GEEF

Background and Rationale

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the “global” aspect in the field of global health, reinforcing the concept of interconnected health issues and the need to engage with health systems past the regional and national levels. Rather than relying on isolated initiatives, health challenges should be approached with strategies that embrace a multidisciplinary and collaborative spirit.

Institutional cooperation is one such strategy, offering the diverse perspectives and resources needed to tackle pressing health issues. Strong institutional cooperation has the potential to advance innovation and research, promote data and knowledge sharing, and encourage reflexive assessments of methodology and ethics, valuable tools for the strengthening of health systems and outcomes.
This panel will discuss the role of global health and cooperation from the perspectives of South Korea and the United States. Key points and topics will include but are not limited to:

The importance of the “global” aspect of global health.
The current state and milestones of global health in South Korea/United States within the context of COVID-19.
Potential benefits and pitfalls of institutional collaboration.
The current state of institutional collaborations in South Korea/United States within the context of COVID-19.
Best practices for effective research, innovation, and knowledge sharing.
Future directions and areas of focus for the continuous promotion of health and well-being.
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting strong partnerships remain central objectives in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal framework. Fostering a greater appreciation for global health and institutional collaboration will be invaluable for achieving these objectives and ensuring a resilient and secure society in the future.

Session Objectives

• Discuss certain topics, issues, challenges
  - Emphasize the importance of global health and institutional collaboration for advancing health outcomes and strengthening health systems.
• Share opinions on certain topics, issues, challenges
  - Provide perspectives and discuss the current state of global health and institutional collaboration from the perspective of South Korea and the United States, within the context of COVID-19.
• Allow speakers to communicate on certain topics, issues, cases, challenges
  - Discuss best practices for effective collaboration from the South Korean and US perspectives. Provide future directions and focus areas for global health and collaboration.
• Highlight which SDGs may need to be prioritized
  - Relate topics to SDGs 3 and 17

Background and Rationale

Two years in the Pandemic have forced us to face the reality of our prosperity and inequality threatening the sustainability of society, not just the poorest but also the wealthiest. There is growing awareness of our fundamental interconnectedness, which makes no one safe and well until everyone is safe and well. However, our old way of thinking often hinders more creative and productive discussion to further the insight. We need better perspectives and ideas to discuss the shared future of us as human beings who are fundamentally interconnected through care for each other from birth to death and from family to village, local and global. <REMEMBER Our Common Future> begins with re-membering that we are all members of a community of which vitality and sustainability depend on the act of care, as it is care that enables even the most rudimentary relationship among human beings and beyond. We need a clearer vision to bring to the forefront of the public agenda about what is so essential yet so taken for granted that has been put aside and devalued. For the past couple of decades, we have seen discussions on care as alternative social ethics and aesthetics emerged in various ways not just in public policy but in different fields such as Economics, Political Science, and even Contemporary Arts. This plenary session brings together such intellectual and artistic endeavors to share the newest insight and have a vivid conversation among surprisingly diverse disciplines and fields of practice. It will be a session that can inspire how we can rethink economy, democracy, art, and technology by the principle of care instead of control or competition and how it can contribute to social sustainability for our common future.

Session Objectives

• Caring Economy
• Care Democracy
• Care Instead of Control

Background and Rationale

Sustainable Development Goals are essential goals that outline a global plan for an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable future. But in 2015, when the SDGs were adopted by the United Nations, nobody had expected COVID-19 to have the global impact that it has today. Therefore, it is important to revisit the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and explore their relationship with the pandemic.

This plenary session aims to provide a place to discuss the various ways, namely five, in which innovative scientific methods and indexes can help organizations and communities assess and overcome difficulties caused by COVID-19.

The indexes that will be discussed are the following: Smart City, Artificial Intelligence Rankings, Peace, Urban Regeneration, and THE University Impact Rankings. Smart City Indexes will focus on presenting key success factors in realizing a leading smart city in the post COVID-19 era through technological innovation. Finally, THE University Impact Rankings will discuss how its new Impacts Ranking will focus on the universities’ contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Session Objectives

• Share ways in which Smart City Index can assist the realization of SDGs.
• Discuss how Artificial Intelligence Rankings can contribute to the SDG effort.
• Highlight how the Peace Index is important in achieving SDGs.
• Elaborate on the impact of Urban Regeneration Index on SDGs.
• Communicate on the relationship between THE University Impact Rankings and SDGs.

Background and Rationale

This session, targeted at SDG 14: Life below water, focuses on the role of ports in sustainable development. A port geographically connects land and sea; therefore, it is an important area in which to harmonize sustainable development of the land and the ocean and to create a synergistic effect between the two.

The marine environment can be protected only when land-based pollutants are prevented from entering the sea. The role of the port, which is the end of the land and the beginning of the sea, is therefore crucial for marine environmental protection.

Ports are also important places for maritime industries such as shipping and fishing and blue economy. It is thus essential to discuss how to harmonize environmental and business concerns related to ports.

Session Objectives

Various actors at ports (port cities, port authorities, international organizations, etc.) may engage in achieving SDG 14. This session shares and discusses the manner in which these actors individually or collectively contribute and can contribute to sustainable development.

Background and Rationale

Even in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Korean wave represented by the music of BTS, the movie Parasite, and the Netflix drama Squid Game broke world records and won top prizes. With the sweeping popularity of Korean popular culture known as the Korean wave, studies of the Korean language, culture, art, and history are unprecedently at the center of global attention.

Although the Korean wave has demonstrated its soft power as a vehicle of nation branding, its transnational and transcultural effect can be more powerful and enhanced by facilitating communication among new generations of Millennials and Gen Z.

This panel focuses on the interactive and interpersonal function of language and culture connecting people to people and the planet and addresses how the study of Korean language and culture can promote dynamic engagement and empowerment among youth and be transformative as we move forward in our common future SDGs. The panel presentations will highlight the status of the Korean language emerging as one of the World Languages and its potential as means of dialogue for non-proliferation and environmental sustainability.

We will also analyze the innovative language of K-pop and new discourses evolving through global K-pop artists and fandom such as the BTS Army that can be aligned with imminent global issues of anti-racism, gender equality, diversity, education, socioeconomic and political justice, and the environment. The panel session will address empirically how the Korean language and culture can be integrated and further developed to support the future of SDGs as an effective tool across new modes of digital communication in the post-COVID 19 eras.

Session Objectives

• Address empirically how the Korean language and culture can promote engagement and empowerment of young generations of Millennials and Gen Z.
• Highlight the future direction of Korean language education and contributions beyond language and culture studies.
• Provide evidence demonstrating how the language of K-pop and discourse of artists and fandom (with a focus on BTS Army) have been dynamically evolving as new communicative and intellectual resources for the future.
• Discuss how the Korean language and culture can make significant contributions to achieve SDGS by promoting collaboration and integration of people from diverse backgrounds.

Background and Rationale

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include economic, peaceful, environmental, and security areas not covered by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It also emphasizes the need for an integrated approach that considers not only societal development but economic development and environmental sustainability for sustainable development. Additionally, it urges all countries, including developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries, to strive for the prosperity of mankind while protecting the environment at the same time. Furthermore, it emphasizes the partnership of various stakeholders to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and it discusses as high importance the participation of civil society, private companies, charities, and assembly.

Specifically, the reason participation of civil society is of high importance is because the participation and interest of each citizen are crucial in achieving the comprehensive target of the Sustainable Development Goals. Civil society has the advantage to solve the problems the international community is facing by instilling ownership of those problems as global citizens. Civil society works closely with the local community and is committed to promoting the participation and decision-making of local residents. In addition, when it comes to solving community problems, civil society has an active attitude in establishing partnerships with various stakeholders and leading collaboration with them.

Through this session, we want to discuss the efforts the civil society is making to ensure we face “Our Common Future” where we “leave no one behind” and the challenges that will require more collaboration.

Session Objectives

• Reflect on the participation and significance of civil society in the process of establishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Discuss the changes the humanitarian crisis, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic have brought to the community.
• Summarize the roles and tasks of civil society for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) based on the identity and strength of civil society.

Background and Rationale

• Access to healthcare services is critical to good health, yet rural residents face various access barriers.
• For rural residents to have sufficient access, appropriate healthcare services must be available in a timely manner.
• This session will 1) discuss the status quo and challenges to providing essential health care in a rural area; 2) share the story of Kenyan doctors who moved to the rural area to serve the local people instead of working in the advanced hospital.
• The panelists will share their experiences and inquire how to serve in rural areas.

Session Objectives

• To share information and experiences in serving medically underserved communities.
• To discuss how to fulfill essential health services needs in rural communities.
• To facilitate networking to share knowledge and experiences and encourage each other.