TRT World Forum 2020 to focus on post-pandemic world

By Guc Gonel

ISTANBUL (AA) - The TRT World Forum 2020 will be held online on Dec. 1 and Dec. 2 with a focus on understanding the world order emerging in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Shifting Dynamics: The International Order in a Post-Pandemic World is the theme for the 4th edition of the event, which brings together academics, journalists, politicians, and members of the civil society from around the globe.

The sessions and discussions featured this year include Infodemic: How the International Media Impacted the Pandemic; Multipolarity in the Age of COVID-19: The Future of Global Solidarity; What’s Next? – Understanding Health Threats in Times of Hyper-Globalization; Politics and Pandemics: Humanitarian Aid in the Time of COVID-19; and The Future of Work and Education: Preparing for a Post-Pandemic World.

The session on the global media’s impact on the pandemic will focus on changes in consumption patterns of media, particularly social media, and what that may mean for the future, as countries begin to envision and construct a post-pandemic world.

The speakers include Ibrahim Eren, TRT's chairman; Noel Curran, director general of the European Broadcasting Union; Javad Mottaghi, secretary general of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union; Gregoire Ndjaka, chief executive officer of the African Union of Broadcasting, and Marcello Foa, president of the board of directors of Italy’s national broadcasting company Radiotelevisione Italiana.

Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey’s presidential spokesman, will be part of the Multipolarity in the Age of COVID-19 session, along with Margaritis Schinas, vice president of the European Commission, Parag Khanna, founder and managing partner of strategic advisory firm FutureMap, and Joseph S. Nye, professor emeritus and former dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

The speakers will discuss how the pandemic has impacted international cooperation, multilateralism, and globalization, as well as explore whether the world’s response to the crisis was a successful one.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will join the session on health threats in times of hyper-globalization, along with Professor Neil Squires, director of global health at Public Health England, and Eskild Petersen, an infectious disease specialist from Denmark who leads the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Task Force on Emerging Infections.

Other speakers in the session are Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and Emmy Award-winning host of the "The Dr. Oz Show," and Professor Marylouise McLaws, an epidemiologist part of the WHO Health Emergencies Program Experts Advisory Panel for Infection Prevention and Control Preparedness.

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Pakistan, and Finland are also be among the dignitaries who will speak at this year’s TRT World Forum.

People can register for TRT World Forum 2020 and get more information on the event at www.trtworldforum.com.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit in Ankara