A friend of mine who is disenchanted with life said to me one day: “Life is just one long joke. It’s not that we have lost our values, we just live without them”. I don’t share his pessimistic  view. I know talented young people who are very committed to the times they live in, with big ideas and the enthusiasm to put them into practice. Each year at our university we bring together a group of youngsters in their early teens from countries around the world to tell us their ideas on how to improve education and society. They ask for the floor, and they talk about how important values are. Their brave thoughts could be the key to our future.