Agriculture.

We also met with the Director of the Center For Strategic Studies Under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, who outlined how all of the above requires foresight in planning, in order to realize its full potential in the global economy, and he is very supportive of the Futures Studies Society.