The 4th Innovation Debate: AI for All?

📅 Wednesday, 18 November 2026
🕕 17:30–19:30 + networking apéro
📍Westhive, Bâtiment Alto, Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Grand-Lancy, Geneva
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Organised by the Geneva Research Lab for Digital Impact (GRL), the Geneva Innovation Movement (GIM), UNICEF’s Digital Impact Division and the University of Geneva.
AI is reshaping how we work, learn and make decisions, and broader access could widen opportunities for innovation, development and scientific progress. Yet access is not independence: most users rely on a small number of providers for models, infrastructure, data and usage conditions, and these dependencies may become hard to reverse as AI spreads into education, work and public services.
Dependency is not necessarily undesirable, since societies already rely on shared infrastructures and specialised providers. The question is whether the opportunities are worth what comes with it. The debate will explore three dimensions of this tension: who controls AI, how much autonomy users retain, and who bears the labour, environmental and social costs of its expansion.

The motion: “Access to AI is worth the dependency it creates.”

Format
Four debaters take the stage, with moderation by Tina Ambos, Professor of International Management and Vice-Dean for Societal Impact at Geneva School of Economics and Management. Each debater aims to convince the audience of their position, in an interactive setting designed to spark lively discussion around provocative ideas. The debate will be held in English and is followed by a networking apéro.
Lineup
For the motion

• Kenneth Goh, Member of Parliament in Singapore, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship (Education) at Singapore Management University

• Camilla Parisotto, Head of Growth at Giotto.ai

Against the motion

• Bruno Giussani, former TED Global director and author of Our Minds Under Siege and of the TED Talk

• Anja Kaspersen, Director of Global Markets, Frontier Issues and Critical Technologies at IEEE

Who should attend
Professionals and researchers from academia, the public sector, the private sector and the UN, international organisations and NGOs, who want to challenge assumptions and rethink the future of innovation.

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