Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz: The progressive future belongs to nations that pioneer the NBIC

The term "convergent technology" plays a significant role in science and technology policy-making processes. The integration of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences plays an influential role in improving human performance, representation of economy, society, and future industrial infrastructure. Convergence makes the power of thoughts go beyond the usual paradigms and leads to the emergence of possessing a holistic view of issues. The innovation and problem-solving abilities increase when there is the possibility of collecting knowledge foundations, skill sets, and different individuals' diversity of experiences in a conversational and participatory environment, with respect for all members.

Initially, scientific disciplines, technologies, and products are combined, and this cycle evolves with the convergence of industries. The term "convergent technology" plays a significant role in science and technology policy-making processes. The integration of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences plays an influential role in improving human performance, representation of economy, society, and future industrial infrastructure. Convergence makes the power of thoughts go beyond the usual paradigms and leads to the emergence of possessing a holistic view of issues. The innovation and problem-solving abilities increase when there is the possibility of collecting knowledge foundations, skill sets, and different individuals' diversity of experiences in a conversational and participatory environment, with respect for all members.

Due to the importance of the topic, Mina Rasti, a master's degree student in social communication sciences at the University of Tehran, has interviewed Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz, ICTP deputy head for Market Development, to discuss convergent technologies, which is available in the following paragraphs:

Universities' damage in the vicious cycle of developing and implementing educational disciplines
As the first noted point in his speech, with regard to the universities entrance to the vicious cycle of developing and implementing educational courses, Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz, Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship, at the University of Tehran, stated: "The educational contents of educational disciplines in universities do not have a purposeful convergence with the current and future needs of the labor market. Since the course designers who develop these disciplines might not have achieved knowledge and competencies tailored to the needs of the current and future developments, and with partial perspectives, they provide limited content regardless of the critical path for development."
Dr. Chitsaz identified that the main problem in this domain is the existence of a fundamental tendency and dependence of the disciplines on their own incipient natures and cores; he specified that: "The key point is that the salary system of universities' faculty members, depends on the courses, dissertations and so on. The consequence of this pattern of salary system will be manifested through ongoing competition among faculty members to obtain more credits and dissertations, if they hold no transcendent internal motivations. Thus, the expected result is that one should constantly strive to keep courses in line with their core competence in the curriculum, so that she/he will not leave her/his safe zone."

He continued: "For this reason and owing to these intragroup motivations, universities may tend to retain the obsolete competencies, rather than preparing for the future. There is no doubt that after graduation, those students who enter the professional market must meet the new needs of society in accordance with the requirements of the current circumstances. But realistically, the qualifications of these students which have shaped by the expired competencies of the faculty members do not fit the needs of today's labor market."

Universities experiencing contradictions between the employment status and fields of studies.
"If you track the employment process of graduates around the world, you will see that there is a serious differentiation between the employment status of graduates and their fields of study," said the ICT park deputy head for market development. "This differentiation is the product of the unpreparedness of the graduates to meet the present and future needs of the communities."

The faculty member of the University of Tehran added: " This is a challenge that universities are seriously facing, and as long as the body responsible for the implementation of the current programs is the same institution in charge of reviewing the field of education, the final competences of university graduates will not change."

There are tall walls, so-called educational groups to pursue specialism 
Referring to the creation of various departments in universities, the former Deputy Director of Management Development and Resources of the National Elite Foundation said: "On the other hand, to pursue specialism, tall walls called educational groups have been created. To form the walls, there must be principles for 'legitimizing' them. The creation of these walls in the departments is inevitable, when there is no possibility of dialogue holding between the members, because of the existing differences in the semantics, methodology and phenomenology of sciences. “The reason for the necessity is that in terms of terminology, methodology and epistemology, the possibility of establishing scientific communication between members becomes obscure."

He declared that the consequence of creating these tall walls will be the lack of cooperation between experts and researchers and added: "the consequence of these tall walls and lack of cooperation is the inability to solve the factual problems of society. Since the factual problems of society are complex, difficult and multidimensional and require the participation of scientists with different specialties."

The complex problems of societies demand complicated and interdisciplinary solutions
The assistant professor of the Entrepreneurship Faculty at University of Tehran, emphasized: "The point is that complex problems require complicated and interdisciplinary solutions, and these solutions are not often intra-disciplinary solutions. That is why some graduates of the higher education system do not hold the required skills and competences of the labor market. Since the collection of those tall walls, educational groups, has caused a widening gap between the required competencies and obtained ones, which is growing day by day."

He emphasized: "so far, no civilization has enjoyed such a unique opportunity to improve human performance on the scale that we will experience in the near future. The convergence of sciences, especially nano science and technology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC), is creating a set of powerful equipment that has significant potential for improving human performance as well as evolving of society, science, economics and human development. With a perceptive understanding of NBIC convergence, the possibility of increasing human performance in the areas of therapy, performance enhancement, and evolution is anticipated and even expected. In addition, convergence poses unprecedent challenges to scientists, policymakers, and business leaders and makes them to be the individuals who own extensively new and effective equipment for shaping markets, societies, and lifestyles, for the first time." 
"The advent of convergence will challenge us in new ways to get geared towards creating balance between risk and return, opportunity and threat, social responsibility and competitive advantage in the 21st century," Chitsaz said.
The Steering Committee member of the Education Social Network at the University of Tehran believes that solving contemporary problems of societies is dependent upon convergence sciences and said: "Convergent sciences and technologies have also had dramatic effects on the field of humanities. These sciences contribute to create a new convergence among disciplines which thereby new societal problems could be solved. Current issues of society are shaped and located on the borders between these sciences and the answers to them can be approached in the cooperation between/among different experts." 
"The central point is that the society issues are not limited to a specific discipline to be solved by experts of a certain field on their own. Therefore, these science and cognitive technologies will be the newfangled window on solving challenges and problems of today's societies. As an instance, in the field of human resource management, the systems of recruitment, retention, promotion and performance are undergoing fundamental changes by the influence of these sciences."

Solving new challenges and problems of society depends on the convergence of different sciences 
Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz asserted that the purpose of establishing new faculties of the University of Tehran have been to focus on interdisciplinary sciences and stated: "The University of Tehran embarked to establish interdisciplinary faculties in a period of time when there has been the aim of focusing on interdisciplinary sciences and convergence between/among them. But these new faculties created the tall walls between/among themselves as the educational groups; the result was deviating from the main goal, which was to converge educational and research activities.
The author of the book 'Banks and the furtherance of Entrepreneurship' emphasized: "The salient point is that the mentioned activities are mostly pursued in cooperation centers or research institutes, where on the responsibility of main discipline the attempts are made to channel the knowledge overflow into other disciplines. In other words, people share their expertise with each other and through the overflow of different individuals' knowledge, they provide new and efficient solutions to solve problems and challenges of today society, at the expense of their core competencies."

The Convergent Technologies Research Institute was established to respond to the new needs of society
The Chairman of Trustees Board of the National Elite Foundation called the establishment of the Convergent Technologies Research Institute of the University of Tehran as an attempt to find solutions and respond to the new needs of societies. And he reminded: "the Convergent Technologies Research Institute was established in 1397 at the University of Tehran with the attendance of a group of experts in various fields. This research institute contains various research groups trying to respond to the new needs of society."
"Convergent technologies follow a wide range of societal needs," Chitsaz said. "For example, the field of cognitive human resources pursues the organizations' needs such as human resources recruitment, performance improvement, human resource retention, coaching and collaboration using convergent technologies, which is a profoundly significant and key process in organizations. For example, human resources recruitment is a key process that imposes a lot of expenses and energy upon organizations' future, and if the process could not be administered properly, the consequences of other HR processes will be faced with the waste of resources and capital. Convergent technologies, therefore, convert qualitative criteria to quantitative and measurable ones, increasing the accuracy of instrument predictions and significantly helping to choose and upgrade them."
The Market Development deputy head of the Information and Communication Technology Park does not consider it possible to solve the new problems of organizations with the outdated techniques and tools, he said: "The current problems of organizations cannot be solved with the techniques and tools of the past, and demand for a set of new requirements. Coronavirus outbreak made companies to allow a large part of their human resources to telecommute but the new situation tools of performance management, promotion and evaluation have not been provided for the managers, so they did not know how to evaluate the activity of human resources."

Interdisciplinary sciences strive to produce higher returns at a lower cost.
He described the presence of fear in organizations as a deterrent factor to employee's creativity and noted: "On the other hand, the old performance assessment systems in organizations have been based on obedience and reduced performance rather than leading individuals to improve their performance." We now know that the amygdala acts as the core fear system in the brain and challenges system-based cognitive processes.
Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran pointed out: "Therefore, the presence of fear in the management systems and human resources of organizations, prevents managers from utilizing the employees' creativity, which finally may result in the reduction of organizational performance and efficiency. Such topics are today developed with the help of neuroscience, data science, and the different biological characteristics of each individual, opening a new window to individual and organizational performance in order to produce higher efficacy at a lower cost. Or among various organizational coaching systems, brain coaching has overshadowed other areas of coaching by providing innovative tools". 
"Convergent technologies have paved the way for the cognitive humanities to take the advantage of neural flexibility so as to hack the brain or improve brain functions," said the translator of the book, Brain Coaching. "Neural flexibility is the basis of everything we learn and also the key factor of our abilities to make changes. Accordingly, it is appropriate to address and consider it for performance improvement of society."

The progressive future belongs to the nations and countries that pioneer the NBIC
Dr. Ehsan Chitsaz reminded: "In fact, today, social guidance is influenced by convergent technologies, and the work done in this area can affect the happiness or misery of societies and cultures. The conclusion of all these discussions indicates that the progressive future of nations belongs to those societies and countries who are pioneers in the field of NBIC."
The companies' evaluation committee member of ICT park does not assume universities as the starting point of convergent research and said: the convergent research does not necessarily originate from universities. Nowadays, due to the availability of resources, the innovative researches conducted in many industries and organizations are more than what is done within the universities. In other words, universities pursue these dynamic institutions.
The faculty member of the University of Tehran described the existence of convergent technologies as a crucial factor for societies development and said: "Ultimately, convergent technologies provide improvement in management, performance and the functions of societies. For example, data science, biotechnology, and new 'Messenger RNA' or 'mRNA" technology have been employed to produce the Covid-19 vaccine, which its usage outcome will be the observation of the performance of "personalized" drugs for humans within the next few years, and remarkable progress in the treatment of cancer will be observed. In fact, the out-turn of this disaster (Covid-19) that occurred to societies is the increase in the rate of life expectancy thanks to these technologies".

Solving critical problems of society demands experts' interaction, engaging in different scientific background
The former Deputy Minister of Management Development and Resources of the National Elite Foundation emphasized: "The existing critical problems of societies are multidimensional and their solutions should be sought in the interactions among experts in different fields of science. indeed, if there had been still tall walls and faculty members had been working in single-specialized research institutes and groups, a real solution to face with the coronavirus could not be achieved. He considered it important to move towards mutual cooperation to create social value", and added: "The important point is that the human capital should leave its safe zone and move towards interactional cooperation, with the aim of social value creation, by getting rid of traditional value systems and focusing on the real issues of society. Being enough competent to share different issues with each other and coming up with common solutions to common problems is highly important."
Referring to focusing on the real issues of communities and offering common solutions, the Deputy head of Market Development of the ICT park said: "The management of future communities will be influenced by groups, individuals and organizations who are specialized in the field of convergent technologies and able to use it to Enhance social performance."
"Being a leader in the field of convergent technologies will be relied on the cooperation and convergence among the human resources of research centers and institutes, so that the real issues could be recognized and the final proposed common solutions will lead to the opening of new paths."

At the end of his statements, the assistant professor of the Entrepreneurship Faculty of the University of Tehran reminded: "it should not be forgotten that if we continue the obsolete and traditional processes in the universities and departments, we will obtain no outcome but failure. Conducted observations concerning the employment of higher education graduates by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in recent years is a good instance of the discussed issue and the evolution of the University of Tehran in creating multidimensional (interdisciplinary) disciplines will be one of the solutions for employment challenges and problem-solving issues in the country."