TN2020 to launch in Belfast and Dublin

We live in one of the most exciting and challenging times in history, facing concerns like climate change, global trade, economic fairness and religious and ideological conflict.  What role might a group of 25-to-35-year-old leaders – from a Los Angeles police officer who specializes in gang violence to a Portuguese immigration activist to an Irish journalist – have in meeting these challenges?

The Transatlantic Network 2020 has the answer. This long-term program will provide opportunities for exploration, personal growth and, ultimately, broader problem-solving. By connecting young leaders who will be in the vanguard of leadership in the year 2020, the Transatlantic Network 2020 will foster an understanding of different cultures, beliefs and values that can be turned into action on global issues.

TN2020 will hold its first one-week summit, jointly hosted by Northern Ireland and Ireland, between the 28 September and 3 October 2008. The event will begin in Belfast and move to Dublin, making the most of these unique cities that have such historical and contemporary significance to the Transatlantic Relationship.

Approximately 100 participants, including the 30 who attended the Berlin launch, will come together for a week of inspiring and memorable visits and debates. The programme will creatively use both the cities of Belfast and Dublin to explore the nature of the transatlantic relationship and some of the big issues that will be of interest to the group.

David Noble, one of the founding members of TN2020, will be conspicuously absent – although not for lack of interest. At the Berlin launch earlier this year, David was as keen on the TN2020 concept as anyone. His enthusiasm was contagious.

But from 25 September – 6 October, David will be on the Cape Farewell Art/Science expedition 2008, with a 40-strong crew of artists and scientists and scientists that will journey northward from Kangerlussuaq, in western Greenland, to Disko Bay and across the front of the Jakobshavn Glacier, one of Greenland's largest and fastest-moving glaciers. Cape Farewell, which is is widely acknowledged to be the most significant sustained artistic response to climate change anywhere in the world, asks our best creative minds to respond to and inspire a cultural response to the potential devastating climate crisis.

Of all the reasons to miss the TN2020 launch, this seems a fitting one. David will be somewhere on the Altantic, amongst an international crew that includes both North Americans and Europeans, working on an global issues that is critically important to North America and Europe.