2022.12.20

Two Students Attend One Young World 2022, a Global Summit for Future Leaders, as Japan Delegates

TANAI Airi, a fifth year student of the Dental School at Okayama University, and Rosina MOTHAPO, a third year student of the Discovery Program for Global Learners attended One Young World 2022, a global summit for future leaders, in Manchester, England from September 5-8 as part of the delegation from Japan (Ms. TANAI participated in person, and Ms. MOTHAPO participated online).

The University has been an official partner of the summit since it was held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015, and every year sends two student representatives and Senior Vice President for Global Engagement Strategy YOKOI Atsufumi to participate. This year marked the University’s seventh consecutive time participating in the summit, following the summits in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015, Ottawa, Canada in 2016, Bogota, Colombia in South America in 2017, the Hague, the Netherlands in 2018, London, England in 2019, and Munich, Germany in 2021.

Before this year’s summit took place, there was a send-off party on August 5 for the Japanese delegation at BMW GROUP Tokyo Bay in Odaiba, Tokyo. The opening ceremony for the summit was held at Bridgewater Hall (Manchester, England) on September 5, spectacularly filled with music, dance and flags representing the countries of the world. The closing ceremony featured keynote speeches by the first woman President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and included a video message from Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The message of “you are not just the leaders of the future, you are the leaders the world needs right now” resonated strongly with the participants.

Ms. TANAI and Ms. MOTHAPO both participated in the Plenary sessions, workshops and networking events. Under the framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there were wide-ranging discussions on topics from climate change, to war and peace, education, human rights, gender, leadership and global business. In the Plenary sessions, participants were able to experience speeches from current world leaders and representatives from various countries, such as the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, a longtime supporter and advocate of grassroots causes for young people and the environment, former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and former CEO of Unilever Paul Polman.

During the summit, there were also live relays linking the Manchester summit with the four summits taking place across the world, including Okayama. Approximately 100 participants including Okayama high school and university students exchanged views on topics such as their dreams for the future and issues faced by gender minorities, and were able to experience the feeling of being connected to the world.

Marking its 12th summit this year, OYW was attended by about 2,000 people from more than 200 countries. The 2023 summit will be held in Belfast, Great Britain from October 14-17.

○Global summit for future leaders One Young World (OYW)

After being declared at the 2009 World Economic Forum (known as the Davos Forum; headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland), OYW has become one of the world’s largest summits, bringing together young leaders (18-30 years old) representing more than 190 countries. It has taken place annually since it was first held in London, the capital city of Great Britain, in 2010. OYW is a project for developing the next generation of young leaders in a global collaboration of industry, government and academia for the purpose of solving challenges on a global scale faced by the world, by having the next generation of young leaders cooperate under world leaders. Its scale and network continue to rapidly expand.

Summit participants, who are given the title of “OYW ambassadors”, have the opportunity to create long-lasting connections with about 10,000 talented young people from around the world.

Including Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of the Grameen Bank, the summit is supported by many OYW counsellors comprised of prime ministers and presidents, government officials, leading companies in the global Fortune 500 ranking announced by Fortune magazine (United States), as well as global leaders and prominent figures in a variety of fields, such as culture and sport, media, NGOs, entrepreneurs and artists.