Dubai: The three-day World Government Summit (WGS) 2017 kicks off in Dubai on Sunday, and will explore innovation, climate change, happiness and education.

The fifth edition of the summit will host 4,000 delegates from 139 countries around the world, said organisers in a statement on Wednesday, and will feature 150 speakers across 114 sessions speaking on pressing global challenges and showcase best practices and cutting-edge solutions to deal with them.



From left: Christine Lagarde, Shinzo Abe, Jim Yong-kim, Antonio Guterres, Irina Bokova, Parag Khanna, Scott Barry Kauffman, Shawn Achor will be among 150 speakers at 114 sessions on best practices and cutting-edge solutions to global challenges.


The WGS announced the appointment of Amal Bin Shabib as the Deputy Managing Director of the WGS Organisation. Her appointment aligns with the organisation’s focus on youth and its drive towards utilising national talent in boosting its position as a global platform for shaping the future.

The subject of happiness in a digitised world will take centre stage as Shawn Achor, founder of GoodThink Inc, addresses the need for governments to proactively engage with citizens on social media with the goal of promoting personal and social well-being.

Following 12 years of research at Harvard University, Achor has become one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success.

Speaking on the topic ‘How Can We Stay Happy in the Age of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence?’, Achor will caution that a growing trend towards automation and expanding social media interaction may not always result in social improvement, even as person-to-person interaction wanes.

Dr Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of the Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, United States, will argue that the world’s education system is in urgent need of major reform since it is based on antiquated models of learning, and as such cannot satisfy the aspirations and creative potential of newer generations.

Hosting a session themed ‘Can Our Education System Destroy Talent?’ on the opening day of the World Government Summit 2017, Kaufman will show how the prevailing education system uses outdated methods of testing and grading intelligence and aptitude. Scoring systems do not adopt a broader view of intelligence, creativity and imagination — three commodities desperately needed in today’s world of extraordinary innovation — that have got lost in the process.

A psychologist, author and popular science writer, Dr Kaufman received a PhD in cognitive psychology from Yale University and an MPhil in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge.

Another prominent speaker at WGS 2017, Parag Khanna, managing partner at Hybrid Reality, a boutique geostrategic advisory firm, will address the topic of ‘Liquid Borders’. He will emphasise the importance of governments in developing policies that maintain economic growth and protect individual sovereignty at the same time.

Khanna is a leading global strategist, world traveller, and best-selling author. He is a senior research fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Factotum, a leading content branding agency.

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