The Symposium captivated, inspired, and amplified voices!
Here’s a short recap.
Virtual sessions were held throughout the weeks of
3-19 November 2021
on decolonizing and shifting power in our social impact work.
The 2021 Posner Center Symposium convened global and local development leaders, practitioners, researchers, academics, activists, policymakers, and supporters looking to focus on anti-racism in development work, diversify the global development field, and have a more equitable impact that begins to repair past and current injustices.
We spent time collaborating and learning about ways we can disrupt deeply-rooted imperialist power structures and assumptions that are still embedded in our development work and re-imagine more just approaches for global impact.
Program and Speakers
We had sessions on history to help understand, think about, and set the context for decolonization. There were sessions sharing personal, lived experiences to deepen understanding and strengthen connections. We had case studies to hear about what other people are trying and doing and learning to change our underlying systems and the development sector itself. Some sessions dove into a particular sector, region, system, or practice area, and others tied it all back together.
The Symposium brought together diverse points of view from around the world to focus on shifting power, diversity, and decolonization in social impact and global development work. Our speakers are joining from 15 countries and 10 different states to share their experiences, ideas and lead a rich collage of discussions.
We had 370+ participants over the 2 1/2 weeks. One-third were from the existing Posner Center Community, but we’re thrilled that the other 2/3 joined us from organizations and locations new to our community. 40% of participants joined us from Colorado and the rest from 22 other U.S. states and 25 other countries in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, South and Central America, and Europe.
Almost 300 of the participants used the interactive Whova platform where we saw enthusiastic engagement (more community board posts, messages, and shared resources than their average event figures). The Symposium event platform will be available for 3 months, so participants can continue to engage with each other, view session recordings, and explore the articles and resources shared.
We dove in, opened up, got inspired, and learned from each other.
See the global collaborators, change agents, and diverse perspectives you’ll find on this year’s Symposium program agenda:
Learn about our speakers and explore their session topics:
Speakers and Session Descriptions
Thank You to Our Sponsors!
Media Sponsor
