Francis Waldvogel is the co-founder and Executive Director of the World Knowledge Dialogue Foundation. He holds an M.D. degree from the University of Geneva. Follow- ing his postgraduate formation at the Harvard Medical School, he became successively, Director of the Infectious Disease Division, Physician-in-Chief of the Clinical Bacteriol- ogy Laboratory, Physician-in-Chief of the Internal Medicine Service, and Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Geneva and the University Hospital of Geneva. In parallel with these activities, he was Vice-president of the Swiss Science Council (1992-1995) and served as president of the council of the two Swiss Federal Insti- tutes of Technology, ETHZ-Zürich and EPFL-Lausanne (1995-2004. Since 2006, he has been President of the Pro Victimis Foundation (supporting projects in health, education and social aid in developing countries) and is chairman of the Board of Directors of Sym- biotics (a company providing services for microfinance projects and investors). He is also the current chairman of the advisory board of the Swiss Science and Innovation Forum and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Trnava-Bratislava.