For Romanians, Alba Iulia is not just a town. It is a historic landmark, a place that hosts the celebrations of Romanian unification and victories, successes together as a one united nation!
There is no other place on earth that inspires collaboration and unity among the Romanian people like this beautiful town, located in the heart of Transylvania: Alba Iulia!
For me, it means even more: it is my native town and the place where I succeeded during the national competitions to join the Romanian Olympic team in Physics during high school at my 17th, under the Ceausescu comunisme regime. Alba Iulia is where I began to breathe on my own, where I started to dream on my own, nourished by books, hard work in learning and limitless imagination about the possibilities in the future! This was the town when I stared to live by my own getting out from my parents home for the very fist time.
I recently visited Alba Iulia and met the admirable Mayor Gabriel Pleşa and his team on the busy day on a Suterday just preparing the the presidential elections, first round of votes this year 2024. I was impressed and felt at home! It reminded me of the value I’ve always placed on one of humanity’s most precious virtues: the ability to collaborate. This word, “COLLABORATION,” has always inspired me, and I’ve integrated it into all of my research and innovation work, including the new innovation strategies and tools I’ve invented (and for what I was decorated by the French Republic National Order of Merit) and which have been recognized by the scientific community (including my articles in the Springer Encyclopedia) and where were acknowledged as completing the theories of two Nobel Prize laureates: Stiglitz and Sen.
Here’s how:
• The importance of multiple interconnected asymmetries in highly democratic processes, like open innovation. Beyond Stiglitz’s concept of “information asymmetry,” I discovered that factors such as time, interests, finance and culture also create asymmetries. Reducing or compensating for these asymmetries is essential for creating shared value.
• My innovation in economics: The Demand Readiness Level (DRL) tool, which builds together with NASA’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL), the Hybridized Tech Push with Market Pull Innovation Strategy approach. These allow for the integration of all stakeholders in the open innovation process, thus democratizing innovation.
• The specific contract I created with my team at ONERA (the French equivalent of NASA and sometimes better 😉 to facilitate Technology Transfer from defense and aerospace to civil sectors like health and the environment; “the Benefits and Risks Shared Contract”. This contract enables stakeholders with significant asymmetries to collaborate and produce shared value, which is greater than just the sum of their respective individual knowledge and expertise.
• The new AI typology I dicovered and named Qualificative AI (QuAI) and the its tool of highly democratic data collaborative qualification Xvaluator (my patent obtained in 2019 in Europe for my Deeptech of Qualificative AI bazed in Paris region) were recognized by the scientific international community (Springer and recently https://www.openscience.fr/IMG/pdf/1_paun_ok.pdf ) for competing the Condorcet Paradoxe and Arrow Theory and offering futur solutions for taking efficient decisions with large effective concertations. My innovations offer paths for the evolution of the digital business model to enable in the same time digital, ecological and ethic transitions especially by reducing the flux of fake and biased data in Générative AI – “the queen of fake”).
In 2018, I was nominated by Romania among the 100 most influential Romanians for the Centenary, and I shared my message of hope and advice for future generations at the Alba Iulia Time Capsule during the centennial celebrations.
I believe that our generation needs the same message, which I can summarize with one word: COLLABORATION! The humanity of the 21st century will either be more collaborative, or it will cease to be.
As I often remind people and especially my students, freedom without responsibility might kill the freedom.
In my TEDx conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I3GqItI3sw), I shared my inspiration, drawn from this remarkable European town of Alba Iulia, by recalling the vision of the founders of Human Rights. I encouraged everyone to create and reward Public Utility Value.
What does this mean today for each of us?
This means that every day, when we wake up and look in the mirror, we should ask ourselves: What can we do to make the lives of those around us better? How could we create shared value together with the people we are meeting daily?
We al know : COLLABORATION, especially between differencies, is the answer ! … not only for the future generations but urgently and consequently for us every day …
Florin Paun 