On March 3–5, the Valdai Discussion Club held its first Youth Conference, titled “The Valdai Club: The World in 2040,” as part of the World Youth Festival. The Conference was opened by the Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club Fyodor Lukyanov. Rasigan Maharajh, Chief Director of the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation at Tshwane University of Technology; Adlan Margoev, Lecturer at the Department of Oriental Studies, MGIMO University; Vitor Moura, Master's Candidate at Tsinghua University, Director at Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce (Bracham); Rupal Mishra, Senior Research Fellow, Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, took part in the first session. The session was moderated by Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.