Daniel Innerarity, a famous Spanish Thinker that wrote the famous book about the “Democracy and its Ennemies” published recently a small essay about the danger of the Ignorance Society. Despite the global flows of knowledge, the continuous investment in Technology and Expertise, people are not able to manage such a tremendous amount of ideas and the danger of all this become the basis of an unexpected new ignorance society is a reality. In a time of change, with new challenges to a complex and uncertain society, people must use the knowledge as the right tool for a new collective agenda of economic and social development.

This collective war against the Ignorance Society must be built through an effective Partnership Contract between all the actors , in order to build a real Strategy of Confidence in the implementation of the different policies. The focus on Innovation and Knowledge as the drivers of creating added value with international dissemination is a unique challenge that may be the answer to a new way of interaction between those who have the responsibility of thinking and those that have the responsibility of producing goods and services.

This collective war against the Ignorance Society must be built through the development of an active entrepreneurial culture and attitude -  people have most of the times  an effective negative attitude towards the financial risk, the focus on innovation and the share of a culture of positive dynamic. We want a more open and collaborative society. The Knowledge Society –the opposition to the Ignorance Society must be able to be the real Platform of a more entrepreneurial attitude., centered in new areas of knowledge and new sectors of value. In a global dynamic and creative world there is no space to the Ignorance Society.

Daniel Innerarity is teaching in the Basque Country. The story of the Basque Country is largely the story of a land of people that want to develop a new contract of development against the Ignorance Society. People that know that the basis for an effective society of participation and collaboration is the opportunity of driving an agenda of change based in new ideas and new solutions. The message of Daniel Innerarity is in this sense of message in confidence in a better future. A better future against the undesired possibility of the Ignorance Society. 

We don ´t want the Ignorance Society. We want the opportunity of new ideas and new solutions. These are in fact the “drivers of change” for the world  and civil society must be able to understand this new challenge and address effective answers to the different stakeholders of the system. The challenge of the Knowledge Society – in opposition to the Ignorance Society - is in a large sense giving a new opportunity  to the reinvention of society. The Reinvention of Society is the reinvention of its people and institutions. It ´s the conviction that in fact we have a future as individuals and society.

Francisco Jaime Quesado is the General Manager of the Innovation and Knowledge Society in Portugal, a public agency with the mission of coordinating the policies for Information Society and mobilizing it through dissemination, qualification and research activities. It operates within the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education