ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many have contributed over many years to the development of the ideas presented in this book. The Eugenides Foundation in Athens and the King Baudouin Foundation in Brussels trusted me with the role of facilitator in the Meeting of Minds project, which started everything. My role as external relations officer for the European Bioinformatics Institute, as well as my stint as trainee and contractor at the European Commission, gave me insights into the inner workings of European political integration and politics—and I would like to thank the many people in both institutions who generously opened doors for me. I want to thank my colleagues at Willis Towers Watson for their friendship and support, and particularly Ravin Jesuthasan, Tracey Malcolm, Richard Veal, Suzanne McAndrew, and Karen O'Leonard for giving me the opportunity to explore, learn, debate, and apply many new ideas on how businesses could transform as a result of AI and big data. It is important to note here that the views expressed and presented in this book are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of Willis Towers Watson. And, of course, my warmest thanks to my clients, too, from across a wide range of industries, all of whom are undergoing so much change and disruption because of AI. Working with such great clients has reinforced my conviction that business is where changing the world for the better begins. My most sincere thanks also go to Paul Pangaro at Carnegie Mellon University for introducing me to Gordon Pask; Geoff Goodell at University College London for his insights into the application of blockchain and smart contracts in financial services; Vince Kuraitis for his permission to reproduce the comparison table between web 2.0 and web 3.0 platforms; Andrew Konya and Gary Ellis at Remesh for brainstorming on the use of AI to scale deliberative democracy; Wally Trenholm and Paul Copping at Sightline Innovation for sharing their experience on data trusts for smart cities; Amir Baradaran at Columbia University for inviting me to give the keynote at the Another AI in Art summit in New York, and our lengthy discussion on inclusion and decolonization of AI; Catherine Havasi at MIT Media Lab for her unique insights on natural language processing and AI ethics; and Josh Sutton at Agorai for generously sharing his vision for AI with me. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to extend my thanks to two people who were instrumental in the publication of Cyber Republic: Alexander Cochran, my amazing agent at Conville & Walsh, and Marie Lufkin Lee, my wonderful editor at the MIT Press, who supported and guided me throughout the writing of this book.