World.minds

WORLD.MINDS (the foundation official changed its name from "ZURICH.MINDS" in 2016) is a non-profit foundation set up in June 2008 by Rolf Dobelli. The goal of the WORLD.MINDS Foundation is "to create a bridge between the science, business and cultural communities." Advisory Board members include former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Nobel laureate Joseph F. Stiglitz, Olympic Gold medalist Tenley E. Albright, Chairman of Roche Christoph Franz, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, founder of 3G Capital Jorge Paulo Lemann, Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer, among others. 
Its annual meetings have been called "a salon for the 21st century" and have received some coverage in local media, such as the Switzerland edition of The Wall Street Journal, Swiss national television, amongst others. The meetings are attended by around 400 guests each year while the community altogether comprises of around 1000 members. 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.
Members include Nobel prize laureate Kurt Wüthrich, former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder, 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 Sara 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's Berkman Klein Center Effy Vayena, neuroeconomist Ernst Fehr, experimental psychologist Roy Baumeister, investor and entrepreneur Daniel Aegerter, professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford Allison Okamura, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager, Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Dan Gilbert, Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath Benoit Mandelbrot, along with artists such as Ai Weiwei and US-Israeli architect and designer Neri Oxman. 
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, his activism and his views on the future of China. Ai Weiwei boldly stated that "no one knows China better than me. I am China." When asked about his captivity in the hands of Chinese authorities, Ai Weiwei confided that he had told his captors "even if you take me out and put a bullet in me right now, you still cannot change me." 
In May 2019 at WORLD.MINDS in Belgrade, 20 years to the day after the bombing of Belgrade by NATO troops, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder stated unequivocally that in retrospect, if he had to make the decision again, he would authorize the aerial bombardment of the former Yugoslavia again. Schröder said that "the easiest solution would be to first accept Serbia into the European Union and then within, as an integral part the EU, find a solution [to the Kosovo issue]." 
In December 2020, former South African President and Nobel Peace Laureate FW de Klerk proclaimed at WORLD.MINDS that South Africa would be like Syria is today, 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. 