Emerging businesses are reshaping the global economy, scaling rapidly and achieving market influence once reserved for established institutions. Today, eight of the world’s ten largest publicly listed companies are technology firms, most built on innovations that did not exist a generation ago. Join leading Technology Pioneers and Innovators to explore what distinguishes their business models from traditional market players and how they are poised to shape the next decade of growth and transformation
Many of today’s systems are under strain, yet solving global challenges increasingly depends on them. From climate to healthcare, meaningful change often requires coordination across complex, slow-moving structures. But what if transformation doesn’t always start by fixing the system?
Join this session to discover how “workarounds” can become powerful pathways to systems change, unlocking progress where traditional approaches stall.
As AI inference costs have dropped by over 90%, enterprises are embedding data and intelligence at the core of their operating and business models, enabling always-on, global execution beyond human limits.
How are these AI-first enterprises reorganizing around AI in practice, and under what conditions does this actually translate into long-term value for society?
In 2025, the Belt and Road Initiative saw signs of renewed activity, with investment and construction picking up and trade with the Global South on the rise. Beyond infrastructure, the initiative evolved, combining megaprojects with growing investment in green energy and industrial ecosystems, while helping China rewire trade flows.
Amid an uncertain geoeconomic landscape, what do efforts to transition the initiative toward a more sustainable and innovation-led approach mean for participating countries?
AI is reshaping markets in ways that fall unevenly on women, from automating roles where they are overrepresented to
concentrating venture capital in male-dominated networks.
As the technology accelerates, what steps are needed to ensure the AI transformation supports a level playing field rather than widening the gap?
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation are not only environmental concerns but also economic ones, affecting agricultural output, water security and supply chain stability. Nature-positive models could unlock significant business value.
How can leaders integrate natural capital into economic strategy and treat ecosystem protection as a foundation of long-term competitiveness?
Vehicles are evolving into software-defined systems built around centralized compute, modular architectures and continuous updates. This shift is decoupling hardware and software lifecycles and redistributing value across OEMs, suppliers and technology players. As control moves from distributed components to integrated software stacks, traditional roles across the automotive value chain are being redefined.
How is the transition to software-defined architectures reshaping industry structure, and who will control the key layers of the automotive stack?
Briefing Council members today in New York, OCHA’s Director of Crisis Response Division, Edem Wosornu, said, “Since we last briefed this Council two weeks ago, civilian harm and suffering have deepened including over this past weekend. More families have been forced to endure the all-too-familiar pattern of this war: attacks, destruction, loss, another night without safety. On June 15th, strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv damaged homes and critical infrastructure, leaving well over 100,000 households without power.”
Edem Wosornu also said, “In Kyiv, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site at the heart of Ukraine’s religious and cultural life, was struck and damaged. This site carries centuries of cultural heritage – history and identity – that must be protected.”
She also said, “In Kharkiv, rescuers responding to an earlier strike were themselves hit when a second one followed. This fits a documented pattern. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has found repeated strikes on ambulances, rescue teams and aid workers – in some cases as you heard hit twice, as they returned to help. Civilians have also been struck when simply going about daily life: in cars, on buses, in their gardens.”
Wosornu added, “The Mission records that more civilians were killed and injured by short-range drones in May than in any month since February 2022. Technological advances in warfare are expanding the zone of danger for civilians, which is no longer confined by the reach of artillery.”
The economics of sport are being rewritten from two directions at once. Across Asia, a new generation of fans is consuming sport through entirely different platforms, formats and loyalties, dismantling the broadcast model that built the industry. At the same time, athletes are no longer just performers but platforms: investors, entrepreneurs and brand architects who capture value far beyond the arena.
As sport’s value migrates from the stadium to the screen and the balance sheet, what will the industry look like when the dust settles?
Press Conference by Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS.
The fifth meeting since the first UN General Assembly special session on a health crisis 25 years ago opened with the president of the General Assembly and the Deputy Secretary-General leading the session.
Byanyima told delegations the world made a promise 25 years ago to stop AIDS with all people in all countries getting the treatment and prevention they needed, with funds mobilized to enable every country to fight the disease, and communities on the ground leading and delivering services for their people.
That promise has been kept for 25 years, she said, but the progress should not be mistaken for success: nine million people remain off treatment, and UNAIDS data show 1.2 million people were newly infected last year. The promise to end AIDS, she said, “hasn’t been realized.”
Therefore, Byanyima said, she had urged countries to agree on “an ambitious political declaration” expected to be signed Tuesday.
She nonetheless pointed to gains, noting 32.1 million of the 40 million people living with HIV are now on treatment, calling it “tremendous progress.”
The UNAIDS chief called on member states to sustain international financing as countries mobilize their own domestic resources, noting 52 countries increased domestic financing for the HIV response last year, alongside regional efforts to achieve “health sovereignty.”
She closed by stressing the importance of universal access to medicines, saying “Innovations without access are not innovations. They are an injustice.”
