The Global Economic Network initiated this novel international conference format. The first Vision Summit took place on the occasion of the G8-Summit 2007 in Germany where the best select “Concepts for the Future” were presented. The Vision Summit is deliberately exclusively solution oriented. The concepts selected have to be visionary and at the same time practically implementable as well as really assisting in making decisions for a systemic better design of globalisation. The first Vision Summit on 4 and 5 June 2007 in Berlin was also supported by BWA, AIESEC, Junior Chamber International, B.A.U.M., International Network for Environmental Management (INEM), Terra Institute and The Global Exchange for Social Investment (GEXSI).

The second Vision Summit in November 2008 and the third in November 2009 had been dedicated to the subject „Social Business“. The focus of the forth Vision Summit in April 2011 had been "Social Innovation". The organizser of these three Vision Summits had been the GENISIS Institute for Social Business and Impact Strategies, established in August 2008.

In October 2011 the GENISIS Institute joined the Global Economic Network. Beginning with the Vision Summit in May 2012 this International Conference Format again is under the patronage of the Global Economic Network.