This is our year in review, a period of reflection for us as we see record breaking DPRK attendees at our programs, despite the mounting operational difficulties posed by a difficult geopolitical environment. In 2019, we continued our more than decade long initiative, and saw 400+ DPR Koreans attend programs. Read our 2019 Annual Report here.
As always, we always hope for the best, plan for the worst, and keep faith for all parties to secure peace, prosperity, and security. This can take years. This can take decades. And we plan for our work with that time frame in mind.
While the challenges that accumulated since 2016 have only worsened, we had some record-breaking number of DPRK attendees at our conferences in the country. We also had several firsts: bringing DPR Koreans for the first time to the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland for an intergenerational dialogue on economic change, bringing a Southeast Asian delegation led by ex-Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo to DPRK, and initiating a dialogue with the World Economic Forum as a member of its Global Future Council.
In 2020, we expect a potential return to escalatory tensions between the US and the DPRK. The operating environment will become more challenging. But our goal of promoting economic experimentation, two-way knowledge exchange and a better future remains. We will continue investing in this future through the challenges that come our way.
Find out more about what we had achieved in our past year’s work, new program formats, media mentions, and research papers, despite the challenges. Also, read the executive summary to find out the principles that our team believes should guide our work forward over a long-term horizon.
We continue to believe that our key value stems not just from proposing creative ideas for the Korean Peninsula, but our unique ability to operationalize them through a vast and diverse relationship network our team has cultivated over the years. We look forward to 2019 and to making new creative ideas happen that can integrate DPR Korea peacefully into international society and bring a better living to its people!
Special thanks to volunteer Pearl for putting this together!