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by Alvaro Fernandez

Imagine seeing a top sheik from Dubai, wrapped in traditional Arab clothing, exclaim “Yes We Can” in front of the 800 experts gathered during the Summit of the Global Agenda that just took place in Dubai on November 7-9th, co-organized by the World Economic Forum and the Government of Dubai. This same sheik added that “we build the future with our own hands".
As previously announced, the “Global Agenda Councils will challenge prevailing assumptions, monitor trends, map interrelationships and address knowledge gaps. Equally important, Global Agenda Councils will also propose solutions, devise strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of actions using measurable benchmarks.”

You will read more about this event in the media. But let me share some of my own still-jetlagged reflections.
The financial crisis has made obvious the obvious: that we live in a truly new and global world.

And that business as usual will lead to global disaster - we need new approaches to collectively adapt to and thrive in this new environment. The answer is not to go back to any old paradigm, which simply will not work in a new reality, but to imagine and build a better new way of doing things. And we all need to participate.
Some of the attendants urged us to “reboot” the system. I don’t think that a “reboot” is enough - we need to upgrade to a new operating system. We can call it Planet Earth 2.0. Based on the group discussion we had on Sunday morning, let me propose some of the architectural principles that should underlie any emerging Planet Earth 2.0 operating system. And let me present those principles using a “Yes We Can” value-based approach:

Yes
- From Business As Usual to Imagination-led Action.
- From Analysis to Synthesis.
- From Talk to Walk.


We
- From Financial Hegemony to Human and Natural Capital.
- From Us vs. them to Win-win Diversity.
- From Regulation/ Deregulation to Mindful Architecture.
- From Top-down Authority to Shared Responsibility.


Can
- From Selfish Genes to Committed to Improving the state of the world.
- From Accounting Rules to Values and Standards.
- From Being Stuck to Learn and Evolve.


Given that each of us are in fact part of that new operating system, we could start by pledging to live by principles like those. How can we refine them?
In short, no more Business as Usual. We need more Imagination, and Action. By each of us.

Alvaro Fernandez is the CEO and Co-Founder of SharpBrains.com, a website that reviews resources for brain training and offers brain teasers. SharpBrains has been recognized by Scientific American Mind, Newsweek, The New York Times, and more. Alvaro holds MA in Education and MBA from Stanford University, and teaches The Science of Brain Health at UC-Berkeley Lifelong Learning Institute.