After Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the subject of Digital Twins has emerged as another promising technology, advocated, built, and sold by various IT companies. The approach aims to produce highly realistic models of real systems. In the case of dynamically changing systems, such...

In the wake of the on-going digital revolution, we will see a dramatic transformation of our economy and most of our societal institutions. While the benefits of this transformation can be massive, there are also tremendous risks to our society. After the automation of many production processes...

The invention of the steam engine turned the agricultural society (with its “Economy 1.0”) into an industrial society (with the “Economy 2.0”). Later, the spreading of education enabled the service society (with the “Economy 3.0”). And now, the pervasiveness of digital technologies...

Never before were politicians, business leaders, and scientists more urgently needed to master the challenges ahead of us. We are in the middle of a third industrial revolution. While we see the symptoms, such as the financial and economic crisis, cybercrime and cyberwar, we haven't understood...

We need a "Galilean" paradigm shift in thinking, from a component-oriented, individually centered view to an interaction-oriented, systemic view. When combined with the new opportunities created by Information and Communication Technologies, such a paradigm shift will lead us to a...

China's New Silk Road (aka Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)) will invest a 1 trillion USD budget across Asia, Africa and Europe. As BRI wants to contribute also to sustainable development, the authors argue that only open digital participation of all citizens, corporations and governments and the...

A multidimensional financial system could provide benefits for individuals, companies, and states. Instead of top-down control, which is destined to eventually fail in a hyperconnected world, a bottom-up creation of value can unleash creative potential and drive innovations. Multiple currency...