De La Salle University - Manila

Nobel Laureates to Visit DLSU-Manila

De La Salle University-Manila serves as host to the three Nobel Laureates and a former president of the World Bank who visited the Philippines from November 2007 onwards under the program Bridges: Dialogues towards a Culture of Peace hosted through The International Peace Foundation.

Prof. Robert A. Mundell, 1999 Nobel Laureate for Economics at the Department of Economics of Columbia University in New York, delivered a lecture titled, “Economic development by fitting globalization into the national development strategy.”

Last January 10, 2008, Prof. David J. Gross, 2004 Nobel Laureate for Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California in Santa Barbara, gave the keynote speech, “The coming revolutions in fundamental physics.”

James D. Wolfensohn, a former president of the World Bank, talked about “Beyond East- West, North-South - Peace and prosperity in a four speed world.”

The last leg of the series in DLSU-Manila will be on January 15, 2009, with Prof. Jose Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Laureate for Peace and President of Timor-Leste, delivering his lecture “Is long lasting peace an attainable dream?”

The International Peace Foundation started Bridges in Thailand, and extended it to the Philippines, with the aim of facilitating and strengthening dialogue and communication between societies in Southeast Asia as well as with people in other parts of the world, to promote understanding and trust.

Through Nobel Laureates and with local universities and other institutions in Southeast Asia, Bridges seeks to contribute to the United Nations’ Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence, with the establishment of long-term relationships which may result in common research programs and other forms of collaboration.

Washington SyCip, founder of the SGV Group and of the Asian Institute of Management, is the Philippine honorary chairman of Bridges, and Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chair and CEO of the Ayala Corporation, is the program’s Philippine chairman.

Contact Information

For more information e-mail bridges@dlsu.edu.ph