The communicative and institutional context
Digital and artificial intelligence is present in all media, on the Internet, in networks and in everyone's life. Young people live in a digital culture. And this new habitat raises big questions in these times when everything is going virtual.
The Salesians of Don Bosco, as educators of young people, walk with them in the so-called digital culture, and together with them they want to better understand what it means to live in this complex digital universe.
The challenges
How can we be protagonists of digital communication and not just spectators? How to live in the digital world with attention to the human person and ethics? How to create healthy habits to live in the virtual world with mental and emotional health? How to use the digital world creatively, collaboratively and professionally? How to educate and evangelise in today's digital culture? How can we include migrants, refugees and indigenous people in the digital culture, respecting their rights, their cultures and their communities?
The "Shaping Tomorrow" conference will try to answer these and many other questions.
The vision
This event, in step with the educational and evangelising vision of Pope Francis and the Salesian Congregation, aims to expand the commitment of Salesians in the field of communication, opening dialogue with different cultures, promoting the role of young people and digital inclusion and achieving digital transformation.
The participants
About 200 people will take part, delegates for communication and members of their Communication Teams, as well as selected personalities from different nations from all five continents, who will meet in Rome at the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS) to discuss among experts the different issues related to communication.
The goals
The main objective of the conference, which develops according to the guidelines of the Sector for evangelical, synodal, Salesian, convergent and artistic communication, is to explore social communication in the Salesian Congregation, and to help guide communication in the Salesian Family (SF); at the same time, the conference also aims to know and explore more and more the world of communication of young people, with young people and for young people; to create global networks of communicative storytelling, to help people grow as Christians and uporight citizens; and to give continuity to the activities that the Salesian Congregation is carrying out, to respond with Salesian creativity and identity to the opportunities and challenges of the digital world and Artificial Intelligence (AI); always remembering, finally, that for Salesians to communicate also means to educate and witness.
The themes
Many topics will be addressed within the framework of the week's work. Below are the main topics for discussion:
– Communicate in order to grow together and be close
– Epochal Change: Digital Culture and Artificial Intelligence
– Educators and communicators in the infosphere
– Creators of new languages and paradigms for evangelisation
– Internal and external communication in the Church and the Salesian Congregation
– Ecology, climate change, migrants and refugees
– Communication of encounter
– Guidelines for Salesian Communication.
Invitation and contacts
"We invite you to participate in the communication conference that will be held from 1 to 7 August 2024 in Rome" is the exhortation that comes from the Social Communication Sector.
For more information, see also the Facebook page and Instagram profile of "Shaping Tomorrow".
