On 27 April, the Junior Diplomat Initiative Youth Dialogue: Diplomacy in Times of Crisis brought students from the Graduate Institute and other Swiss universities together with diplomatic professionals and practitioners, to discuss emerging trends and challenges of diplomacy.

The Junior Diplomat Initiative (JDI) was founded by students at the University of Economics, Prague in 2011, before expanding to the Graduate Institute in 2013 and to Sciences Po Paris in 2015. The organization seeks to bridge the gap between the theoretical knowledge acquired through studying international relations and the practice of diplomacy, by facilitating dialogue and connections between students and the diplomatic community.

Apolline Pierson, Marco Lotti and Fukumi Orikasa were among the Institute students who organised the event, which featured panel sessions on Practicing Diplomacy: Critical Changes in the International Landscape and Encountering Diplomacy: Multiple Approaches to Conflict and Humanitarian Crisis, as well as workshops on Crisis Management (organised with GCSP), Big Data & Humanitarian Affairs (with DiploFoundation & ICRC) and Mediation (with Swisspeace).

You can find more information about JDI via their web page or Facebook. A short video with Apolline, Marco and Fukumi is below.