Invitation
Human, Medicine and Society: Challenges of Digitalization
Panel with two lectures with

Prof. Dr. Armin Grunwald, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at KIT (ITAS), Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag

Prof. Dr. Erkan Erdil, Department of Economics and Science and Technology Policies Research Center (METU-TEKPOL), Middle East Technical University
& Ömer İlhan, M.Sc. Trade Expert, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Trade

The Digital Transformation of Society (Armin Grunwald)
The ongoing digitalization is currently the technology-driven development with highest transformative potential, which increasingly affects almost all areas of human life. It provides a broad spectrum of far-ranging potentials for innovation and business, e.g. in the area of medicine and health but also for mobility, communication, trade, military, public administration and so forth. Harvesting the benefits from ongoing digitalization, as well as the early recognition of possible risks and adverse developments both need technology assessment and prospective innovation foresight. Simultaneously, emerging ethical challenges have to be analyzed and reflected.
My presentation will focus on the origins and roots of ethical challenges, which arise from gradual shifts between humans, technology and society in the ongoing process of digitalization. These issues are of particular significance in the field of health and medicine.

Armin Grunwald is full professor of Philosophy of Technology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. He is director of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at KIT (ITAS) and Director of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag. His research interests include technology assessment, ethics of philosophy, digital transformation of society, theory of sustainable development, and the epistemology of inter- and transdisciplinary research. In his professional work, he is member of several advisory commissions and committees in various fields of the technological advance. More about Armin Grunwald can be found here (www.itas.kit.edu/english/staff_grunwald_armin.php)

Digital Transformation in Turkish Pharmaceutical Industry (Erkan Erdil & Ömer İlhan)
The unavoidable introduction of technological changes in the life of modern homo sapiens not only alters the humanity itself yet transforms societies and socio-economic structure in a drastic manner. The recent discussions on the so-called industry 4.0 or digital transformation seems to have such a capacity. Its main peculiarity is on the production, consumption and marketing of the goods and services. However, what is deep inside is the restructuring of human-human and human-machine interactions in a wider context. In this study, it is aimed to provide a brief examination on policy impacts of the possible reorganization in the context of an emerging economy. Pharmaceutical industry is one of the world’s largest and growing industries. Through semi-structured interviews from pharmaceutical companies located in Turkey, this study aims to measure the technological readiness of Turkish pharmaceutical companies for the technological transformation within the scope of industry 4.0.

Erkan Erdil (Ankara, 1968) studied Political Science and Public Administration at METU in Ankara. He received Bachelor of Science degree in 1990. He received Ph.D. in 2001 from University of Maastricht. He is serving at METU since 1992. He was also the director of Science and Technology Policies Research Center (METU-TEKPOL) between 2002-2017. He was also the board member of GLOBELICS (The global network for the economics of learning, innovation, and competence building systems) and ISS (International Schumpeter Society). http://stps.metu.edu.tr/sites/stps.metu.edu.tr/files/resume_Erdil_1.pdf
Ömer İlhan (Ankara, 1990) studied Economics (B.Sc., 2012) and Science and Technology Policy Studies (M.Sc., 2019) at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara. Currently, he has been working at the Department of Chemical Products in Directorate General of Export in Ministry of Trade since June 2014. His main areas of academic interest are international trade, international business, economics of technology and public policy.