Ayad Al-Ani

Ayad Al-Ani ( Arabic أياد العاني, DMG Ayād al-ʿĀnī ; * 1964 ) is a German-Iraqi economist , political scientist , manager and expert on change management , organizational theory , as well as digitization and its consequences for economies.

Career

Al-Ani spent his childhood and youth as the son of an Iraqi father and a German mother in Baghdad and Vienna , where his father was a diplomat for the Iraqi representation at OPEC . According to the name, the ancestors of the Iraqi family branch come from the historic city of Ana in the Iraqi province of Anbar .

Al-Ani studied economics and political science in Vienna and obtained a doctorate in both subjects.

Between 1995 and 2009 Al-Ani worked for the management consultancy Accenture , most recently as a partner and executive director in Vienna.

From 2009 to 2012 Al-Ani was the rector of the Franco-German business school ESCP in Berlin.

Al-Ani is a lecturer for digital culture at the University of Basel and was visiting professor at the Distance University in Hagen from 2017 to 2018 . He teaches as an associate professor a. a. at the South African University of Stellenbosch . He also taught at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Al-Ani has been an associated member of the Einstein Center Digital Future since 2019 and is involved, among other things, in a research project on the consequences of digitization for employment in the Volkswagen Group . Previously, Al-Ani conducted research at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society on the subject of “crowd production in companies” in the research area of ​​Internet-based innovation.

Al-Ani is also co-founder of the Digital Arabia Network, an initiative to network start-up entrepreneurs and experts for digitization in the Arab world.

Because of his prognostic publications, Al-Ani is sometimes referred to as a " futurologist ".

He is a member of the board of the German-Arab Society and is a member of the board of trustees of the Candid Foundation think tank in Berlin.

Positions

Hierarchies and organization

Al-Ani sees the current phase of digital transformation as a change in the economic system. He predicts that in the next 15-20 years a multitude of parallel organizational forms and principles will coexist in the economy. He advocates "networked work".

Al-Ani takes a critical look at hierarchical structures in the organization of companies and advocates, among other things, the thesis that hierarchies could be replaced by so-called peer-to-peer processes in the future, i.e. a decentralized, equal system.

Al-Ani also deals with the principle of crowdworking . In an interview with the left-wing weekly Jungle World , he said in 2019 that unions could play an important role in transforming work processes.

Digital platforms

In various contributions and public statements, Al-Ani warned Germany and the other European countries of the increasing polarization of economic influence between China and the USA . By investing in platforms and artificial intelligence, both countries would achieve a head start that could hardly be obtained. The previous strategy of the German federal government to promote research and digital start-ups is not sufficient.

In an article for the Wiener Standard , for which he wrote columns at regular intervals, Al-Ani criticized the "tribalization" of political discourse in the western industrialized nations after Donald J. Trump's election as US president and interpreted it as a sign of the declining regulatory importance of the nation state . According to Al-Ani, from now on it will be "technology companies that operate globally and are now trying to integrate different communities through their algorithms without following democratic rules. And this is where the front lines of the future will run."

With a view to the Arab world, Al-Ani warns that in some cases it will be particularly hard hit by the change in production processes in the low-wage sector. Since the Arab states had a large common language area , there would also be approaches for a common, transnational Arab strategy for digitization .

Arab-European history

In addition, Al-Ani conducts historical studies, in particular on the ancient Orient and the relationship between Europe and the Middle East . In a book published in 2014 with the title "Arabs as part of the Hellenistic-Roman and Christian world", he contrasts European and Arabic historiography and points out the importance of Caesars and senators of Arab origin for the history of the Roman Empire . He also calls for a stronger interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange in historical research and a stronger focus on the common history of the cultural areas. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung rated the work as a "long-term convincing plea" for this perspective.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tagesspiegel: "We only use our potential in part". Retrieved March 14, 2020 . 
2. ^ SPL Extraordinary Staff. Retrieved March 14, 2020 . 
3. ↑ ECDF :: Prof. Dr. Dr. Ayad Al-Ani. Retrieved March 14, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Ayad Al-Ani, Prof. Dr. Dr. In: HIIG. Retrieved on March 14, 2020 (German). 
5. ↑ Digital Network Arabia: Digtial Arabia Network | Digital Arabia Network. Retrieved March 14, 2020 . 
6. ^ München Kongress Media GmbH: Expert profiles. Retrieved March 15, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Robot bosses will run robot factories. In: OXI Blog. December 7, 2016, accessed March 14, 2020 . 
8. ↑ New Work: Will the line manager soon be superfluous? Retrieved March 14, 2020 . 
9. ^ "The unions must cooperate". Retrieved March 15, 2020 . 
10. ^ Isolation and tribal formation - derStandard.at. Accessed March 14, 2020 (Austrian German). 
11. ↑ Allah is with the robots. February 18, 2019, accessed March 15, 2020 . 
12. ↑ Ayad Al-Ani: Arabs as part of the Hellenistic-Roman and Christian world . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-428-54119-5 .
13. ^ Rainer Herrmann: Dionysus came to Mecca (review) . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 15, 2015.