At this year’s World Congress of Neurology the World Stroke Organisation was invited to develop a program focusing on stroke. We came up with four major sessions covering all areas of stroke prevention and care. Firstly, a prevention symposium was held with Michael Brainin from Austria, Valery Feigin from New Zealand and Jeyaraj Pandian from India discussing the principles and experiences of prevention around the world. The discussion that followed covered the sustainability and needs for further improvement. The second session was chaired by Bruce Campbell from Australia on thrombolysis and thrombectomy, the third one by Sheila Martins (Brazil) on endovascular approaches with Marc Fisher (USA) discussing the choices for imaging in acute stroke and Jan Gralla (Switzerland) reciting his extensive experiences in endovascular therapy. Finally, Ralph Sacco (USA) chaired a major session and discussed the vascular components of cognitive decline with Hugh Marcus (UK) summarizing the hereditary components of vascular cognitive decline and Didier Leys (France) discussing data on small strokes and cognition.