From November 11th to 13th, the first Paris Peace Forum was held in Paris, France, as one of the important activities to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the armistice of WWI. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and UN Secretary General António Guterres delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. Those who attended the Forum included nearly 70 heads of state or government, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as several leaders of international or regional organizations. Ji Bingxuan, Vice Chair of the National People's Congress, attended the opening ceremony on behalf of China. Chen Zhimin, Vice President of Fudan University, was invited by France to serve as a member of the Forum Steering Committee and attended the opening ceremony. The project “Future Energy in Central Asia”, co-sponsored by students from Fudan University and Nazarbayev University of Kazakhstan, was selected as one of the 100 Innovative Ideas to Improve Global Governance, to be presented during the Forum. Zhang Ji, Director of the Research Center for Chinese and Foreign Humanities Communication, and Vice Director of French Studies Center, was invited by France to attend the Forum.
On the day of the opening ceremony, Vice Chairman Ji Bingxuan came to the exhibition stand of Fudan during the tour, and showed great interests in the project of Fudan. Xiang Chen introduced the project to Vice Chairman Ji Bingxuan, which was greatly appreciated.
As an important part of the Forum, 119 selected projects on global governance were presented in the Forum, to representatives in politics, business, and academics all over the world, with heated interaction and communication. Reportedly, the Forum received more than 900 project presentation applications from 116 countries, and eventually 119 projects from 42 countries and 10 international organizations stood out. The project “Future Energy in Central Asia”, co-sponsored by students from Fudan University and Nazarbayev University, is one of the four projects selected from China, and the only project selected from Asian universities. The project focuses on energy issues in Central Asia and proposes innovative solutions, based on the effective and efficient use of the clean energy - solar energy. The project was originally proposed by Peng Bo, a graduate student of the School of Information Science and Engineering at Fudan, and Xiang Chen, a graduate student of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, at the 2017 Youth Innovation Competition on Global Governance (YICGG) hosted by Fudan, where the project has won the Best Proposal Award.
During the Forum, Fudan’s project booth has attracted the attention of former Prime Minister of Italy Enrico Leta and various organizations including the World Bank, the European Parliament, Google, and Facebook. The guests exchanged opinions with the students and discussed plans to put the project into practice.
