page_title: St. Gallen Symposium
section_title: 1995-2010
hierarchical_section_title: St. Gallen Symposium / History / 1995-2010
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kofi Annan hält eine Rede an der Verleihung des Freiheitspreises der Max Schmidheiny-Stiftung im Jahr 2006 organisiert durch das ISCEnglish: Kofi Annan delivers a speech during the ceremonial of the Freedom Prize of the Max Schmidheiny-Stiftung in 2006 organised by the ISC
context_page_description: The St. Gallen Symposium, formerly known as the International Management Symposium and the ISC-Symposium, is an annual conference taking place in May at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is one of the world's leading initiatives for intergenerational debates on economic, political, and social developments between decision makers of today and tomorrow. The symposium's goal is to facilitate solutions by addressing the big challenges and chances of our time.
  The St. Gallen Symposium was founded in 1969 as a response to the international student unrests of 1968 and has since then been organised by the International Students’ Committee, a student initiative at the University of St. Gallen. Currently, this platform for dialogue welcomes more than 1.000 participants with over 70 nationalities every year. Personalities such as Kofi Annan, Josef Ackermann, Mohammad Khatami, Laurence D. Fink, Dominic Barton, Sigmar Gabriel and Christine Lagarde have attended the symposium in recent years.
context_section_description: Since the mid-1990s, the ISC has tried to raise the international profile of the symposium, as well as improve the quality of the dialogue. In this restructuring, a new logo was introduced and the name "International Management Symposium" was changed to ISC-Symposium. Moreover, the ISC gave a financial support for the construction of the Executive Campus HSG at the University of St. Gallen during this period.
  With the burst of the dot-com bubble, the September 11 attacks and the bankruptcy of Swissair – one of the symposium's most important benefactors – the beginning of the new millennium posed great challenges for the subsequent year.
  In 2002 the Swiss Federal Council commissioned the ISC to organise the International Conference on Federalism while maintaining the structure of the symposium. The conference was attended by 8 heads of state and government, 16 ministers, 3 federal councillors, 20 government councillors and their delegations
  The current name, St. Gallen Symposium, was introduced in 2005. In the following year Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, received the Freedom Prize of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation, which was already awarded to him in 2003.
  From 2008 to 2010 the symposium took place in a temporary tent city behind the library building of the University of St. Gallen due to an extensive reconstruction of the main building and the auditorium of the University.
caption: Kofi Annan at the bestowal of the Freedom-Prize of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3600", "Image ImageLength": "2400", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:12:22 11:29:49", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "420", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1286", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7007", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:11:18 15:51:59", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:11:18 15:51:59", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "53/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "104", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1160", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "250400/71", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "666800/189", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}