Atlantic Council Fellowship Application

Tell your story. What makes you who you are? 
For generations my father’s family were rabbis in Ukraine and my mother’s family were prosperous pig farmers in Denmark. This convergence of poles apart cultural backgrounds informs my personality in such a way that I have a great appreciation for the humorous circumstances of life; an understanding of the importance of initiative, integrity, education and the need to be intrepid in the face of daunting circumstances.

These qualities have allowed me to live a unique life. I’ve made my home in Florida, Czech Republic, New York City, Spain and Colombia and my experiences there developed my professional capabilities; helped me be able to relate to people of all types – from barely literate campesinos to CEOs of high tech software companies; and inculcated a great appreciation for cultural diversity. Improvement of the public and private spheres by applying my skills and capabilities is how I currently direct my life activity.

What tipping or inflection points do you anticipate in your area of expertise over the next 5-10 years? How well-positioned are you to take advantage of this or to be on the cutting-edge of driving these transformations?
As more developed countries transition to whole-of-government software platforms with unprecedented analytical and planning capacity and as medium to large companies within those countries similarly become better able to understand and capitalize on business intelligence trends their collective enhancements will result in an epistemic shift within the people that populate these classes that manage people and capital. While significantly more technical, it will also lead to levelling s each country in some way or other adopts the optimum models. Thus technical innovations and information technologies will continue to cause vast social, economic and political disruptions over the next ten years in ways that can most accurately only be anticipated as intense process for all involved.

My doctoral studies in Innovation and Technology Management helps me to position myself as someone that can work as a consultant and advisor to public and private organizations so that they can more rapidly adopt, exploit and further develop the potential inherent in these revolutionary technologies. Outside of this program, I am also engaged in several long-term initiatives – my Social Science One project being one; the application to this Fellowship another – in order to situate myself as a thought leader in this field.

#MillenniumFellowshipApp: The 21st century will see the end of…
many of the knowledge gaps causing unwitting sub-optimal decision-making at the individual, social, economic & political levels. Increased information access, planning and communication technologies will continue to change the world in profound ways.

#MillenniumFellowshipApp: I’m impacting my community by…
Prototyping an e-government software development project that would accelerate the quality, efficiency and capabilities of public service provision to citizens and assist businesses.

#MillenniumFellowshipApp: This isn’t on my resume, but ask me about…
My TeleSUR project. I verified 3 Senators’ concerns, published, publicized, then became one of the first people to develop social scientific methods for interpreting Facebook data.

Short Bibliography
Ariel Sheen is a Colombian National Scholarship award winner engaged in Doctoral training in Innovation and Technology Management at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellin. His research is on technology transfer, public/private software development partnerships and the relationship between information management and political institutions.
He earned his Master’s degree from New York University in Experimental Humanities on 2011 and is also a Social Science One research grant-recipient for the Facebook sponsored investigation into Social Media and Democracy.
Formerly a creative director at a Fortune 500 digital marketing company and a professor of political science, he aims to use his expertise to assist governments and businesses understand and adapt to the technological possibilities inherent within the 4th industrial revolution.