Virtues and Values |
Lithuania arrives in Los Angeles the week of April 27 with three known meetings and one message.
April 27–30: the North American Lithuanian Business Forum, pitching California capital, with remarks from President Gitanas Nausėda, Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, Mayor Karen Bass, and Minister of Economy and Innovation Edvinas Grikšas. April 28: the Los Angeles World Affairs Council hosts Vice Minister Taurimas Valys for an off-the-record breakfast titled “Democracy’s Digital Frontline: AI, Disinformation, and Lessons from Lithuania.” May 1: the American Jewish Committee meets Lithuanian officials on Lithuania’s 157-point “Action Plan to Combat Antisemitism, Xenophobia and Hate.”
The LAWAC member invitation casts Lithuania as “one of Europe’s most consequential voices on democratic resilience in the digital age,” arriving to share “frontline experience at the intersection of AI, national security, and democratic governance.”
Lithuania is qualified to teach exactly one lesson in that syllabus: how a state manufactures narrative authority while falsifying its own past.
What Lithuania says it stands for
In February 2026, at the India AI Impact Summit, Vice Minister Valys said that responsible AI “begins with strong public sector foundations,” that “AI in digital public infrastructure must never become a tool for surveillance or discrimination,” and that “technology must serve people, not the other way around.” In the same delegation’s programming he argued that gender equality in AI “strengthens innovation, improves resilience, enriches perspectives in policymaking, and builds systems that better serve society as a whole.”
These are the........