Sydney Ideas

Australian of the Year David Morrison AO leads a panel of researchers, students and academics in this topical debate. Some of the questions they explore include: - Is this model of change the key to accelerating gender equality? Or are we just perpetuating a traditional male power-based, approach to the issue of gender equality? - Why are we failing to have the important public debate about the role of men in caregiving which many believe is critical to achieving true gender equality? For decades now we have seen surveys of younger men wanting to spend more time with their children with little change. - Is the business driven male CEO advocacy model really working to increase inclusion? - Does it work in all sectors including for example culture, arts and education? - Is a gender alliance model a more effective approach to deliver real change? Globally we have also seen the very successful UN He for She campaign emerge from the NGO sector that engaged men of all ages across the world. PANELLISTS: - David M

Professor Corinna Hawkes, Director of the Centre for Food Policy, City University London The keynote lecture in the Food Governance Conference hosted by Sydney Law School and the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney ABSTRACT Everybody eats. Food is a lived experience. It inspires us, fills us with dread, brings us joy, and stress. It sustains us, and kills us. At the same time, food is distant, hails from the food system, out there, somewhere, causing “abstract” problems. Drought. Climate change. Obesity. Undernutrition. Foodborne disease. Exploited workers. To open the first Food Governance conference at the University of Sydney, Professor Hawkes will contend that making connections between these ‘big’ food systems outcomes and the ‘small’ intimate ways that we all experience food is key to the solutions. She will present a new vision of a people-centred approach in which problems are addressed by starting with the reality of people’s everyday lives and then working back into the food system

A forum held as part of the University of Sydney Innovation Week 2016. How can today’s research inform tomorrow’s public policy, drive technological innovation and inspire our creative sectors? For this special forum we brought together diverse voices from the fields of biology, politics, food security and energy production, and ask them to project into the future. What does their research tell us about the possibilities for our world in 25 years? Will the obesity epidemic reach a tipping point where government intervention in individual freedom is inevitable? Are there any signs the next generation of voters in representative democracies will soon challenge intergenerational inequality? When will research in health and agriculture come together to empower local communities to take control of food production and ensure their own food security? How soon will shifting global economics force the transition of the world’s economy from fossil fuels to a renewable energy era?

Carolyne Larrington, Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford, talks about watching and writing about HBO’s Game of Thrones as a medieval scholar. She explains some of the medieval history and literature from which George R. R. Martin chiselled the building blocks for the construction of his imaginary world. Game of Thrones has now become the most frequently streamed or downloaded show in TV history. Carolyne suggests some reasons for its enormous international success as the medieval fantasy epic for the twenty-first century, and undertakes a little speculation on how the show might end.

We've created a world where information technology permeates our economies, social interactions, and intimate selves. The combination of mobile, cloud computing, the Internet Things, persistent computing, and autonomy are resulting in something different. This World-Sized Web promises great benefits, but is also vulnerable to a host of new threats. Threats from users, criminals, corporations, and governments. Threats that can now result in physical damage and even death. Security technologist Bruce Schneier looks back at what we've learned from past attempts to secure these systems, and forward at what technologies, laws, regulations, economic incentives, and social norms we need to secure them in the future. Sydney Ideas event information: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/bruce_schneier.shtml

A public forum with Anson Chan and Martin Lee In 1997 the People’s Republic of China assumed sovereignty over Hong Kong, subject to The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which guarantees Hong Kong’s civic freedoms and autonomies and the rule of law, for fifty years. The Declaration and Hong Kong’s constitution were written in expectation of universal suffrage and of accountable corruption-free Government. Nearly twenty years on, Hong Kong faces formidable challenges, including growing disaffection among citizens who feel disappointed by present-day trends that are seen to contradict the substance and spirit of the Declaration. The University of Sydney was fortunate to host a public forum with two of Hong Kong’s best-known and internationally respected civic figures Anson Chan and Martin Lee, uniquely placed to talk about present-day realities and the future prospects for Hong Kong. What has changed in recent years in Hong Kong, and what has not? Are the two co-signatories of the Declaration honouring th

How can you obtain the best decision from a group of so-called ‘experts’ about future events such as a natural disaster or a stock market crash? Would you trust a family member’s opinion over a highly cited scientist, an economist, a successful entrepreneur, a military or political leader, or a High Court judge? Or would you trust them all equally? Or none at all? The University of Cambridge’s Professor Herbert Huppert’s research has shown that whether an expert or not, some people are better at assessing the future than others. Using considerable experience and historical data, Professor Huppert and his team have developed a technique known as ‘Expert Elicitation’. The technique assesses the abilities and reliability of each individual expert using a formula and taking into account responses to questions about future events. In this Sydney Ideas lecture, Professor Huppert discusses how this technique has been successfully used in predictions for volcanic eruptions, dam failures, monetary policy, militar

Which infectious diseases pose the greatest danger to a child during pregnancy, in infancy and adolescence? Most of us are aware of the dangers of whooping cough and influenza, but what about little-known and disabling micro-organisms such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and old-nasties that re-emerge periodically like measles? What does every parent need to know about these infectious diseases? What role do family members play in passing on infections to children? How can vaccines offer protection against childhood and adolescent infections? Speaker: Professor Cheryl Jones, Paediatrics and Child Health expert, University of Sydney, Paediatric Infectious Diseases Head, Sydney Childrens Hospital Network

What is happening in the US election campaign and where does the support for this ‘populist’ political movement come from? On the day after the second Presidential debate, a diverse panel of academics, students and election observers discussed changes in new media platforms, youth politics and activism, and the impact they are all having on the traditional election campaign processes.

Is there a degree of suffering and degradation beyond which a man or a woman ceases to be a human being? A point beyond which our spirit dies and only pure physiology survives? And to what extent, if any, may literary culture be capable of preserving the integrity of our humanity? These are some of the questions that this lecture proposes to consider with reference to two places where extreme suffering is inflicted – the fictional hell imagined by Dante in his Inferno, and the real hell experienced by Primo Levi at Auschwitz and described in If This Is A Man. SPEAKER: Professor Lino Pertile, Carl A. Pescosolido Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University

A panel of the University of Sydney experts and practitioners discuss the possible benefits and risks of mindfulness, and how it has been used in education and workplace to produce resilient students and healthy employees. Speakers: Professor Gwynnyth Llewellyn, Chair, Healthy Sydney University Professor Nick Glozier, Brain and Mind Centre Associate Professor Rae Cooper, Sydney Business School Professor Jane Burns, Faculty of Health Sciences Ms Jane Cox, consultant and leadership coach Dr Benjamin Veness, medical registrar, Sydney alumnus and Churchill Fellow Co-hosted by Sydney Ideas and Healthy Sydney University, a university-wide initiative that brings staff and students together to promote the health and wellbeing of our University community. More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/can_mindfulness_save_the_world_forum.shtml

Is mindfulness all about the individual practice? What is the role of community when it come to the issues of well-being? How could institutions such as universities enhance emotional well-being of its employees and students? Dr Benjamin Veness, the University of Sydney alumnus and Churchill Fellow offers some solutions.

Don Watson and fellow Quarterly Essayist James Brown discuss the strangest election campaign the US has ever seen.

Approaching death is an opportunity for individuals and those who care for them to reduce unnecessary suffering and achieve something more human and humane. Sadly, few dying people or their carers achieve these ends. What can we do differently ? In this exclusive Sydney Ideas event, Dr Bruce (BJ) Miller, a TED speaker and hospice and palliative medicine physician, reveals how The Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco is redesigning palliative care to bring compassion and imagination to the care of the dying. His presentation was followed by an expert panel discussion and opportunities to ask questions.

The twentieth century saw the emergence of a number of authoritarian regimes – China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the USSR – that have both challenged the global order and persisted in the face of massive external pressure and catastrophic economic downturns. Drawing on in-depth case studies and statistical analysis, Lucan Way (University of Toronto) argues that the threat and resilience of such regimes can be traced to their origins in violent revolutionary conflict. A history of violent revolutionary struggle encourages external aggression but also inoculates regimes against major causes of authoritarian breakdown such as military coups and mass protest. More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_lucan_way.shtml

Humans are superorganisms with two genomes that dictate phenotype, the genetically inherited human genome (25,000 genes) and the environmentally acquired human microbiome (over 1 million genes). The two genomes must work in harmonious integration as a hologenome to maintain health. Nutrition plays a crucial role in directly modulating our microbiomes and health phenotypes. Poorly balanced diets can turn the gut microbiome from a partner for health to a “pathogen” in chronic diseases, e.g. accumulating evidence supports the new hypothesis that obesity and related metabolic diseases develop because of low-grade, systemic and chronic inflammation induced by diet-disrupted gut microbiota. Due to the tight integration of gut microbiota into human global metabolism, molecular profiling of urine metabolites can provide a new window for reflecting physiological functions of gut microbiomes. Changes of gut microbiota and urine metabolites can thus be employed as new systems approaches for quantitative assessment and

Indonesia has struggled with corruption in its natural resource sector, with unchecked environmental destruction the result . Laode M Syarif, the newly elected Commissioner for Indonesia Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) presents recent progress in the prevention and prosecution of corruption.

Legal academic Professor Annalise Acorn argues that criminal punishment, devoid of all emotions of blame, is inhuman in relation to the offender and contrary to a morally robust justification for the criminal law. More info about this lecture and the speaker: tinyurl.com/zfya9qc

Lecture by Professor Fran Bagenal, Co-investigator and Leader of the Plasma Teams for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and Juno mission to Jupiter, and Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado. A Sydney Ideas talk co-presented with Sydney SpaceNet at the University of Sydney, 22 September 2016. http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_fran_bagenal.shtml

What happens in China today – from economic to political and cultural events – already has an impact on the rest of the world. As its global influence increases, what does the future hold? Working closely with China Studies Centre and University of Sydney researchers, Sydney Ideas has provided a platform for local and international China experts to share their insights into this fascinating country over the last 10 years.