Young Global Leaders Announce New Projects to Shape the Future
Davos, Switzerland, 28 January 2006 – Young Global Leaders met in Davos to discuss the priority challenges for the world in 2020 and define areas of joint engagement. They announced the launch of several initiatives, including a global dignity public awareness campaign and progress in building the Kaghan Valley Development Organization in Pakistan. “No matter how cynical you are, you would have felt the magic in the air in our conversations. This group of people is going to make something happen”, said Caroline Casey, Founder of the Aisling Foundation in Ireland. Over the past five days, the 150 Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2006 discussed with experts the global challenges that will need to be addressed by the younger generation of leaders over the coming years in the areas of health, environment, governance & security, education and development & poverty. They formed several task forces to develop innovative ideas and initiatives in these areas. A key example is the launch of the Kaghan Valley Development Organization (KVDO) by a group of Young Global Leaders who visited the earthquake affected areas of Pakistan. During the Annual Meeting, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and business leaders in the aviation, travel and tourism industries gave their support to the KVDO. This new public-private partnership seeks to rebuild the tourism infrastructure which is so critical to the greater Kaghan Valley region – an area particularly affected by the earthquake – through the disbursement of concessional and low-interest loans. Another example is the Global Dignity public awareness campaign, which aims to raise global consciousness on the universal right of every human being to lead a dignified life and to compel people around the globe to move to action in implementing the right. ‘We’re going to make ‘dignity tools’ in language, ideas and behaviour available to school teachers worldwide,” said Pekka Himanen, Professor, Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, Finland. Other areas of engagement include microfinance, reinventing aid and climate change. Uday Khemka, Vice-Chairman of the Sun Group of companies, India, pointed out that we need to shift paradigms, not only by adopting a longer-term approach to current issues, but also by framing them in terms of opportunities as opposed to costs. Young Global Leaders participating in the Meeting included Michelle Guthrie, CEO of Star Group; Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, Pakistani Minister of Information Technology; Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco; Amy Butte, CFO of the New York Stock Exchange; Motohisa Furukawa, Member of the House of Representatives of Japan; Lorenzo Mendoza, CEO of Empresas Polar; Ken Wiwa, a Nigerian writer and Niklas Zennström, Co-Founder and CEO, Skype Technologies.