Marketwired | January 26, 2016
BOSTON, MA and CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwired – January 26, 2016) – Boston Global Forum has introduced the BGF-G7 Summit Initiative, which will cooperate with this year’s G7 host country, Japan, to convene leading scholars and business, government, technology and other leaders to seek solutions to pressing global issues involving peace, security and development.
As a part of the initiative, the BGF-G7 Summit Initiative weekly newsletter has been launched today, Jan. 26, to provide fresh news and commentary from experts around the world.
The G7 represents the seven leading industrial democracies.
Proposals from the initiative will be sent to the national leaders at this year’s G7 Summit, to be held in Japan on May 26-27. Based in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston Global Forum brings together thought leaders from around the globe who participate in forums to discuss critical world issues.
The initiative will include 60-minute-long online dialogues featuring one speaker in each discussion — usually an internationally recognized scholar or government, business or technology leader — who will present his or her perspective on an issue, followed by interactions among 100 discussants of a wide range of ages and backgrounds who will participate online from around the world.
The discussion will continue as participants send questions and opinions to each other by email. Boston Global Forum’s Special Editorial Board will gather the insights and send them to the speaker.
There will be 12 of these dialogues, with the first on Feb. 2 and the final conference to be held on May 9 at the Harvard University Faculty Club, when the most promising ideas from these dialogues will be summarized and then reported to the national leaders meeting in Japan.
This year’s main topic will be Strategies for Combating Cyberterrorism.
Boston Global Forum will also cooperate with the Japanese government in organizing an online dialogue on “The Role of Japan in Peace, Security and Development in the World Today.”
A similar program will be held every year before each G7 summit, in which Boston Global Forum will cooperate with the host country, with a particular issue to be selected as the focus.
Another mission this year will be to promote a sense of global citizenship and mutual responsibility. This project will include collaboration with the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. The program is titled the Global Citizenship Education for Peace, Security and Development program.
Distinguished moderators at these forums will include former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, a co-founder and the chairman of Boston Global Forum; Prof. Joseph Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, Jose Manual Barroso, former president of the European Commission, and Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former president of Latvia and president of the World Leadership Alliance Club de Madrid.
Other distinguished professors as well as several people named by Time magazine as being among the 100 most influential people in the world, and some people listed by Foreign Policy magazine as among the 100 top global thinkers, will join in building the initiatives.
