Gold Sponsors 8TH The times they are a-changin´ Ernst & Young HQ Hotell Kung Carl Silver Sponsors O t h e r Pa rt n e r s a n d Sp onsor s duHaan Groupe Inc. Which global events in the first years of this century will appear in future textbooks of history? My first bet is a gradual change that came about without headlines. When I was born in 1948 we were less than one billion children in the world. Today there are almost two billion aged 0-15 years. The game-changing event in the first decade of this century was that the number of children stopped growing. Two-child families are now the norm for 80% of mankind. The fast population growth will be over around 2050 and at that point only 10% of the 10 billion in the world will live in what was the West. Demographics are major changers of the market place. My second bet is the G20 meeting in Washington 2008. As the richest needed to borrow money they asked the emerging economies to join and changed their name from G7 to G20. The official photo of the heads of state tells the story. In the middle stands the host, President George W. Bush. On his right is President da Silva and on his left President Jintao and King Abdulla, most probably placed according to their ability to lend money to US in the time of crisis. We know of the lending from The Royal Guards Program SALSS 2012 Saudi and China. But Brazil has on its own been lending US about 30 billion USD per year since 2008. The economic strength of the world is shifting. What do the ongoing tectonic shifts in demographics innovations Swedish-American Life Science Summit Stockholm, Sweden August 22 - August 24, 2012 and economy mean for the future of frontline medical research? Will basic medical research be the last to globalize as it requires a unique functional combination of venture capital, institutions and creative individuals? Or will we see tectonic shifts in how the world does basic medical research already in the next decade? O rga n i z i ng C om m i t t e e T