The 2025 International Strategy Forum
Introducing ISF, a Next-Generation Fellowship Program for Emerging Leaders in Technology and Geopolitics
Hello, I’m Ylli Bajraktari, CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project. In this week’s edition of 2-2-2, Nick Cohen, Kyle Johnson, and Ananya Kachru introduce our latest program, the International Strategy Forum. ISF is a global next-generation fellowship program for emerging leaders in technology and geopolitics. It builds bonds across our nation and among our allies and partners to sustain a community of leaders that can navigate geopolitical and technological challenges together amidst a changing world order.
The 2025 International Strategy Forum
The International Strategy Forum (ISF) is a next-generation fellowship program that convenes the world’s brightest leaders working at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, founded in 2020 by Dr. Eric Schmidt and co-chaired by Fareed Zakaria and Jared Cohen. Its goal is to promote interdisciplinary conversations on novel solutions to the world's most challenging problems. Earlier this year, ISF was integrated into SCSP as part of an effort to expand the global talent base complementing the continued competitiveness of the United States and its allies.
An unfolding era of accelerating innovation presents new hybrid problems that cut across disciplines. Emerging technologies are disrupting the world order and challenging traditional frameworks for how we address global issues ranging from economic competition to rising nationalism and climate change.
Despite emerging technologies' disruptive impact, geopolitics and technology fields are increasingly siloed. Training and mentorship have become more specialized, failing to build the broad-reaching networks needed to solve cross-disciplinary problems. At the same time, existing mechanisms for identifying young leaders too often reward conventional thinking and fail to spot non-traditional talent, leaving some of the brightest minds on the sidelines.
That is where ISF comes in. ISF is a year-long, non-residential fellowship program that brings together rising leaders around the world, ages 25 to 35, from diverse fields, including deep tech, industry, policymaking, military, academia, law, journalism, research, medicine, government, and the arts. The fellowship begins with a global convening that is followed by roughly ten months of virtual and in-person programming. Fellows can also engage with a pool of dedicated ISF senior advisors and alumni for career guidance and skill development and benefit from exclusive partner events, projects, and more.
ISF’s goal is to forge a global, interdisciplinary network of the next generation of problem solvers with extraordinary potential in geopolitics, innovation, and public leadership. This network will build bonds across sectoral and national lines to navigate geopolitical and technological challenges together in a changing world order.
ISF holds several in-person events for Fellows each year, including the flagship ISF Global Summit and regional convenings/workshops. At the 2024 Global Summit, held in Seoul in partnership with the Korea Foundation, ISF brought together nearly 115 Fellows from more than 60 countries across Africa, the Americas, Europe, and MENA. During the event, Fellows discussed key issues in technology and geopolitics with senior Korean and American policymakers, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former ROK Foreign Minister Park Jin, and former Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Wendy Cutler; conducted site visits to leading Korean technology companies Naver, SK Hynix, Hyundai Zer1one, and Samsung; and engaged in conversations and hackathons with each other on the future of their regions and the impact of AI and other technologies in their fields.
See a highlight reel of the 2024 Global Summit:
Later this year, ISF will hold thematic discussions on Emerging Technologies, Geopolitics, and Human Security in Berkeley, California; Climate Change and Global Cooperation in Saõ Paulo, Brazil; and Public Innovation and Democracy in Tallinn, Estonia. Each of the 2024 Fellows will have the chance to join one of these important sessions and consider how they can leverage their unique skill sets to address the opportunities and challenges in these areas.
The 2025 Fellowship
The ISF team has just launched the application for the 2025 cohort of ~75 to 90 Fellows. The application deadline is August 15, 2024. In 2025, we will focus on the following core themes:
The Future of Global Security: What will be the key drivers of geopolitical tension in the Indo-Pacific region in 2025, and how may (or not) regional tensions spill over or connect to other global hotspots (e.g., the war in Ukraine)? How might sector-specific issues (e.g., the growing competition over critical minerals and emerging technologies) accelerate or mitigate tensions? What are the implications of increasing geopolitical fragmentation on various regional partners (e.g., Europe, the Western Hemisphere, the African continent), and what points of leverage can they use to support regional and global stability?
The Future of Innovation Power: What new or adjacent technology fields will be most affected by AI's transformative potential in 2025? What must nations do to stay at the cutting edge of innovation in these fields? How can government, industry, and civil society work together to ensure these technologies' safe and effective adoption and use?
The Future of Resilient Democratic Societies: What are the critical risks and opportunities facing democracies in 2025, following the year of global elections in 2024? How can democratic societies leverage emerging technologies to better support fundamental freedoms and the delivery of public services? What can democratic societies do to better counter political polarization, digital authoritarianism, and other anti-democratic forces around the globe?
Eligible Fellows have the following characteristics:
Emerging leader between the ages of 25 and 35;
Demonstrated interest and expertise in technology and geopolitics;
Strong demonstrated sense of purpose, collaboration, curiosity, and empathy;
Professional connection with at least one of ISF’s 2025 core themes.
If you or someone you know is eligible and interested in learning more, please email the ISF team at team@internationalstrategyforum.io with the subject line “ISF in 2025.”