The 16th Basic Income Earth Network Congress has just started on 7th July in Seoul, Korea. People from around the earth are attending.
Karl Widerquist, a co-chair of BIEN, is posting live reports on Reddit. He is encouraging everyone at the conference to contribute their perspectives to the thread as well.
The conference will run for 3 days, until 9th July.
The Swiss referendum has been covered in Japanese media. While some media coverage, especially televised reports, uses the photogenic scenes which were created by Swiss activists, many reports don’t cover the activists’ bottom line message: ‘What would you do if your income were taken care of’.
An exception is this short article by Hideaki Nakamura, an editorial writer of the Mainich Newspapers, entitled “Question from Switzerland”. He cites a voice of an activist (from Toru Yamamori’s interview with Enno Schmidt, a founder of the Swiss initiative), who says that they would like people to think about how to live.
Nakamura presents a recent poll on what university students in Japan would like to work for. According to the poll, 25% of students would like to work for others and society. Nakamura suggests that this shows a possibility of a basic income in Japan.
中村秀明Hideaki Nakamura, “スイスからの問いQuestion from Switzerland”, 毎日新聞the Mainich Newspapers, 15th June 2016
The Productivity Commission of the Australian Government has released a research paper entitled ‘
Digital Disruption: What do governments need to do?‘ on 15th June 2016. The paper looks at the role of government in the face of ‘potentially disruptive technological change.’ A universal basic income is refereed as a long term consideration:
While Australia’s tax and transfer system will continue to play a role in redistributing income, in the longer term, governments may need to evaluate the merits of more radical policies, including policies such as a universal basic income.(p. 69).
acTVism Munich, an independent, non-profit and grassroots media outlet, will broadcast a program on Basic Income Guarantee on 3rd June 2016.
In the program, Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister, and Noam Chomsky, MIT-professor, an established linguist who is also known as a radical activist, will speak.
The program can be watched on acTVism Munich from 3rd June.
The symposium on ‘Artificial General Intelligence and Basic Income’ will be held on 3rd May 2016, in Tokyo, Japan. The symposium is organised by the Robotic Increase Center.
The venue:
T Building 2F 2-2-28,Higashishinagawa,Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo,1400002,JAPAN
The time: 19.00-21.00
The speakers:
Kenichi Kobayashi (The Robotic Increase Center)
Toru Yamamori (Doshisha university)
The language used in the symposium is Japanese. The detail can be here (PDF also in Japanese).
The 24th BIEN CONGRESS in Maricá & Niterói – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 27-29 August 2025
Linkedin, Instagram, X – biencongress25 (at) gmail [dot] com
BIEN2024 was August 29–31 (Pictures and more coming soon)