That enterprise is the work of the Milken Institute as a whole. “Convening” is the shorthand we use for our robust events activity, bringing together people from across countries, professions and viewpoints to learn and explore. And convening is also what we do in these pages and pixels, bringing fresh ideas in contact with the minds of the intellectually curious. Whether in an article in the Review, in a panel session at our annual Global Conference or in a workshop furthering one of the three programmatic pillars of the Institute, that capacious notion of convening is a common thread through our work – with the additional hope that ideas and insights will lead to constructive action.

So far, so predictable, you may be thinking. Yet there is a timeliness to these truisms. The end of the year 2023 was a moment that reminded us in disparate ways of the need for space for thinking. In the days after the terrorist attacks on Israel, both social and not-so-social media were flooded with images that were emotionally overloading. Indeed, one colleague told me she turned off all her feeds to give her time to think, not merely to emote.

Which brings me to a not entirely unrelated thought. The accounts of the final months of two recently deceased centenarians, Henry Kissinger and Charles Munger (okay, one of them missed that mark by a few weeks), underlined that, even at the end of very long lives, their powers of thought and analysis were not simply intact, but a source of deep satisfaction for each of them, and continuing insight for others.

Predicting the future can be a fool’s game. But as we launch into 2024, one safe prediction is that the need for analysis and action informed by ideas will be greater than ever – and that the Milken Institute will do its best to serve that need.