Young and successful to have their own “Davos” in Prague

9 Feb. 2006 | CzechInvest | Successful young people will have their own “World Economic Forum”. Like Davos, Prague will become a place where questions affecting the entire world are addressed: Does the world really have a surplus of capital? What characterises a global superpower and the global market? What will be the criteria of success in the future (tax level, market dominance,...)? Where are tomorrow's revolutionary technologies originating? Can a strong, integrated economic Europe exist without integrated European politics? Are customs and other barriers really diminishing? Wherein lies the secret of education and application of talent from China and India? How to compete with Asian superpowers? Does the media intensify the backwardness and negative views of the world?

BetweenFebruary 20 and 22, 2006,several hundredyoung managers, scientists, artists and leading world personalities will gather in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, toexchange their opinions on future global development within theSuccessors’ European Youth Summit 2006 (SEYS 2006), and in so doing discuss and seek answers to complex questions pertaining to the world around us. The main purpose of this years´ event is to establish a tradition of a “board of youth”, which is to continuously help to find realistic solutions to the most urgent problems faced by nations and companies worldwide.

Dignitaries who have already confirmed their participation in discussion panels at SEYS 2006 include Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, under whose auspices the meeting will take place, former Czech PresidentVaclav Havel, former Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Jiri Dienstbier, the Chief Executive Officer of CEZ, Martin Roman, the Vice President of Microsoft for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Jan Mühlfeit and Member of the European Parliament Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit. Among the personalities negotiating their participation in the summit are, for example, Israeli politicianShimon Peres, the writer Salman Rushdie, filmmaker Michael Moore, the Chairman of the OAO Committee of Gazprom, Alexey Borisovich Miller, the former German Minister of Foreign AffairsJoschka Fischerand other world dignitaries.

The Successors’ European Youth Summit is to become a traditional international forum for young people holding important positions in the areas of business, science, research and the arts. Part of this year´s summit will take the form of discussion panels within which the participants will discuss, for example, economic growth in recent years, the situation in the European Union, globalisation and global poverty issues and the growing economic influence of developing countries such as China and India. Each panel will feature a celebrity moderator whose main purpose will be to air young people’s opinions and, following analysis, to find a way of engaging in/to be a part of possible solutions to burning issues of the today’s world. Results from individual panels will be summed up in the overall conclusions of SEYS 2006. The summit proceedings will be summarised and distributed in a comprehensive form.

Active participants in discussion panels, besides the aforementioned, will be:

Tomas Hruda, General Manager - CzechInvest
Martin Tlapa, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic
Elisabeth Rasekoala, Director - African Carribbean Network for S&T
Ales Pospisil, Director for SME Segments - CSOB
Karel Havlicek, Chairman of the International Programme Committee of SEYS 2006, Director for M&S Strategy Sindat Group, Vice President UEAPME
Patrik Horny, Managing Director - Capgemini Czech Republic
Peggy Vicroebeck, Air France KLM team
Marcela Hrda, Vice President - Czech Airlines
Jitka Hanzlickova, General Manager - CzechTrade
Jiri Dvojrancansky, Marketing Director - T-Mobile

The general partners of the summit are Czech Airlines, Czech Telecom, Microsoft, CSOB and CEZ. Partners of the summit are the companies Sindat Group, Capgemini and Agrofert. The summit will take place under the auspices of the Capital City of Prague.

Information about SEYS 2006 can be found at www.seys2006.com, where those interested in participating in the summit can also register.