This year marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the first Basque Government. To commemorate this occasion, Agirre Lehendakaria Center, in collaboration with its strategic partner AC4-Columbia University, has organized an academic seminar in New York to honor its legacy and connect its ideas with today’s debate on new digital tools to address political polarization and build new infrastructures for democratic deepening.

The seminar will provide an open discussion on the major challenges facing democratic systems in today’s international context, with particular attention to the negative effects of polarization. It will also present the strategies of the Basque Government and the Government of Catalonia in this field.

More specifically, the seminar will introduce the initiatives that AC4-Columbia University and ALC are developing in the digital field and will explore new avenues for collaboration between these institutions on democratic deepening and the management of polarization in digital environments.

The seminar will bring together leading academics, policymakers, and innovators working at the intersection of democracy, conflict resolution, and digital innovation. Participants include Jeffrey Shaman, Vice Dean of the Columbia Climate School; Peter T. Coleman, Beth Fisher-Yoshida, and Josh D. Fisher from AC4-Columbia University; senior representatives of the Basque Government, including Ander Caballero and Asier Aranbarri; researchers from HiTZ - Basque Center for Language Technology (University of the Basque Country); and representatives of the Government of Catalonia, including Clelia Colombo and Professor Gemma Galdón.