Graduate School of Design Hosts World Economic Forum

The international monetary system, population growth, and global governance were among six topics of discussion at the first-ever World Economic Forum dialogue held on a college campus.

The event, held yesterday at the Graduate School of Design, aimed to spark an exchange of ideas between students and professors who are experts in law, business, health, and design.

According to Michele Petochi, head of university community at the World Economic Forum, the Forum is a “neutral platform of dialogue that brings government, business, and non-profit leaders together to connect the dots, learn, and collaborate to find the best solutions to global problems.”

“This event is part of our evolution in providing the best expertise in the world,” Petochi added. “We have the privilege of testing this format at the number-one university in the world. It’s fascinating to have this forum at Harvard because of its family of schools, both undergraduate and graduate.”

“To put it bluntly,” Petochi later said, “the World Economic Forum of the past 40 years would not exist without Harvard.”

He added that the Forum was interested in creating a series of permanent dialogues hosted at universities, and the planning process began nearly six months ago. Through collaboration with GSD Professor Toshiko Mori, the event included panels and workshops where experts interacted with students and discussed their ideas and potential solutions to global problems in a format similar to that of the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

This year’s program focused on proposals from the Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative, a year-long discussion among 1,200 world leaders and experts that aims to answer the question, “How can the architecture of global cooperation be redesigned not only to accommodate our deeper interdependence, but also to capitalize on it?”

Graduate School of Design Dean Mohsen Mostafavi emphasized the significance of holding the event at the Design School.

“We’re happy that it’s happening at the GSD because of the way in which many of the conversations have deep implications in terms of design,” Mostafavi said. “A lot of things, like population growth, have very specific physical manifestations. To understand those is very important for our relevance as an institution.”

Attendees similarly said they appreciated the use of a design lens in solving global issues.

“Coming from the field of design, to be exposed to concepts like population growth and have a baseline awareness of these issues is important for us not only as designers, but for society as a whole,” said Meghan E. Spigle, a student at the GSD.

When asked whether the Forum had plans to hold similar events in the future, Petochi said he was in discussions with the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University to hold a forum on international monetary policy, likely to be held next spring.

The Forum’s overall goal is to “provide experience to young people who will be future world leaders,” Petochi said.