Talk
Opening Remarks
Thursday June 23, 09:00, Lobby NLG
Andreas Dracopoulos, SNF Co-President
"There is no doubt that in today’s complex and polarized world, we need all the help we can get." With this, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos set the tone for the two-day Nostos Conference, which was dedicated to the topic of health this year.
Opening the Nostos 2022 proceedings, he noted how in recent decades, crises have become more interconnected around the world. Τhe public and private sectors alone, he continued, have proven to be ineffective in building the right environment for societies to survive and prosper.
“So there comes the need for a social welfare society, a fair, dynamic, and viable society where all members from all sectors, public and private, have to contribute towards creating a healthy society able to defend itself against today’s many and complex challenges.” Everyone involved must contribute to this society in order for it to be able to overcome problems and difficulties.
Addressing a packed auditorium at the National Library of Greece at the SNFCC, Andreas thanked everyone who travelled from all over the world to attend this year's festival. He underlined the importance of remembering our roots as we move forward and he took a look back at the 10 previous festivals, the first of which was held in 2012, right in the heart of the Greek socioeconomic crisis.
While revisiting past festivals, he recalled how in 2015 we talked about sustainability and viability, which go beyond environmental issues. “2017 was the year we built the SNFCC and handed it over to the state—over to the Greek people. It was the year we started discussing ‘the next step,’ the Health Initiative, which we will talk about today. In 2018, our focus was on the SNF AGORA Initiative at Johns Hopkins, a $150 million donation. In 2019, we talked about the importance of the New Power cloud. In COVID-19-stricken 2020, we organized a hybrid conference centered around mental health, a taboo subject for many, but one that will be a hot topic in the years to come.”
As he explained, the retrospective was intended to show how we are still living with the same issues we were discussing ten years ago; if polarization was a worrying issue a decade ago, nowadays it has become a deeply rooted one.
Finally, he thanked all those who helped make this year’s Nostos happen, everyone who’s working hard for the Health Initiative, as well as Johns Hopkins University, which, by collaborating with SNF over the last 25 years, has honored not only SNF but also Greece. He made special mention of the Youth Advisory Committee, describing them as a group of future leaders from around the world who are attending the conference and will share their visions, urging us to take note, as we have much to learn from young people, just like they have much to learn from us—but it’s their lives and future we are talking about.
He also made special mention of SNF Nostos Pop Up Radio, a project featuring young journalists up to 25 years old from Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Greece. The initiative was made possible in collaboration with the Children's Radio Foundation and Radio Panteion.
He concluded his opening speech with a mention of the Johns Hopkins University and SNF Present: An Interactive Global Health Data Experience exhibition, emphasizing that we believe in facts and data—especially when it comes to health—and stressing the importance of non-discrimination and the need for publicly accessible data.