The clash of generations

17 April 2014. Organised by the International Students’ Committee (ISC), the Symposium of 8 and 9 May will bring together about 600 decision-makers from trade and industry, politics, society and academia with 200 students and young top performers, the “Leaders of Tomorrow”, from over 50 nations.

Guests include personalities such as Paul Achleitner (Austria), Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank AG, Didier Burkhalter (Switzerland), President of the Swiss Confederation, Niall Ferguson (UK), Laurence A. Tisch, Professor of History at Harvard University, Mario Greco (Italy), Group Chief Executive Officer of Assicurazioni Generali, Raghuram Rajan (India), Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Tony Tan Keng Yam (Singapore), President of the Republic of Singapore, and Robert Zoellick (US), former President of the World Bank.

A dialogue between generations

The topic, “The Clash of Generations”, refers to the growing worry regarding the constantly changing societal structure and its impact on productivity, general welfare and political stability. It calls on people to enter into a dialogue about the increasing inequality in terms of requirements, values and goals that can be observed in different generations. If these get out of hand, this will result in a rupture which will ultimately affect all the generations.

The 44th St. Gallen Symposium attests a conflict between different age groups. The different experiences and influences that ineluctably follow different dates of birth lead to greatly varying value and expectation systems. In St.Gallen, various aspects of this conflict will be elucidated, among them the question of how to deal with unaffordable pension schemes and the intergenerational contract they put to the test. The challenges which our society is facing cannot be mastered with conventional solution models.

Global market economy in a state of flux

The programme includes discussions, workshops and lectures. Thus Ivan Glasenberg (Australia), Chief Executive Officer of Glencore Xstrata plc, Donald Kaberuka (Rwanda), President of the African Development Bank Group, and Raymond McDaniel (US), President and Chief Executive Officer of Moody’s Corporation, will provide an outlook on the development of the global market economy.

Picture: Photocase / stm