Near 500 speakers from 110 countries have already shared personal experiences which made them wiser faster with the WAY community via Neo WAY – including former Heads of State, billionaires, renowned entrepreneurs and investors, Ivy League professors, and many more – several past talks are available via our (beta) YouTube channel (tiny.cc/NeoTube)
@getwiserfaster
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth in 2025
We’re delighted to announce that Wisdom Accelerator for Youth will be back during the WEF Week from 20-24 January ’25, if you would like to propose awesome teenagers 13-17 years old to participate in this upcoming edition based on the concept description below, please reach out to marcelo (at) wisdomaccelerator (dot) org. Selected participants will be interns at WisdomHouseDavos.org, so please refer to that page for a detailed description of previous events.
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth (WAY) in 2024
Davoser Zeitung, Tue 16/01/24
The first “Wisdom House” found a place in the primary school during WEF week in 2020 (tiny. сс/WisdomHouseDZ). In 2023 it was held in the SAMD auditorium. Both dates hosted dozens of events supporting non-profit and social enterprises from around the world. All of them could not and cannot afford the prices charged by commercial providers. In the “Wisdom House” you will find a place that is open to everyone all week long and where healthy food and drink is available for everyone. So also for the local population and everyone who doesn’t have a place on the “invitation only” lists.
This time, “Wisdom House” is located in the tower room of St. Johann Church and is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. from January 15th to 18th. “Wisdom House” emerged from the “WAY” event, which was held on the Jakobshorn in 2019 with teenagers from refugee families. This time too, “Wisdom House” will be run entirely by 13 to 17-year-old teenagers with a refugee background. For information about how to get involved in future events, founder Marcelo Garcia can be found at marcelo (at) wisdomaccelerator (dot) org. Information about the program is available at tiny.cc/WisdomHouse (NB: this page).
Photo caption: The young crew of “Wisdom House” with founder Marcelo Garcia in the middle
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth (WAY) in 2023
Due to remaining concerns with the pandemic in the winter of 2022/23 we decided to host WAY in a different format, postponing it until March 2023 and inviting a group of Ukrainian Refugee teenagers and their families to spend a week in Davos learning Survival Skills in High Mountain environments to help boost their self confidence and improve their chances of turning Post Traumatic Stress into Growth.
They stayed at a 2500m high mountain lodge and during the week built an igloo, dipped into a frozen lake, tracked an ice waterfall amongst many other physical activities in a stunning environment. In the evening they had a series of lectures with survival experts and coaches who shared with them knowledge that schools typically do not cover such as the author of “Unthinkable“.
Davoser Zeitung – Survival Camp on the Jakobshorn
Wednesday 12.04.23
Barbara Gassler
Actually, the occasion was born out of necessity. After the great experience, however, the format is suitable for further use.
With «Wisdom Accelerator for Youth» (WAY), Marcelo Garcia has been a regular at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum for years. WAY leverages the focus of the experts present at the time and puts them in direct contact with teenagers from around the world. “Become wiser faster” is the motto of the young people accommodated on the Jakobshorn during this time. WAY could not be carried out in January, but the accommodation was already booked.
“The mountain railways agreed to postpone the booking until mid-March, and I decided to use the week to offer survival training to young refugees,” says Garcia. They should not only learn new skills, but above all their personality should be strengthened and they should discover what they can do. In order not to set the language hurdles too high, young people from the Ukraine with some knowledge of English were selected as participants. So finally a group of teenagers and adults accompanying them, who lived on the Jakobshorn from Monday to Friday, got together. As a teacher, Garcia listed local specialists in the region and speakers from his large network who were connected via video.
Snow that warms
The first task on Tuesday was to build an igloo. The adult trainer Petra Ahonen stamped snow next to the mountain station the day before in order to cut the necessary blocks out of it the next day. Once the young people had understood the principle, several of the snow dwellings and structures were built. In the evening, everyone gathered for another inspiring exchange with a speaker connected via video. This time it was about mental balance, whereas the night before there had been thought about “doing the unthinkable”.
Ice of different shapes
On Wednesday we went to Schwarzsee, where we bathed in ice water under the guidance of adventurer Markus Blum.
The afternoon was used for an excursion to the Weissfluh summit and a lesson in energy production based on the empty Davosersee. On Thursday, the participants were released with the task of finding a frozen waterfall. And indeed, the majority of the group eventually turned up at the Ducanbach. The evening belonged again to the exchange. This time it was about life in Alaska, homelessness and the mental strain on helpers in Poland during the first influx of Ukrainian refugees. On Friday it was time to close the camp and start the long journey to western Switzerland. “This was a pilot project that showed that Davos has everything you need to successfully conduct such empowerment training,” concludes Garcia.
Provided he receives the necessary financial security, he could imagine organizing more such camps. “Actually, this is an offer that could also be used commercially,” he thinks aloud.
PHOTOS
“The shape of the igloo is already apparent.“
“Into the cold adventure: The Schwarzsee has enough cold water.“
“Snow is known in Ukraine. Mountains to it, that’s new for the camp participants.“
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth (WAY) in 2019 and 2020
The WAY concept
We often speak about empowering our children to better prepare them for the future – the WAY concept postulates that “accelerating wisdom” is one of the most powerful means to achieve that highly laudable goal regardless of their cultural, economic and spiritual backgrounds.
Wisdom means different things to different people, but it is universally admired and can be significantly accelerated via generous sharing of knowledge amongst their own peer group, reinforced by listening to relevant stories told by recognized leaders on a specific topic of interests for their age bracket.
The WAY program focuses on convening a small classroom sized group (max 30) of highly motivated teenagers from around the globe in incredibly beautiful locations such as Venice and Davos so that they can have fun together to bond as a community, learn from world leaders in fields that they find relevant and produce valuable materials to share with as many teenagers around the world as possible.
After a very successful inaugural edition in 2019, we organized the second WAY event in Davos during the last World Economic Forum week (18-25/01/20). Participants stayed in a mountain lodge less than ten minutes away by gondola from the main train station, explored the Davos surroundings during the week and had a series of meaningful conversations around the main topics being proposed.
Learning and Doing should be Fun too
FUN: Bonding with similarly motivated and highly engaged global teens for a whole week in a relaxed Winter Camp environment, doing lots of cool activities hard to experience elsewhere, such as learning about avalanche rescue, how to build an igloo, snowshoe treks, etc.
LEARN: Having fun with new friends establishes a relaxed and open mindset, making the group far better prepared to listen to the experts invited as speakers and of course to one another. We invite thought leaders present in Davos to come up the mountain to give talks on their areas of specialization, as well as welcome many remote speakers via video conference calls.
DO: Once the group learns about many subjects highly relevant to their future, they have the opportunity to produce specific deliverables as well. Major topics are proposed to become structured presentations defining specific action points which teenagers worldwide can strive to achieve.
The WAY to have FUN
We recognize that enjoyment together is key to bonding our classes into strong communities, so every morning of the WAY program is packed full with great activities which are designed to be inclusive even to participants unfamiliar with the practice of harder to learn winter sports (skiing, snowboarding) – while giving all a chance to kickstart or improve those skills.
Depending on weather conditions, the group learns about building igloos, snowbank shelters, better understanding avalanches, going for snowshoe treks and practicing easier to learn winter sports such as “forest skating” and cross-country skiing.
WAY days so far were almost always sunny, but in case poor weather occurs participants can remain mostly indoors visiting many attractions such as local museums and unique research institutions.
The WAY to LEARN
With an open mind fostered by all the unique outdoors activities, participants are then well positioned to learn about topics relevant to their interests. Previous WAY topics included:
- Future of Work – including Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Blockchain and more
- Cyberbullying and Digital Privacy
- Fake News and Fact Checking
- Ecological Challenges – including Plastic Pollution and Climate Change topics
Thought leaders present in Davos for the WEF are invited up to the mountain lodge to chat with the group and those based elsewhere are asked to join via video chats.
All participants have the opportunity to share their own “superpower skills” with the whole group as well… after all the best form of learning is teaching.
The WAY to DO
It is equally important that participants feel ownership of those key issues and a clear urge to contribute towards their resolution.
Each of the themes will have as planned output a presentation consolidating consensus action points on how teenagers from around the world can also make a difference individually. WAY participants can volunteer to join any of the initiatives and we expect most of them to join this effort.
We plan to translate the final four presentation from English to eight of the most commonly languages in the world spoken as a native tongue – therefore reaching more than half of the world’s population older than twelve years old (those more likely to be fully literate) with concise information that they can understand.
These presentations will then be distributed to global schools via key channels (UNICEF, UNESCO, relevant NGOs, etc).
Most common languages in the world by number of native speakers (totalling 3bn+):
1- Mandarin 950m
2- Spanish 400m
3- English 360m
4- Hindi 310m
5- Arabic 300m
6- Portuguese 215m
7- Bangla 205m
8- Russian 155m
9- Japanese 125m
We wish to consolidate the freshest knowledge from the brightest minds seen through the eyes of teenagers and presented in a language that as many people as possible can easily comprehend.
Participant Selection Criteria
The WAY concept is designed to be as inclusive as possible and the main selection criteria is therefore the level of intrinsic motivation that candidates have to make the world a better place in any way they feel they can contribute. During the first edition in Jan’19 we had a gender balanced group of 15 participants representing 12 countries and five continents.
WAY Participant Profiles
As one would expect, the standards for acceptance to WAY Davos are the highest as it is the flagship event of the year. For reference, below are brief descriptions of three of the candidates previously awarded scholarships for our Davos event:
- 17 years old owner of an App Development company from Israel who started his career age 10 and was awarded a nomination as “Forbes 30 under 30” age 14
- 13 years old maths wiz and book author from Singapore who’s the second youngest person in the world to pass the Cambridge University Maths GCSE exam age 9 (most students pass this test ages 17-18). He also wrote a Science Fiction book age 11
- 17 years old Event Management CEO from the UK who’s been responsible for organizing several large Teenage Entrepreneurship conferences around the world. He was recently admitted to King’s College London, a very prestigious higher education institution
WAY Guest Lecturers
The standard of lecturers is also very high as they are a self-selected group of high achievers from all fields who elect to go to Davos to meet their global peers and to discuss how to solve the world’s greatest challenges together or have similar levels of accomplishment to be invited to join us via video conference (book authors, scientific expedition leaders, etc). A few highlights out of more than 50 guest speakers joining us in Davos so far were:
- Brian Behlendorf, the former World Economic Forum CTO and founder of the Apache Web Server foundation, describing his achievements developing the first large scale open source web server… and apologizing for having also invented online ads and cookies
- Paul Bragiel, early investor in Uber and incredible story teller sharing how he went from couch potato to Colombian Cross Country Skiing Champion while attempting to represent the country at the Winter Olympic Games
- Daphne Liu described of Explorer’s Club (explorers.org) trip to the North Pole with a group of children, the youngest of whom was 2.5 years old and is the current Guinness record holder in that category
The class size for the Davos edition is limited to a maximum of 20 individually referred teenagers between 13-17 years old. Exceptions aside, WAY pilot participants will be requested to attend with the presence of a grown up formally responsible for them – these could be either members of their family (parents, siblings, others) or friends authorized to care for their wellbeing.
We have limited dormitory accommodation in gender separated rooms for the grown ups accompanying WAY participants. Alternatively, it is also possible to find lodging in Davos or nearby Klosters, but due to the WEF Annual Meeting taking place that week it is likely to be very challenging to find affordable options. A very attractive nearby location for families and friends of WAY participants is St. Moritz, 1.5 hours away from Davos by train.
The Jschalp Mountain Lodge is a five minutes gondola ride from the Jakobshorn valley station next to the main Davos Platz train terminal. Service runs from 08:15 (first ascent) to 16:45 (last descent). Participants spend the night up in the lodge in dorms separated by gender and age group. Stakeholders older than 18 (monitors, volunteers) have their own gender divided dorm rooms. Breakfasts and dinners are served at the Jschalp restaurant, lunch and snacks/refreshments depend on sites of specific activities.
Below is a sample activity grid:
Alternative plans for inclement weather
Vaillant Ice Skating Arena (Tour + Training)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaillant_Arena
Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche
Winter Sports Museum
Medicine Museum
Davos Traditional Museum
Train trip to St. Moritz (3hrs roundtrip)
Curling, Davos Hospital visit, Meditating, etc
The WAY Production Team
“Wisdom Accelerator for Youth” (WAY) was conceived by Marcelo Garcia, based on his personal family experience and on professional community building skills acquired throughout his career.
Marcelo has been active in Davos during the WEF for almost a decade and other than WAY, he has been responsible for hosting several large scale events there in the last few years with hundreds of hours of programming in total.
He gave a TEDx talk on “Refugee Connectivity” and speaks frequently at major events hosted by private institutions and by International Organizations (UNHCR, WTO, etc).
The WAY program is hosted by a Swiss non-profit organization and supported via several partnerships.
Global WAY Program Locations
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth is designed as a global program to provide a strong platform to teenager participants from different regions of the world. Major gatherings are proposed to take place roughly every four months in Davos, New York and Singapore.
- WAY Davos is always held during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting week, usually taking place in late January
- WAY Venice, WAY New York and WAY Singapore are currently being considered
Participation Terms and Conditions
The WAY program is not formally affiliated with the WEF, concurrent timing and location aims at maximizing the availability of top speakers willing to join the conversation with WAY participants.
Participation in the WAY programme is subject to a set of expectations worth clarifying, please contact us to receive the full Terms and Conditions. Suitable winter clothes are required, including (moon) boots and sunglasses.
For more details please contact:
marcelo (at) wisdomaccelerator (dot) org
www.linkedin.com/in/marcelogarcia
General online references
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
www.myswitzerland.com/en-ch/restaurant-jschalp.html; jschalp.com
www.davos.ch/en/winter/mountains/jakobshorn
WAY related activities during the week
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/ski-snowboard
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/ice-sports
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/cross-country-skiing
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/tobogganing
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/winter-walks
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/snowshoeing
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/winter-sports-at-night
Optional activities possible before or after WAY
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/ice-climbing
www.davos.ch/en/winter/activities/fatbike
www.davos.ch/en/summer/activities/further-activities/paraglider-or-hang-glider
This event is not associated with the World Economic Forum or any of its affiliates and is independently organized by a third party at a private location in a Davos hotel
Events at the Wisdom Accelerator for Youth (WAY) may be the subject of photographical or video recording and your attendance assumes consent.
Wisdom Accelerator for Youth
℅ BroadLights.org
rue Fendt 1, 1201
Geneva, Switzerland
© 2017-24 Marcelo Garcia – All Rights Reserved
Registered Swiss UID: CHE-293.908.661
Wisdom Foundation Initiatives: ExplorersWeekend.org, WisdomAccelerator.org, BroadLights.org 