Elena Bascone
- 8 feb
- Tempo di lettura: 4 min

The butterfly effect. (PT.2, Year 2)

Aggiornamento: 17 mar

Elena's welcome note: Ovid's metamorphoses

This is the first post after a very, very long time. This break in posting has a reason: the theme of the second year of the blog is the "metamorphosis," and one specific Ovid quote helps us understand what happened to the blog.

The phrase is "The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all'' (Ovid's Metamorphoses. Books VIII - XV). This summarizes perfectly the fact that sometimes, even if something does not make sense at first glance, it has many hidden mechanisms that work perfectly together. These mechanisms collaborate in creating the final, visible outcome that we see.

The butterfly effect

This phrase can also be connected to science: in "The butterfly effect," the idea is that even the slightest change in a mechanism can make a big difference in the outcome. This is relevant to the blog because I want this second year to be about change and, more specifically, how everyone can contribute to it.

We live in a historical moment where the people, thanks to human rights, can find their place in the international arena. This means that everyone has the power to make a change. The change goes together with collaboration because the more we are, the more significant the impact.

February 11th: International Day of Women and Girls in Science

For example, one incredible change made over history was one that women in science brought forward: I chose to post this close to February 11th, the day celebrating their achievements (you can learn more about this day in the resources below).

Regarding women in science, my number one inspiration is and will always be Hedy Lamarr. What I like about Hedy is that she would always mix things that apparently would not work well together to reach an unexpectedly outstanding result.

The inventive mind of Hedy Lamarr

For example, once, she was asked to draw a model of a war aircraft for the American army that needed to be incredibly fast. To do so, she took a book about fish and a book about birds: she checked out the fish that swims the quickest and the bird that flies the fastest, then she drew the bird's wings on the fish. Once she called the person who asked for it and showed them the drawing, he was amazed: the mechanisms of why these two worked so well together were unknown, yet the drawing was so outstanding that it set the idea for a new aircraft (you can find more about Hedy's biography and ideas in the resources).

This image of a fish with wings was generated on Canva using AI

Mixing the unexpected: Working on Tech, Security & Finance

Working on policy does not mean focusing on a specific policy area. Instead, it means to apply my way of looking at problems in policy areas that seemingly have nothing in common to find out new things they might have.

Structure of the blog: 5 is the magic number

So far, I have been lucky enough to have the possibility to work on five different policy areas, which I have also included in this blog:

Inclusion: In this field, I am pleased to represent Italy of Women in Immersive Tech to promote women's technological empowerment. I think more beauty (including art) and femininity are needed in this field (in the resources, you can find the beautiful article on the ambassadors made by WiiT's team).
Health: For this, I had the pleasure of attending the Hertie School's "Future of Healthcare" conference in India in October 2022 (you can check the post on this blog from the 2nd of December 2022).
Finance: Here lies the core of my work, as I mainly research on political economy. During my time at the Hertie School, I studied the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia in 2020 and am researching how we can make the global race to the metaverse-European thanks to the Karlspreis fellowship I received this November. (See resources)
Security: During my bachelor's degree in Padova, I researched Kennedy-Kruscev relations during the Berlin crisis (See resources).
Tech: I have written for an MIT Technology Review Italia on immersive tech (See resources).

From the universe to the metaverse: Tech, security and finance

Overall, I am thrilled to be able to work with incredible people, from the outstanding Karlspreis managing team and foundation to my academic mentors, Amb. Ischinger and Elena Calandri. Prof. Calandri most recently also helped me give a lecture, as part of my fellowship, titled "From the universe to the metaverse.": the lecture brings together tech, security, and finance (you can find the link in the resources).

Thank you notes: PT.2, Year 2

Of course, there are many other people I should thank for being where I am: people who work with me or inspire me professionally, as well as family and friends. I think that I would never be able to be where I am without them and that I would be happy to show you more of my life in this sense by turning this blog into a diary.

So far, the blog has been a bit of a magical place where I would simply highlight policy areas that were interesting to me. However, now the transformation is complete, this second year, during the second half, I'd be happy to show you my ideas and the people who inspire them.

This break was a transformative moment; now the transformation is complete.