Yale President Richard Levin will achieve another first for
himself later this month when he travels to Davos, Switzerland to speak at the 30th annual
meeting of the members of the World Economic Forum.
Levin will join 3,000 other political and civil society, global business, scientific,
academic and media leaders at the 2000 meeting in Davos, which will be held from Jan. 27
to Feb. 1, and is entitled "New Beginnings: Making a Difference."
Levin will be at the conference from Jan. 27 to 29 and then leave the conference to return
to Yale.
At the conference Levin, a former chairman of the economics department, will speak on two
panels. He will talk about trends in higher education as well as anti-trust issues, one of
his areas of specialty in economics.
"It's nice," Levin said. "There will be many simultaneous panels and talks.
It has the structure of a professional meeting, the form of an academic conference and the
people are truly from all over the world."
Levin said he was invited to speak at the conference before he was Yale's president, but
declined the invitation. He added that a number of Yale faculty members have gone to the
annual meeting in the past.
Dean of Yale School of Management Jeffrey Garten, history professor Paul Kennedy, and
Daniel Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental and Law Policy, are the
other Yale faculty members who will be at the conference this year. Both Esty and Garten
will serve as moderators at the meeting.
In addition to Levin, many noted world leaders from many different fields will speak at
the event. U.S. President Bill Clinton LAW '73, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat,
founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos and Prime Minister of Israel
Ehud Barak head the list of a star-studded cast of speakers, panelists and moderators.
"It's a real feather in our cap that they asked [Levin] to speak," University
Secretary Linda Lorimer said.
At this annual meeting, many of the key economic, political and societal issues facing the
world are addressed in an action-oriented way. The meeting is designed to set trends and
to be a place where major initiatives are launched.
This year there are 12 main topics, which include "Changing the world as we have
known it," education and partnership and the challenge of managing diversity in the
21st century.
The World Economic Forum is an independent, not-for-profit foundation, "which acts in
the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest to further economic growth
and social progress." Professor Klaus Schwob founded the World Economic Forum and
currently serves as its president.