Generation Y’s ideas

2 May 2014. More than 1,000 students from 383 universities in more than 100 countries applied. The three prize winners are studying in India, Australia and Singapore at present. The jury chose their contributions owing to their unusual ideas about this year’s conference topic, The Clash of Generations. The three contributions can be read at www.symposium.org/winners.

Winners in a panel discussion

On the occasion of the presentation of the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award at the 44th St. Gallen Symposium, the three winners will discuss the intergenerational conflict with Al Jazeera presenter Riz Khan. The winners hail from India (Ashwinikumar Singh, University of Mumbai), Australia (Martin Seneviratne, University of Sydney) and Malaysia (Set Ying Ting, National University of Singapore). The panel discussion entitled “The NextGen Files – A conversation with the three awardees”, will take place on Thursday, 8 May 2014, from 5.30-6.30 p.m. It can be viewed live online at www.symposium.org/livestream.

Approaches to solving the intergenerational conflict

Ashwinikumar Singh is an Indian national and obtained the degree of a Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology from the University of Mumbai. In his essay “The brave shall inherit the earth”, Singh voices the warning that decision-makers’ inactivity and their inability to implement long overdue structural reforms will ineluctably lead to irreversible damage to the environment and to society.

Martin Seneviratne obtained a physics degree before starting his studies in medicine at the University of Sydney. The founder of the non-profit organisation Survaid is greatly interested in technology, healthcare and social enterprises. Thus Seneviratne also developed the healthcare app iResident.

Seneviratne’s essay “Cottage Industry 2.0: Grassroots technology as a solution for youth unemployment” provides a new approach to the fight against youth unemployment. Seneviratne calls for a democratisation of innovation in order to be able to exploit young people’s spirit of enterprise to the full.

Set Ying Ting is a Malaysian scientist specialising in the mathematical modelling of polymer solar cells. In his essay “A generation plants the trees in whose shade another generation rests”, he argues that growing problems such as the unequal distribution of wealth necessitates a new intergenerational contract in Singapore. This contract should be based on the successes of the past but should also take today’s and tomorrow’s conditions into consideration.