Stunning Inaugural Youth Conference!

This week, Monday–Friday, we concluded our first International Youth Conference. Thanks to the conference participants’ strong and convincing applications, and a program that included contributions from many competent scholars and executives, the expectations for the turnout was high. I am happy say that the conference was an amazing event that in every respect exceeded these expectations! The conference was concluded on Thursday evening, 14 November, with an hour-long public seminar starting at 15.45. The youth conveyed a stunningly well-performed presentation, and responded energetically and cogently to comments from the three distinguished commentators, Jan-Olof Jacke, Director General at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise; Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Trade; and Monica Frassoni, President of the European Center for Electoral Support. The seminar was lived streamed and can be viewed here or down below.

During the conference, the participants not only prepared this stunning presentation, they also wrote a conference report which we publish in a preliminary draft today (link below). Now the youth will ponder on the experiences from the conference as well as comments from the presentation seminar. Within a couple of weeks, they will produce the final conference report.

It stands to reason from the slides and the report that the conference participants have been amazingly successful. They have moved far beyond the simplistic buzz words around current challenges, and instead come up with strikingly wise and well-founded analyses of current developments. Equally inspiring is that the issues span a breadth of policy areas, and they bring up many issues that go far beyond the self-interest of young people. During the conference, the youth were frustrated about not having the time and resources to develop and substantiate their suggestions through consulting current research and compilations of well-tried practice. The strong drive for thoroughness through knowledge in their own process is an admirable attitude, which is also echoed in the thematic demands within education.

The inaugural International Youth Conference has been a grand success and lays the foundation for the continued creative process of the International Youth Think Tank.

Read the draft here!