# World.minds

WORLD.MINDS (previously known as ZURICH.MINDS until 2016) is a non-profit foundation set up in June 2008 by Rolf Dobelli, with the goal of creating "a bridge between the science, business and cultural communities".
WORLD.MINDS is composed of the not-for-profit WORLD.MINDS Foundation and WORLD.MINDS Management Ltd, the operational event management company that organizes and produces all symposia and events on behalf of the WORLD.MINDS Foundation. On 29 March 2022, Axel Springer acquired a majority stake in the event management company.
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) described WORLD.MINDS as a "community of experts for experts", and described its annual meetings as "a salon for the 21st century".

## Membership

The members of the advisory board include former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David Petraeus, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Olympic Gold medalist Tenley Albright, Chairman of Hoffmann-La Roche Christoph Franz, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, founder of 3G Capital Jorge Paulo Lemann, and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James G. Stavridis, among others. In the past, former US secretary of State Henry Kissinger was also on the advisory board.
WORLD.MINDS has around 1000 members, including Nobel prize laureate Kurt Wuthrich, activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, President of the ETH Board Michael Hengartner, Airbus CTO Grazia Vittadini, philosopher John N. Gray of the London School of Economics, the rector of ETH Zurich Sarah Springman, director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development Gerd Gigerenzer, writer and politician Matt Ridley, Indian artist Aparna Rao, American nuclear engineer and MIT board member Leslie Dewan, economist Paul Romer, investor and author Guy Spier, professor of bioethics at ETH Zurich and Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center Effy Vayena, neuroeconomist Ernst Fehr, experimental psychologist Roy Baumeister, investor and entrepreneur Daniel Aegerter, Stanford University professor of mechanical engineering Allison Okamura, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager, Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Dan Gilbert, and Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath Benoit Mandelbrot, along with artists such as Ai Weiwei and US-Israeli architect and designer Neri Oxman.
The meetings are attended by around 400 guests each year, and WORLD.MINDS also holds regular in-depth meetings on specific issues, such as WORLD.MINDS MOBILITY in 2018 with a focus on the future of mobility.

## History

In December 2017, former Swiss President Doris Leuthard opened the 2017 WORLD.MINDS flagship Annual Symposium event in Zurich, where the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei spoke with Uli Sigg, the world's largest collector of contemporary Chinese art, about Ai Weiwei's art, activism and views on the future of China.
In December 2020, former South African President and Nobel Peace Laureate F. W. de Klerk proclaimed at WORLD.MINDS that South Africa would be like Syria was then, had it not been for the policies put in place by his government to end Apartheid. TRT World moderator Ghida Fakhry had asked President De Klerk if, in addition to the moral principles and economic realities (sanctions) behind ending Apartheid, his government's decision to end the injustice was also done to protect and salvage South Africa for the white minority.
WORLD.MINDS has received some coverage in local media, such as the Switzerland edition of The Wall Street Journal, and Swiss national television, amongst others. Journalist Noah Kirsch has described World Minds as a "Mini Davos".