Haroon Sheikh​

Haroon Sheikh is a senior researcher at the Scientific Council for Government Policy and professor of Philosophy by special appointment at VU University Amsterdam, with a chair in Strategic Governance of Global Technologies. His research focuses on the intersection between geopolitics and emerging technologies. He has written books such as The Rise of the East, Hydropolitics, Embedding Technopolis, Atlas of the Digital World, and, with colleagues, Mission AI and Navigating a Fragmenting World Order. Sheikh sits on the expert committee of the Scientific International AI Safety Report, the MSI-AI of the Council of Europe, and is part of Project Eurostack, which focuses on European digital sovereignty. Sheikh is a columnist for NRC Handelsblad and his work appears regularly in national and international media. He studied philosophy, public administration, and political science at Leiden University and Oxford University, and obtained his PhD from VU University Amsterdam. He worked in the financial sector for over ten years and led Freedomlab Thinktank before joining the WRR.

Keynote Digital autonomy in an age of geo-economic rivalry

Increasing rivalry between great powers has led to more concern about digital technologies. In his keynote, Sheikh will analyze the state of European digital autonomy through a Stack framework and he will present his work in the context of Project Eurostack. He will show that a European approach to digital technologies is feasible and necessary and he will show what the Netherlands in particular can contribute to such an approach.