Irina Bokova

Former Director-General of UNESCO, UNESCO

Irina Bokova, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, served two terms as Director-General of UNESCO from 2009 to 2017. During her tenure, she played a key role in advancing the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly in education, cultural heritage protection, and the role of science.

She has received state honors from over 40 countries and honorary doctorates from leading universities worldwide. In recent years, she has been elected International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves as Patron of the International Science Council.

Bokova is also engaged with major academic institutions in China and holds honorary roles at Beijing Foreign Studies University. In 2025, she received both the Orchid Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chinese Government Friendship Award.

She currently serves on the Board of the Ban Ki-moon Foundation, the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and chairs the Governing Council of the UN University for Peace, among other roles.

Speaking at

Parallel Lab 4 Fueling Futures: Empowering Youth via Education and Food System

4月18日, 下午2:30 - 下午4:00
SANGHA Movement Center

At a time when the future feels increasingly uncertain, the question is no longer how we prepare the next generation for existing systems, but how we enable them to reimagine and regenerate the systems themselves. This lab explores the intersection of youth education, food systems, and human wellbeing not as separate domains, but as deeply interconnected foundations of a life-centred economy. If education shapes how we see the world, food systems shape how we relate to nature, and well-being shapes how we show up as human beings, then the future we are building depends on how these three evolve together. This session invites participants to move beyond fragmented interventions and ask: How do we cultivate a generation that can think in systems, act with responsibility, and build futures where both people and planet can flourish?

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Forum 3 | Intentional Wisdom: Systemic Transformation of Future Education

4月19日, 上午10:00 - 上午11:30
Town Hall

As traditional education and public health systems remain constrained by industrial-age models of standardisation—treating learning as a unidirectional transfer of facts and care as mere reactive intervention—these fragmented approaches struggle to address the profound shifts of the AI era and global demographic transitions. In response, there is an urgent need to embrace the Eastern epistemology of Gewu Zhizhi (Investigating Things to Extend Knowledge), shifting the logic of social infrastructure from functional maintenance toward systemic awakening. This session explores a profound transformation centred on “Holistic Prosperity”. We examine how education can return to its essence—moving beyond simple knowledge acquisition to the cultivation of mind, character, and systemic thinking. Simultaneously, we explore how well-being systems can evolve from passive cost burdens into lifelong fountains of vitality. As a frontline laboratory for digital integration and demographic change, China is demonstrating a modern transformation rooted in the classical ideals of “Self-cultivation, Family Harmony, State Governance, and Universal Peace”. We shall observe how digital innovation, inclusive institutions, and social capital converge to establish the comprehensive development of the individual as the very foundation of future civilisational resilience.

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