Wharton Global Alumni Forum - Day 1

When I received the e-mail about Wharton GAF, I was excited because this year's Forum was being held in my hometown - Seoul! The ticket to the Forum costs $750 for alumni and general audience but as a current student, I was able to receive a free ticket which included entry to the Forum as well as four meals over the duration of the forum. Without hesitation, I decided to take advantage of this perk and attend the Forum as an observer.

The fact that the Forum was held in Seoul this year was significant yet somewhat amusing because last time Seoul hosted this conference was in 1999, just after the Asian financial crisis. Since the event was held upon the world's (well, at least most part of its) exit from one of the gravest financial crises in recent history, the Forum was titled "Where do we go from here?"

The first day opened with the Prime Minister Chung (정운찬)'s address. As one of the most influential political leaders of Korea, his speech mostly revolved around Korea's economic development since the post-Korean War era. He spoke eloquently of the dramatic progress Korea made economically and socially over the past half a century. There are a few things that I recall more clearly from his speech. One of them is a newspaper headline that PM Chung read which went, 'Gold Collecting KOREA vs. Stone Pitching GREECE,' which succinctly summarizes the contrasting reactions of Koreans and Greeks upon their countries' bankruptcy. Another memorable thing was the three factors that made such quick growth possible in Korea, which are: 1) Economic assistance from our friends and allies; 2) Korean's zeal for education; 3) The "Can-Do" spirit

I'm not quite sure if his speech was appropriate for the occasion, but nevertheless, he left many native Koreans including myself feeling very patriotic.

I then attended a panel discussion which was titled, 'Creating A New World - Greenomics.' The discussion was rather disappointing and the panelists from Korea seemed neither knowledgeable nor passionate about Greenomics. The second panel I observed was called 'The Future of Finance,' and this was equally unhelpful for me because the discussions were overflowing with financial jargons and theories that I am not yet familiar with.

The first day of the Forum was jam-packed with some very heavy technical discussions, and I wished I was more prepared for them. The Forum served as an intersection between the academia and the business world, whereby the two communities were brought together through discussions about the recent financial crisis.