Emerging global challenges and ways for humanity to survive will be the focus of the first day of the YES Brainstorming

The YES Brainstorming – a new format of event, organised by Yalta European Strategy (YES) and Victor Pinchuk Foundation – will be opened on September 10^th with a special panel featuring President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. The panel will be moderated by Stephen Sackur, Presenter, HARDtalk, BBC World News.

The YES Brainstorming – themed “Post-COVID = Pre-Disaster? Steps to Survival” – will be held on September 9^th-11^th, 2021 in Kyiv, Ukraine. It will be an exclusive, interactive conversation with Ukraine’s most promising leaders of today and tomorrow, with some of the world’s most acclaimed thinkers. According to a hybrid format, key speakers and a select audience will attend the event in person in Kyiv, as well as join it online. Live broadcasting will be provided to a wider audience.

The first day of brainstorming will focus on existing, past, and emerging global challenges, and what these mean for the world of tomorrow. This will cover such fields as peace, security, the functioning of international alliances, the evolution of global powers’ foreign policies, climate change, as well as artificial intelligence and big tech.

YES nightcaps will be dedicated to discussing the decarbonisation, energy security, climate change, and crisis in Belarus. 

Speakers of the first brainstorming day sessions will include: Mike Berners-Lee, Director, Small World Consulting; Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden (2006-2014); Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994); John Bolton, Author, The Room Where It Happened; National Security Advisor (2018-2019); U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006); Rutger Bregman, Historian, Writer, De Correspondent; Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Rana Foroohar, Financial Times Columnist, Global Economic Analyst, Author; Masha Gessen, Author, Journalist, Staff Writer at The New Yorker; Distinguished Writer in Residence, Bard College; Charles Kupchan, Senior Fellow and Director of European Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Cathy O’Neil, Founder, ORCAA; Linda Yueh, Economist at Oxford University, LBS and LSE; Fareed Zakaria, Host, Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN, and more.