The Summit on the Global Agenda 2011 was the most engaging and exciting

By Yoko Ishikura*

The Summit on the Global Agenda 2011 was the most engaging and exciting Global Agenda Council event to date. There was passion and enthusiasm and an unprecedented sense of need for action; re-energizing me after two days of intense discussion.

I was very impressed with the renewed dedication and commitment by Professor Klaus Schwab to ‘DO’ something, as he shared in his opening and closing remarks.

I found the meetings – both those originally scheduled and those planned ad hoc ‐ were more efficienct and with more substance than previous years. Compared with the past summits where I sometimes felt initial enthusiasm and passion was somewhat diluted toward the end, I felt at the end of this Summit we were on to something “real” and we could actually ‘DO’ something to improve the state of the world.

I can think of several reasons for the high energy level I felt during the three day-period:

1. We realized the World Economic Forum is indeed one of the few platforms for multi-stakeholder collaboration on a global scale, while other institutional mechanisms have not worked as effectively and efficiently.

2. Our sense of urgency and crisis (often called “time bomb”) has driven us to take specific action steps (and not just debate or discussion).

3. We have become more aware of the interconnectedness of the world and the overwhelming speed of changes sweeping the globe. While the actions on the part of policy makers still reflect traditional national boundary-driven thinking, those of international organizations and institutions have had difficulty catching up with the ever increasing speed.

4. Working together with the Global Agenda Council over the past three years, our understanding of the issues (in my case, Skills & Talent Mobility, an urgent issue requiring immediate action today) and solutions have become more fact-based and realistic.

For me personally, I was happy to see the heightened awareness of the importance of talent among a much broader base of participants. I also found many “renewed” insights about the issue such as the need for “lifelong learning” of the metrics of well-being of the people (and not just economic output) and for the linkage between supply and demand of human capital. I am very excited about the pilot project on on-line knowledge and “best practices” related to skill development and talent mobility we plan to launch soon.

*Yoko Ishikura is Professor of the Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University, Japan. She is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Skills & Talent Mobility and has attended the Summit on the Global Agenda 2011 held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 10-11 October.