International Youth Summer School, 2016 holds its opening ceremony in Beijing, China on Aug. 17. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

Over 60 young people coming from more than 20 countries gathered in Beijing this week to attend the International Youth Summer School, 2016, a platform to help participants develop a unique set of skills that can be used in their professional and personal lives, and ideally, to offer a chance to create a network of young leaders from all over the world.

These young people, aged between 18 and 35, are mainly from the academic and business sectors in Asia and Europe. During the weeklong summer camp, they will take part in workshops and case studies, attend lectures and master classes, and meet other young like-minded enthusiastic people, among other business and cultural activities under the banner of "bridging cultures with business experience."

The annual International Youth Summer School was brought to China by the Youth Time International Movement, which was founded in December 2010 in Prague. It seeks to bridge communication among different cultures and different age groups. The previous five summer camps were all held in European cities.

Youth Time founder and President Julia Kinash said at the summer school's opening ceremony that in an era of global innovation and entrepreneurship, it is important to provide young people with the opportunity to study, and the study should include both the learning process from books and teachers but also from field experience, exchange and friendship.

Kinash said that the unique form of education helps create a special atmosphere to encourage participants to bridge cultures and effectively create new personal and business relations during the event.

Among the campers who are ready to share their unique insights, Sven Angers from Germany is an expert in providing coaching services for business managers and sales people. He said that coaching is different than teaching or even training in that the "coaching consists of holistic approaches," and his lecture at the camp would highlight "accentuating on commonalities" more than "smoothing out differences" in an international, multicultural business environment.

Youth Time picked the prestigious China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), named after the wife of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, to be its Chinese partner in organizing the summer camp. CSCLF Deputy Chairman Qi Mingqiu expected that all participants would get inspirations from the exchanges with people from other countries while enhancing their professional capacities.

"Innovation is the hope of a country while the youth are the hope for innovation. This summer school encourages innovation and mass entrepreneurship while learning from each other amid the exchange of civilizations," Qi said, adding that innovation, entrepreneurship and mutual appreciation of each other's civilization must be the eternal themes of a society.