The Global Economic Symposium (GES) aims to provide a new collaborative setting to analyze the world’s most important economic problems, create shared visions of the future and formulate innovative strategies to achieve these visions.The GES thereby seeks to be a catalyst for future change. In particular, the GES seeks to initiate a strategic dialogue on global economic affairs for leading policy makers, business executives, academics and other representatives of civil communities. Such a dialogue is needed as a response to the challenges of an increasingly interdependent world. Policy making and business decisions need to take into account the changing policy and business environment. The GES provides a forum to think globally about global problems. The GES aims to build communities to come up with practical solutions that contribute to the global public interest. The Symposium will be held annually. While the core participants will be leaders in academia, business, politics and civic organizations, promising young members of these communities will be invited as well.