Pushing Borders

The year of 2023 has been the year when the IYTT pushes borders. Our fifth anniversary youth conference attracted massively more applicants than ever before and with a greater spread than ever – 540 applicants from 68 countries. For the first time we moved the conference from the think tank’s birthplace Gothenburg, Sweden, to Barcelona, Spain, which also meant that our conference contributed to Barcelona’s program as the first European Capital of Democracy.

We have started to push another border by moving next year’s youth conference from Europe to Africa. Our sixth annual youth conference will thus be hosted by STIAS Wallenberg Research Center in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and will run as a Nobel Symposium. The conference will be organized jointly by us, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the FVZS Institute at Stellenbosch University, and STIAS.

2023 has also been the year when the Gothenburg based Sten A Olsson Foundation graciously awarded us a very generous grant to finance annual world youth summits in Gothenburg, starting in July 2025. In this project we will collaborate with Gothia Cup, which is the world’s biggest soccer tournament for kids and youth. Through this project we will cross borders between young talents in soccer and democracy respectively, hoping that our democracy ideas and youth engagement methods will travel the world thanks to the Gothia Cup teams.

Finally, In 2023, we have become part of an innovative transnational democracy initiative called Speak Up, which is an EU and Interreg North Sea project, co-financed by the Region Västra Götaland. The project runs 2023-2026 and engages twelve partners from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and includes cities, regions, universities, and a community center.

It is an amazing privilege to evolve the think tank activities together with all blazingly brilliant and good-hearted Youth Fellows, and it certainly gives hope for a much brighter future. A big thanks to all of you!

Speaking of giving thanks, our progression is unthinkable if it hadn’t been for the support from our sponsors the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation, Sten A Olsson Foundation, the Nobel Program Committee, Interreg North Sea, Region Västra Götaland, our host Lindholmen Science Park, and our supportive national and international friends, such as Athens Democracy Forum, Democracy and Culture Foundation, International IDEA, The Innovation in Politics Institute, Global Partnership for AI, The Montreal International Center of Expertise in Artificial Intelligence, European Capital of Democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the FVZS Institute at Stellenbosch University, and Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, Debating Europe, The Global Democracy Coalition and TAM-Transatlantic Masters Program.

With this, the winter edition of our newsletter the Loop, comes an overview of the IYTT’s recent and upcoming events, activities, and publications. I trust you will enjoy it.