Faker to be Keynote Speaker at Ministry of Foreign Affairs Global Youth Dialogue

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will host the ‘2024 Global Innovation Future Dialogue’* on the theme of ‘Global Youth Dialogue for a Better Tomorrow’ at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on Wednesday, November 20.

This is a forum that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has held annually since 2020 to communicate with the public in the field of public and cultural diplomacy. It has invited domestic and international key figures, experts, academics, international organization officials, activists, etc. to discover public diplomacy agendas and lead discourses, providing a venue for discussion.
This 2024 Future Dialogue will discuss the various aspects of youth generation culture and its potential to respond to global challenges. In particular, it plans to provide an opportunity to directly communicate with young people and seek ways to respond and unite on major issues in the international community, such as climate change, discrimination and hatred, anti-war and peace, and intercultural dialogue.

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang In-sun will give the opening remarks, and professional gamer Faker (Lee Sang-hyeok), a representative icon of the youth generation who has continued to challenge and excel in the new field of gaming, will be the keynote speaker. Jayatma Wickramanayake, former Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General on Youth and current Senior Policy Advisor at UN Women, will then give a special video address.

The forum consists of three sessions. In the first session, under the theme of “Cultural Characteristics and Potential of the Youth Generation,” Professor Laurie Mulvey of the Department of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University, Hongtaek Lim, author of “The 90s Generation is Coming,” author Seol-ah Lee, photographer and poet Hwon Lee, and director of Doshigogan Minyohan will present and discuss various aspects of youth generation culture. The moderator will be Jo Seong-eun, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

The second session will be held under the theme of ‘Youth Generation Culture Responding to Global Challenges’, and youth representatives will present on four sub-topics: climate change, anti-war and peace, discrimination and hatred, and intercultural dialogue. Presenters include Julian Quintart, a broadcaster who is currently serving as an EU Climate Action Goodwill Ambassador; Lee Su-yeon, an external cooperation officer at the International Peace Activities Center of the National Defense University; Hyun-jin, a member of Korea’s first hearing-impaired idol group Big Ocean; and Kim Ji-soo, director of Jeju youth community ‘Project Group Jitda’.

The third session will feature a free discussion between announcer Jang Seong-gyu and the audience on the topic of ‘Advice from the young generation for the future.’

This forum aims to analyze various aspects of youth culture, discover potential within it, and provide an opportunity to explore ways for the international community to unite to overcome global challenges through the experiences and discussions of young people.

The event will be live streamed on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ official YouTube (Korean) and KOREAZ (English) channels.

Editor. Hong Se-yeong