This year marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the first Basque Government. To commemorate this milestone, Agirre Lehendakaria Center (ALC), in collaboration with its strategic partner AC4 at Columbia University - Climate School, organized an academic seminar in New York on July 14th.

Held at Columbia University, the seminar honored the legacy of Lehendakari (President) José Antonio Agirre and connected his ideas and actions with contemporary debates on the use of new digital tools to address political polarization and build new infrastructures for democratic deepening.

The seminar provided an open forum for discussion on the major challenges facing democratic systems in today’s international context, with particular attention to the damaging effects of polarization. It also presented the strategies being developed by the Basque Government and the Government of Catalonia in this field.

More specifically, the seminar introduced the initiatives that AC4 at Columbia University and ALC are developing in the digital sphere. It also explored new avenues for collaboration between the institutions on democratic deepening and the management of polarization in digital environments.

The event brought together leading academics, policymakers, and innovators working at the intersection of democracy, conflict resolution, and digital innovation. Participants included Jeffrey Shaman, Vice Dean of the Columbia Climate School; Beth Fisher-Yoshida, and Josh D. Fisher from AC4 at Columbia University; senior representatives of the Basque Government, including Ander Caballero and Asier Aranbarri; German Rigau and colleagues from HiTZ – Basque Center for Language Technology at the University of the Basque Country; and representatives of the Government of Catalonia, including Clelia Colombo and Professor Gemma Galdón.

Agirre Lehendakaria Center’s commitment is to build on the opportunities for collaboration explored in New York. Specifically, ALC will work with AC4 at Columbia University and HiTZ – Basque Center for Language Technology to develop new digital tools capable of identifying the mechanisms that drive political polarization and responding to them through new models of collaborative democracy.