The plenary session will be addressed by Oran Reed Young, Research Professor at the Department of Science and Environmental Management at the University of California (Santa Barbara), Director of the Arctic Research Institute (USA). He is one of the most renowned experts on international organizations and their role in cooperation between states. In 1991 he was the moderator of the founding conference of the Northern Forum.

 The topic of his speech will be very interesting: "Much of the discussion of transport infrastructure in the Arctic focuses on commercial shipping, port development, pipelines and other systems relating to the production and transport of raw materials to southern markets. I acknowledge the importance of these issues. BUT I would like to focus my remarks on other forms of transport, including virtual transport, that are of great importance to the wellbeing of human communities in the Arctic. These include matters like ensuring access to broadband internet access, developing telemedicine, addressing issues of food security, reinforcing local transport infrastructure in the face of permafrost melting, dealing with disaster relief in connection with floods and fires, organizing scientific field research, and so forth".

The organizers of the Forum are the Government of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), the ‘Northern Forum’ international organization of northern regions, and the North-Eastern Federal University.

To see the full program of the Forum visit nsdf.ru website.

The events will be streamed live on the Northern Forum YouTube channel at:  Northern Forum Secretariat