Ray Offenheiser, director and Keogh School Distinguished Professor of the Practice at the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development, University of Notre Dame, and former president of Oxfam America, presented “The Way Forward” keynote at the Cornell Global Grand Challenges Symposium in November 2018. He outlined five areas that are fundamental to human existence: taming technology for the workforce, mitigating climate change, managing the migration of people, feeding 9 billion people by 2050, and values.
During the 2-day symposium, panelists and keynote speakers laid out some of the most pressing issues of our times, as well as possible paths to solutions. One of the goals of the symposium was to identify themes to be considered for Cornell’s first Global Grand Challenge initiative, a dedication to a topic through new curricular, scholarly, and engaged work across campus. In October 2019, the
Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs announced the theme of the first global grand challenge:
Migrations.