What will the world look like when it emerges from the COVID-19 isolation?
Forecasting what will transpire post-COVID 19 is challenging, as the pandemic continues to impact on the world economies and other sectors of society, for an unforeseen future. Never before has there been a time such as this, when governments, businesses and NGOs have to readjust their operations as they navigate the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
At the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) is coming together with the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) and the Library and Information Centre (LIC) to host a series of conversations about the world after COVID-19.
This series of webinars, envisaged by UJ’s Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, is designed to provide a wide-ranging collective examination of key aspects of the post-pandemic future: from the impacts on the humanity, the economy, health, education, the environment, and the future world of work.
Questions abound; what will the new world order look like? Will there be a severe recession and a loss of purchasing power? How much poorer will the world be? How will societies be disrupted or alternatively brought together? How will 4IR shape or be shaped by COVID-19? Will remote learning and working become more common? Will health provision move towards or away from the public domain? Moreover, how will all these interact to give rise to things that we really should have anticipated, but did not?
Prof Marwala points out the webinar series will bring together leading economists, health and education experts, and other social scientists with UJ researchers to discuss these questions and other COVID-19 implications.
The weekly virtual seminars, scheduled to start on Wednesday, 13 May 2020, are free of charge. However, please register online at https://universityofjohannesburg.us/4ir/covid-19/ to attend.
Details about the panel of experts to lead the conversations will be updated prior to the event, and new events will be updated over time.
The webinars are conceptualised by Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, Prof Alex Broadbent, Prof Saurabh Sinha, Prof Angina Parekh, Prof Maria Frahm-Arp and Dr Bongani Ngqulunga
