Wisdom of Youth, er…not here
…was the title of a panel last week at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos. For those not invited to the conference, a video is available here if you have an hour to spare you can watch in on video here. Gordon Brown was on the campaign trail and trying to look and sound less creepy, and notwithstanding the fact that he kept referring to notes and giving a stump speech on universal world education after having insisted he was ‘here to listen’, was slightly more charming than usual.
Anyhow, apparently the WEF searched far and wide and brought 60 smart young people from around the globe together for a few days to discuss and agree what the youth of today sees as key issues facing the world today, and to come up with possible solutions. Their conclusions were presented at this session. Basically they focused on two issues: increased spending on universal education (via creating a ‘Global Fund for Education’ and identifying and promoting ‘Active Global Citizens’.
It all sounded pretty bureaucratic and idealistic and uncontraversial but not very pragmatic. Perhaps it’s just me but these young people and their suggestions seemed to come straight out of the 1960s. Maybe they were all really just 50 year olds that overdosed on botox. Don’t get me wrong, improving education and access to education is something I (and I hope most people) would endorse. And the idea of trying to create more ‘Active Global Citizens’ around the world is also something that resonates enormously with me - indeed without being presumptuous I would consider this a reasonable desciption of myself. But these goals in and of themselves are pretty obvious, what is much more interesting in my view would be creative and innovative suggested solutions or courses of action to achieve these goals. I don’t want to be cynical, really I don’t, but somehow I think the WEF failed to find ‘real’ young people and got the model United Nations echo-chamber crowd instead.
I was really disappointed. I passionately believe in the ‘wisdom of youth’ and in the tremendous potential to solve previously intractable problems by embracing the viewpoints and tools of the digital generation, and I was hoping to hear some of this on this panel. Instead I heard a same old, same old, top-down paradigm endorsed and Gordon Brown going on and on…blah blah blah. I’d hate to have to sit through a panel where he was expected to speak rather than listen! 
***Update***
Queen Rania of Jordan was also on this panel and having never heard her speak before, I must say I was impressed by her clear and thoughtful analysis. In particular, she lamented the millions of people ‘that languish in a digital desert’ - without access to basic communications and called for focus on addressing this issue.
