Co-creation and Black Holes – Astrophysicist Heino Falcke at SQUARE

Can you imagine a hybrid mega-telescope spanning about 6000 km across our blue planet? It was impressive to attend the speech and discussion with Astrophysicist Heino Falcke and Prof. Ann-Kristin Zobel on “Co-creation and Black Holes: How to make the invisible visible and what Law, Management and Economics can learn from it”, that took place at SQUARE at the University of St. Gallen on Friday, June 17th.

Heino Falcke is an internationally distinguished astrophysicist and bestselling book-author. In 2019—together with the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHTC), whose research council he chaired—he achieved a world sensation: the publication of the first image of a black hole. Already in his doctoral thesis, Falcke dreamed of making such an event possible. More than 20 years later, he achieved his goal through the global EHTC, a network consisting of eight radio telescopes and more than 200 scientists on four continents. They jointly published the first image of a black hole. In his speech, Falcke provided a deep understanding of the role of competition and collaboration within the project, that was also honored by Science as Breakthrough of the Year in 2019.

What one can learn from his talk and the discussion: Crucial skills to tackle complex challenges, such as the EHTC project, include long-term orientation and visioning, trust and the motivation to facilitate collaborative relationships, co-creational skills, intercultural competence plus changemaker qualities, such as courage and optimism to break old patterns and to act with persistence. These skills are all featured within the

Inner Development Goals (IDG), that help developing leadership capacity to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and building communities of practice for tackling complex planetary challenges, such as reversing the ongoing social cohesion erosion and dealing with space junk, the climate crisis, and biodiversity.

The event was hosted by the Law and Economics Foundation St. Gallen in cooperation with the HSG Mentoring Programme, the HSG Impact Scholar Community, and ECOnnect.

Author: Lasse van Look

Date: 6. July 2022