Background:

     The McGill World Platform for Health and Economic Convergence (MWP) is a unique initiative led by McGill University’s faculties of Management and Medicine with significant involvement from the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Law. The MWP combines the powerful assets of one of the world’s leading research universities with the world’s best minds and leading organizations in health and economic domains, into local, national, and global networks of business, government, health, NGOs and community organizations to address the most intractable issues at their interface.

     The flagship of the McGill World Platform is its annual Health and Economic Convergence Think Tank, which have been held since 2003 as the McGill Health Challenge Think Tanks. The Think Tanks are designed to build synergy among business, markets, government and civil society in addressing the challenges that lie at the interface of the health and economic domains. A first cycle examined affordable, scalable, and sustainable business, social and health innovation and collective action initiatives that address chronic disease and obesity in developed and developing countries. The Think Tanks have attracted academic, business, civil society and political world leaders, including Economic Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Daniel Kahneman. They have already spawned a network of local, national and global networks that form the foundation and inspiration for the MWP and its Business4Health Compact, designed to lead changes on the ground.

     The MWP’s Three-Tier Inaugural Health and Economic Convergence Think Tank series, beginning in Fall 2009, will focus on how the power of business can be harnessed to ensure sustainable health and wealth for all. Building upon novel and more humanitarian and environment-conscious models of capitalism, starting with social business and creative and inclusive capitalism. The program will use the World Health Organization’s landmark 2008 report of the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health as a framework and scale up on going worldwide efforts to close the equity gap. The author of the report, Sir Michael Marmot, is a co-chair of the program. The pioneers behind social business: 2006 Peace Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus (confirmed), creative (William Henry Gates, TBC) and inclusive capitalism (C.K. Prahalad, TBC) are invited to be the series’ honorary co-chairs, helping to push the boundaries of what the Think Tank series can contribute to health and wealth for all.

     The MWP Think Tanks, in this inaugural program, adopt a “think-and-do” approach to seed action on the ground in terms of business, social and health innovation, technology and entrepreneurship, while fostering changes in mindsets, practices, norms and values to promote clean-slate innovation and enabling policy and governance change toward making sustainable ‘health and wealth for all’ a reality. Each Think Tank will be preceded by thematic convergence meetings that will establish the challenges and possibilities around the Think Tank themes and serve as a springboard for continuous support for action on the ground through the newly conceived Business4Health Compact. The MWP portal will also house the online version of the annual McGill Health and Economic Convergence Think Tanks, starting with the November 2009 edition.