- The Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders held five conferences throughout the 1980s and 1990s in Oxford, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Jericho*, Kyoto, and Konya.
Among its guests and speakers were:
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nobel Laureate and political and spiritual leader
- Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union/Russia and Nobel Laureate
- Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro of Syria
- Mother Theresa, Nobel Laureate and Catholic nun
- Wangari Maathai, Nobel Laureate and environmental activist
- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor
- Al Gore, then US Vice President and Nobel Laureate
- Carl Sagan, astrophysicist and science educator
- Javier Perez de Cuellar, then UN Secretary General
- John Denver, musician and environmental activist
The Forums, remarkable in the individuals they gathered and the agenda they set forth, all preceded major shifts of power in each region.
*Akio organized the Jericho conference, which PLO Chairman Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin remarkably agreed to co-chair. Tragically, Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated shortly before the conference would have taken place.