Mr. Martin Lees Secretary-General - Club of Rome
Plenary - Keynote Speech
The Role of Information Technology in meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century
Martin Lees will review the critical systemic issues which now confront the world community in the fields of climate, environment and energy, demographics and development and finance and economic growth. He will suggest how IT, if intelligently deployed, can contibute significantly to resolving these issues and also identify the risks and unitended consequences which can arise. He will finally sketch how the strategic deployment of IT can contribute to the creation of the new societies and economies of the future which must be inclusive, just and environmentally sustainable.
Energy - Keynote Speech
The Global Energy Challenge: Meeting the energy needs of a growing world population within the tightening constraints of climate, energy and world development
Martin Lees will identify some of the critical emerging issues related to the linkages of climate, energy and world development. He will show how models and strategies for economic growth and development must be changed to lay the foundations for new energy and resource efficient societies. He will outline how research and innovation and the wide diffusion of new technologies, especially in the field of IT, must play a central role in generating the solutions essential to securing the welfare of both present and future generations.
About Mr. Martin Lees
1964: Graduate degree in Mechanical Sciences, Cambridge University, UK
Manager in Industry for four years, General Electric Company, UK
1970: Post-graduate Diploma in European Studies, College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium
1972: OECD: Responsible for programmes on Cooperation in Science and Technology and on Innovation in the Procedures and Structures of Government
1974: Initiated the OECD "InterFutures Project": a 3 year program on the Future of the Advanced Industrial Societies in Harmony with that of the Developing Countries
1978: Special Adviser to the Administrator of UNDP, New York
1980: Executive Director of the Financing System for Science and Technology for Development, United Nations
1984 - Assistant Secretary General, UN, and Executive Director of the InterAction Council of former Heads of State and Government, Vienna
1983 to 2000: Responsible for several high level programmes of International Cooperation with China, including an advisory programme for the leadership, "China and the World in the Nineties" from 1988 to 1998
1994: Founder and 15 year member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development
1997 to 2000: International Co-Chairman of the SDPC/China Program on the Integration of Economic Planning and Environmental Protection for the 10th Five Year Plan
1991-1996: Developed and implemented programmes of cooperation among the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union as Director General of the International Committee for Economic Reform and Cooperation, Bonn
1995 to 2008: Moderator of the International Advisory Board of the Toyota Motor Corporation
2001 to 2005: Rector of the University for Peace of the United Nations, Costa Rica
2007 to 2009: Senior Adviser to the Chinese Government on climate change and sustainable development and on the Xiao Kang program for a harmonious society
January 2008 - March 2010: Secretary General of the Club of Rome, Winterthur