Global Shapers Annual Summit 2020 Wrap up

Hi, everyone!

I’m Francis, from the Global Shapers Community Yokohama Hub. This is my first ever write up as a Shaper since I joined in April 2020. Being part of this community has been such a blessing, being able to meet Shapers from Japan and all over the world, as well as constantly learning about how the youth can contribute to solutions to the challenges that the world faces.

Every year, hub leaders gather in Geneva, Switzerland to engage, exchange ideas and build relationships to address these challenges. While we couldn’t gather in person this year due to the challenges of Covid-19, the World Economic Forum hosted our Annual Summit, under the theme of “The Great Reset”, virtually for the first time ever. This meant that our community of 8000 Global Shapers from all the ends of the world were mobilized to join the five-day virtual program. Taking into account that not everybody would be able to attend the session due to timezones, recordings were also made available for those who wanted to catch the sessions afterwards.

The five-day program had a mix of community, impact, skills, and forum sessions addressing diversity & inclusion, climate change, mental health, SDGs and much more.
Some of the sessions that I personally participated in were:
Community session: Celebrating Our Diversity
Impact session: Building Inclusive Communities
Skills session: Innovative Problem Solving to Overcome Roadblocks
Skills session: Using Design Thinking to Create Change
Forum session: Circular Economy Innovation

As it was my first time attending the summit, my approach was to come with an open mind and to leave each session having learned more. Not only did I learn more about the projects and great impact that our hubs have left in their communities, but I also got to learn about the people making these impacts. I really appreciated how we were all split into breakout rooms where we got to meet each other and have intimate discussions based on the topic. From the design thinking skills session, I also took away learnings from the 5 Elements of Responsible Leadership that was introduced. I found that the skills sessions were valuable in a way that while the frameworks and tools introduced would help us in Shaper projects, they were also applicable in our working environments and projects in our day to day.

At the end of the 5 days, I definitely felt that I was part of a community touching all parts of the world, and empowered to reach out, learn and do more. There is still so much work to be done, and in the words of our GSC founder Prof. Klaus Schwab, “impact comes not only from action, but also from mindset.”