- Over 300 Young Global Leaders from across the world will take part in their Annual Summit in the run-up to the World Economic Forum on Latin America
- Nominated before the age of 40, they include artists, activists, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and technology pioneers; together, they highlight the need for new solutions to correct the shortcomings of market-driven capitalism and globalization
- Initiatives launched by Young Global Leaders include finding a cure for spinal paralysis, tackling water scarcity, creating a global emergency response network and pioneering waste-free economies
- For more information about the YGLs, please visit http://wef.ch/ygl
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 30 March 2017 – Over 300 of the world’s top young artists, activists, business leaders, social entrepreneurs, technology pioneers, thinkers and policy-makers are coming to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the Young Global Leaders and Alumni Annual Summit ahead of the World Economic Forum on Latin America.
The Annual Summit, held this year on 2-5 April, is the main gathering of the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a diverse and multidisciplinary community of young innovators who are collectively searching for solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. Initiatives launched by the Young Global Leaders have helped to search for a cure for spinal paralysis, develop the world’s largest vertical farm, and raise awareness of global water scarcity. A full list of YGL collaborations and impacts is available here: https://www.weforum.org/pages/ygl-collaborations.
Young Global Leaders at the summit include:
- Gina Badenoch, Photographer, Artist, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ojos que Sienten, Mexico; the organization encourages blind people to connect with the sighted world using the language of photography
- Mina Guli, corporate-lawyer-turned-activist, ultramarathon runner and Chief Executive Officer of Thirst – an organization that educates consumers about water conservation
- Pia Mancini, Co-Founder of OpenCollective and Chair of Democracy Earth, is re-imagining democracy for the digital era through non-profit organizations and venture-backed collaborative projects that could change the way citizens engage with politics
- Alec Oxenford co-founded tech unicorn OLX, one of the world’s biggest internet brands developed outside Silicon Valley; he is head of Letgo, which is taking on mobile marketplace giant Craigslist
- Luhan Yang of eGenesis Biosciences, is one of the world’s top scientists in genome editing; she co-invented the revolutionary genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, and is engineering personalized organs for drug screening and, eventually, transplantation
- Rina Gee Kupferschmid-Rojas, Global Head of Sustainable Investing at UBS, founded ESG Analytics, a company that gives investors the research and rankings to integrate environmental, social and governance criteria into their investment choices
A full list of participants is available here.
“The world faces a leadership crisis. New solutions are needed and we believe that, by bringing together Young Global Leaders, we can help them build coalitions for change and find new ways to create an inclusive future. They are the role models that bring to this meeting the vision, boldness and collective experience that is so urgently needed in the world right now,” said Joanna Sparber, Deputy Head of the Forum of Young Global Leaders.
The World Economic Forum recently announced 100 new members who have been asked to join the community. Over 40 of them will meet their fellow YGLs in Buenos Aires for the first time. The full list of 100 is available at http://wef.ch/ygl17.
The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. (www.weforum.org).