2004 Plenary Session

University for a Night began with a plenary session in which Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and three other global leaders will challenge participants with their ideas on how best to bridge social and economic divides. This portion of the program included questions from the audience.

Kjell Magne Bondevik became Prime Minister of Norway in 2001, leading a minority government representing the Conservative Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. He had previously been Prime Minister from 1997-2000, as well as previously holding a variety of positions in government, including Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Church and Education. He has also served in the municipal government and school board of his town in Norway.

Mario Conejo Maldonado is mayor of the town of Otavalo, Ecuador. As the first indigenous person to hold that position, Mr. Conejo oversees a municipality in transformation, with bold new conservation and development efforts. Otavaleño Indians are among the most economically and politically successful tribe of Indians in all of Ecuador.

Louis Willem "Tex" Gunning joined Unilever, one of the world’s most successful consumer goods companies, in 1982. He has held a variety of positions in Europe and Australasia, including chairman of Unox and chairman of Van Den Bergh Nederland. Following the roll out of the Foods and Home and Personal Care divisions to Asia in July 2001, and the resultant dissolution of the East Asia Pacific business group, Mr. Gunning was appointed to his current position as Business Group President of the new Unilever Bestfoods, Asia.

Noeleen Heyzer is the first Executive Director from the South to head the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the leading operational agency within the United Nations to promote women's empowerment and gender equality. Under Ms. Heyzer's leadership, UNIFEM has successfully advocated to put gender equality high on the agenda of the UN system. Before joining UNIFEM in 1994, she was policy adviser to Asian governments worked extensively at the community level with women working in the informal sector, in agriculture, in free trade zones and in prostitution.