Roncalli circus is in Vienna. Many of highly skilled artists produce a terrific show worth being visited.
This week was, of course, heavily affected by the flood. Nothing serious happened to my family and me, we were lucky. I sincerely hope that the same is true for you and that your loved ones and your belongings are safe.
The moment I am writing this (Thursday morning), the weather is - again - (too) warm and sunny. Everything, including the debate on the aftermaths of the catastrophy, are back to the Austrian normal - exactly as predicted a week ago.
NSFW
This week’s song is not a song but lots of instrumental music. YouTube’s algorithm brought it to me in response to last week’s Monkyman-sessions that I was intensely listening to. And, boy, what a continent is this that they found for me here.
I never heard of Nils Frahm before (what a shame!), but I am currently in a deep rabbit hole to explore him and I really love what he is doing - both with the piano and with electronic sound.
Retrospect
Women in Law
This was. again and as expected, a very nice conference. I listened to the AI panel
and spoke about Amara’s law. In preparing this, I learned about the institute he was head of - the Institute for the Future (established in the year of my birth - 1968) and that it’s still active (more than ever, presumably).
They produce very relevant and interesting documents such as
and
that are freely available for download on their website.
I did a nice wrap-up with Adriana and Hande on their contributions and the conference in #arsboni, a few days later.
Data Transfer outside EU
Detail from Austrian Academy of Science’s Festival Hall - situated in UNIVIE’s former premises (“Alte Universität”) - that was our venue. A virtual 3D Tour is available.
We had an outstandingly interesting conference that was (mainly) organised by Burkhard Hess. There were so many fascinating and experienced speakers that it is hard to highlight anybody. I appreciated, in particular, to meet the former president of the European Court on Human Rights, Robert Spano and the former advocat generals to the European Court of Justice Michal Bobek, and Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe in person for the very first time. And Petra Leupold, and Christopher Kuner were, as usual, just oustandingly brilliant - just as many other panelitsts and participants.
It was a truly inspring afternoon. My main takeaway was how much the US scholars were concerened about the uprising Chinese data power, coming with geopolitical and economical changes and loss of market relevance of European global players, in particular in the global south.
Privacy Ring
Privacy Ring was in Vienna again and I joined briefly (in the audience), seeing again many old friends and colleagues.
Winfried Veil gave an excellent presentation about the hidden and the visible contradictions between data protection, open data and freedom of information laws. He used very nice AI-generated slides to polish his arguments.
Digitalisation and the Public Sector
Austria’s Public Sector Trade Union (“GÖD”) organised an event on Digtalisation, AI and the Public sector. Maria Ulmer, newly appointed director for budget in the ministry of finance spoke about digitalisation in her field and mentioned, inter alia, interestingly, AI-driven fraud detection as a field of interest.
I presented an overview on the AI-act and its potential impact on the future of labor and labor law there.
Prospect
Japan
I am going to Japan for almost two weeks and will visit Osaka, Fukuoka, Kyoto and possibly Tokyo. It’s mostly work related, with a few days of leizure time, but it will be lots of travelling and living in different hotels and Ryokans. This is why I will - finally - do the interview with Shirin Ghazanfari on Monday, September 23rd at 20.00 CET but then take an #arsboni-break. We will return in the second week of October.
I will, if possible, still do some travel diaries and will hopefully maintain the weekly newsletter from Japan.
25 years LLM
Save the date: We are going to celebrate 25 years of our LLM on October 29th:
This will be a nice party, for sure!
Look and Feel
Messner
I listened to an interesting 4-episodes podcast produced by ARD due to Reinhold Messner’s 80th birthday.
It’s a portrait and a very sad family story with a broken father-son relationship. It’s also an example that German podcasts have developed a specific language-style of story-telling that is very casual and youth-oriented.
The podcast has 2 legal advisors in its credits - and when you listen to it you will understand why legal advice was important here.
#Journalismus
(My friends) Andy Kaltenbrunner and Daniela Kraus are hosting this very mindful and inspiring format.
The episode I like most (so far) is the one about the future of journalism, with, inter alia, Stefan Apfl from #hashtag and Julia Hernböck from Dossier.
Dossier just published a very remarkable edition on Wolfgang Sobotka, Lower Austria and Austrian (media) politics.
I very warmly recommend reading the whole journal and a membership at Dossier, this is one of the not too many media publications I really like to pay for (like Datum, The Economist, Krautreporter and Stratechery).
Daisy
didn’t like the weather either but is somehow back to normal now.
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)