In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when student protests were commonplace worldwide, five people at a Swiss university launched the St. Gallen Symposium, a bid to hold a dialogue with the world's leaders.
Four decades later, the annual gathering at the University of St. Gallen is the longest-running international student-run forum in Switzerland.
The head of the symposium, who was in Tokyo last week, is urging young people to participate in the forum in May and see the world themselves at a time when many of them appear to be inward-looking.