Unloc’s Programme Facilitator for Entrepreneurial Skills & Career Pathways, Christopher Amedu, recently represented Unloc at the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna.
The Forum is an international management conference ran by the Peter Drucker Society Europe.
The conference is dedicated to Peter Drucker, (1909-2005) one of the most widely-known and influential thinkers on management, whose work continues to be used by managers’ worldwide. You can read more about Peter Drucker and his impact by clicking here.
Chris was kind enough to record his thoughts during the forum, so we thought we’d share them with you all too:
“My name is Christopher Amedu and I’m a Programme Facilitator here at Unloc. My job is to deliver inspiring programmes based on entrepreneurship and personal development to young people, to inspire, empower and help develop their potential.
The Global Peter Drucker Forum conference gathers the world’s leading management practitioners to talk about the world of work and how organisations can be improved to better serve humanity. The Forum is held annually each year in November, in Drucker’s home town of Vienna.
I was chosen for this opportunity because I finished as a Top 15 finalist in the global Drucker Essay Contest with my essay ‘A Journey to the Castle’. It was a fictional story illustrating the importance of fulfilling one’s personal potential.
This subject is one that I am truly so passionate about, and is one of the main reasons why I chose to work at Unloc. Meeting the fellow challenge winners was an incredible experience, I was able to meet fellow like-minded professionals who were also passionate about making a positive difference in the world.
At this year’s conference, the central debate focused on the future of human beings at work in the face of advancing technology and the rapidly developing world of AI which is making many businesses automated or performed by technology.
CEO’s management leaders and practitioners came up with insights as to how to best manage the inherent uncertainty in this area.
The session started with a warm welcome by the Austrian Federal Minister for Digital & Economic Affairs, and the President of the Global Peter Drucker Forum together with the conference chair and host.
As the conference went on, we participated in several plenary discussions. The main question that was asked was ‘what human strengths are needed to ensure that our technology/data-saturated societies and economies serve humanity well?’.
As rapidly advancing digital technology transforms the working environment we all exist within, questions inevitably arise where we as human beings will exist within many industries.
Some say human roles will be diminished; others insist that the growing possibilities of “data-driven” decisions and actions will call even more for people who can combine science with common sense.
The past years’ experience of global pandemic has thrown such questions into high relief, whether in organizations choosing to invest more heavily in automation or among policymakers implored to simply ‘follow the science.’
We can expect economic, fiscal, cultural, and political crises to escalate in the wake of Covid, and the tension between the technocratic and the humanistic forces to reach a breaking point.
The former see a time of upheaval as an opportune moment to force a large-scale “reset” to a system currently flawed in many ways.
The latter reject revolutionary redesign as counter to human nature – which craves, as Peter Drucker put it, a balance between ‘change and continuity’. Which is the best way forward, and how can we ensure that it prevails?
It’s not a topic or debate i’ve participated in before, and it was so enlightening to hear the views of everyone else attending, and inspiring to consider such an important topic alongside my peers, and hear their thoughts and observations on the topic.
These kinds of conversations i’m sure will become more prevalent as we move forwards into a future where technology plays an even bigger role in our everyday lives – and the impact of that plays out in our society.
A key quote that stood out to me during this year’s event was ‘Be kind to peers, the planet, humanity and yourself’ by Patricia Pomies, the Chief Operating Officer at Globant. Something we often lose amongst the busy working lives we all are consumed by at times.
I’m extremely grateful to Richard Straub for organising the Peter Drucker Forum, which was brilliantly hosted by Eduardo P. Braun and Katharina Moser. I feel extremely privileged to have attended this year’s event, and to have represented my Unloc colleagues and our organisation.”
To find out more about the Peter Drucker Forum simply click here!
