Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel is Professor of Corporate Communication and Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Miriam Meckel studied journalism and communication science, sinology, political science and law at the Universities of Münster and Taipei, Taiwan. After completing her studies, she worked for 10 years as a journalist for public and commercial broadcasters (ARD, VOX, RTL) as a presenter, reporter and editor in news and magazine formats.
Miriam Meckel is the founding publisher of the platform “ada” for digital life and the economy of the future. “ada” is an innovation hub for organizational change and further education beyond organizational boundaries.
Miriam Meckel Lecture topics
- How artificial intelligence is changing our world and what we can gain from it
- Disrupting Reality: Reality in the age of its technical designability
- Back to honesty? Political communication and political culture in Germany
- The networked world: perspectives on the global information society
- My head belongs to me – A journey through the brave new world of brainhacking
- We are disappearing – People in the digital age
- NEXT – Memories of a future without us
- Sold and nothing revealed – Communication in times of changing financial markets
Welcome to the age of AI: a guide to the world of tomorrow.
We are experiencing the “iPhone moment” of artificial intelligence, the technology is available to everyone for the first time. This means we are at a decisive threshold in our cultural evolution. Everything is changing everywhere at once. In her talks, Miriam Meckel highlights the opportunities that crossing this threshold holds. We don’t have to fear being abolished as humans, because: Everything AI does goes back to the way we interact with it. However, this also means that we are now faced with the task of steering its development in the right direction.
But how can we do this and where do risks, undesirable side effects and ethical dilemmas lurk – whether in the world of work, in business, in human relationships or in everyday life? Which questions are better clarified today than tomorrow, be it in dealing with self-driving cars, virtual medical assistants or automated fake news?
If we want to keep up in an increasingly complex world, says Miriam Meckel, we also need to expand our human intelligence – and artificial intelligence can even help us with this. So we too will change. What will the world of tomorrow look like, how will we find our way around it and make the right decisions?
After studying in Münster and Taipei, the media expert’s stellar career began as a television presenter, reporter and editor. At the age of 32, Miriam Meckel became the youngest professor at the time to be appointed to the Chair of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Münster.
Miriam Meckel: Everything everywhere at once: How artificial intelligence is changing our world and what we can gain from it.
Just two years later, Minister President Wolfgang Clement made her State Secretary and Government Spokesperson for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The taz newspaper wrote about her in 2005: “She is one of the few glamorous political officials in Germany. Her diction is ready for print, her analytical thinking crystal clear, Miriam Meckel represents the media state of North Rhine-Westphalia like no other government figure in Düsseldorf”.
Miriam Meckel is a member of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) and the International Communication Association (ICA). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Tamedia Group in Zurich.
As a member of the international jury of the Development Gateway Foundation at the World Bank, she co-developed the Development Gateway Award (“Petersberg Prize in IT for Development”), which is awarded annually. As a member of the scientific advisory board of ISPRAT e.V., she represents the research topic “Trust and Transparency” on the Internet.
Miriam Meckel received the Cicero Speaker Award in the science category in 2001.
From 2006 to 2007, she was the presenter of the business talk show “Miriam Meckel – Standpunkte” on the German news channel n-tv.
Miriam Meckel was a fellow of the Herbert Quandt Foundation’s “European Asian Young Leaders Forum”. In 2008, she was awarded the “Eisenhower Fellowship” of the USA, which is awarded every two years to a German who can travel and research in the USA for two months as part of this fellowship.
She is a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Havard University, a member of the Swiss Federal Media Commission and Visiting Professor at Singapore Management University.
Miriam Meckel publishes regularly in the media, e.g. in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and as an op-ed contributor to Bloomberg.com.