About The Sydney Dialogue
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Sydney Dialogue is the premier policy summit for critical, emerging, cyber and space technologies.
Technology’s advance has outpaced regulatory and policy responses. State and non-state actors alike understand that information is power. This can yield extraordinary outcomes for humanity and for the earth, but it can also produce great harm.
Technology is evolving at speed. New applications extend beyond existing laws and in an absence of consensus on rules and norms. The explosion of creativity opens opportunities for solving real-world problems and creating entire, previously unimagined economies. But it also comes with enormous risks.
Catching up with technology’s advance requires a coordinated global response. Solutions lie beyond the remit or imagination of governments, technology companies or civil society alone. Until now, there had been no multilateral forum for the world’s top thinkers and decision makers from these communities to come together and strategise.
The Sydney Dialogue (TSD) aims to fill this critical gap.
World leaders, technology industry innovators, ministers and civil society will feature in a mix of keynote speeches, panel discussions, closed-room sessions and public engagements.
We will invite speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We want to hear diverse views about which technologies are the potential game changers, and why. We want to stimulate an honest conversation about how governments, industry and society can optimise opportunity and minimise risk.
What are the new and big ideas? Where are red lines and what are the consequences of crossing them? Who is leading the charge on developing technologies with the capacity to change how we live, interact, and engage with each other and the world? What enablers and protections are needed to ensure the benefits of technology are equitable and consistent with fundamental human rights?
The Sydney Dialogue will offer a place where the world can anticipate, prepare and respond to the complicated challenges and immense opportunities presented by technology.
Sponsorship of the Sydney Dialogue places you and your organisation at the centre of progress on real world problems. Find out more about sponsorship opportunities here.
Vision for 2023
To bring together leaders in government, the technology sector, and civil society to discuss the opportunities and risks of critical and emerging technologies, including cyber and space. Provide a forum for developing strategies to promote the benefits of technology and reduce the space for misuse.
Topics for discussion include:
Cyber and digital governance
exploring the idea of a ‘Bretton Woods moment’ for technology
The new space race
opportunity, imagination and risk. Climate, security and space economy angles
The technological game changers
who is doing what and why – and so what?
Securing technological advantage and supply
in the context of geostrategic competition
Space and cyber industry
opportunities for industry and government to align priorities, understand urgent problems and discuss novel solutions.
Information as Power
misinformation, disinformation, coercion. and control
Innovation
growing and funding a healthy and secure tech ecosystem across national boundaries
Tech bifurcation
and internet bifurcation
The role of tech
in advancing women’s rights, climate and human security
What is ASPI?
The annual Sydney Dialogue is convened by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) – an independent, non-partisan think tank that produces expert and timely advice for Australian and global leaders.
ASPI generates new ideas for policy makers, allowing them to make better-informed decisions and is one of the most authoritative and widely quoted contributors to public discussion of strategic policy issues in the Indo-Pacific region.
ASPI was established by the Australian Government in 2001 and is partially funded by the Department of Defence with other sources of revenue including from overseas government agencies, corporates and civil society groups.
