The Roscongress Foundation together with its partners hosted an
international meeting of the Friends for Leadership group of young leaders and
entrepreneurs as part of the Eastern Economic Forum 2019 on 4–6 September in
Vladivostok. Twenty-five representatives of India, Japan, the United States,
the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Switzerland, Nigeria and Russia participated in
the event.
Friends for Leadership is a permanent international pool of young leaders
involved in promoting multilateral economic and humanitarian projects in five
areas: social entrepreneurship, technology, education, smart and sustainable
cities, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
During several days of the Forum, a number of business programme
sessions were held within the Roscongress Foundation's Building Trust platform.
So, Rishabh Sethi, International Director at BRICS International Forum (India)
moderated a session on the economic activity of Russian and Indian youth and
spoke at a session on the media as a soft power of the world economy, and David
Okpatuma, Coordinator for Africa at Art Shapers, moderated a session on the
role of youth in creating and developing a comfortable urban environment. President
of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeyev and Alexey Bondaruk,
Deputy Head of the Department for External Economic and International Relations
of Moscow, met with the community members. Meetings with the leading Russian
and foreign experts, businessmen, representatives of the media and public
organizations took place, too.
The Eastern Economic Forum 2019 also featured the Second Conference – Dialogue
of Young Diplomats in the Asia-Pacific Region, which was organized by the
Council of Young Diplomats at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to
promote informal ties between the employees of foreign ministries. Roman
Chukov, Assistant to Youth Policy Director at Roscongress Foundation, made a
presentation about the Friends for Leadership community on 5 September, and on
6 September, the conference participants had a joint business lunch with the
representatives of the international pool of young leaders and entrepreneurs to
discuss their projects and impressions of the Eastern Economic Forum 2019.
The young leaders also took an active part in the Far East Street exhibition
events, where some members of the community were included in the jury of the
charm and talent contest ‘The Beauty of the Far East Street’ and attended the
presentation of the opening of the Mahatma Gandhi Center of the Far Eastern
Federal University in the Youth Pavilion.
“We were pleased to provide an opportunity for young and active
entrepreneurs, politicians, diplomats, scientists and public figures to
exchange best practices and specific business projects to promote and scale up.
More and more young people are interested in Friends for Leadership events on
the sidelines of the major forums organized by the Roscongress Foundation, and
some of the participants’ projects have already been presented to the United
Nations and other leading international bodies, including the G20 Youth Summit.
We hope that young leaders and entrepreneurs have spent these few days in
Vladivostok and are travelling back to their countries with new knowledge,
contacts and agreements on joint projects. We plan to further develop this area
and invite partners to work together to promote the projects of the
participants,” said Alexander Stuglev, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the
Roscongress Foundation.