The Future of Meetings conference report

Nearly 600 participants, including diplomats, academics, business people, and civil society activists, shared their thoughts and expertise on the future of meetings at Diplo’s Future of Meetings online conference, held on 12 May.

Together we explored the balanced formula of blended meetings, as this optimal balance between onsite and online interactions will change the future of meetings and, to a large extent, diplomacy itself.

We have prepared for you a detailed conference report, with video recordings, photos, and statistics from the conference, and have added a section on steps we’ll take in the upcoming months and how you can participate.

Highlights of the conference report:

Six main takeaways: From planning, to inclusion, and navigating between the traditional and the innovative, we present the six most important takeaways from the conference.
Conference in numbers: Which stakeholder groups and geographical locations were best represented? Which topics were the most followed?
What did we discuss?: A narrative report on the conference, including remarks by President of the Republic and State of Geneva Mr Antonio Hodgers, and WHO’s Chief Information Officer Mr Bernardo Mariano.
Graduation gathering: A friendly gathering of graduates and lecturers from the Online Meetings for Diplomacy and Global Governance course.
Exhibition Art Goes Online: A two-part exhibition of the work of Diplo’s Creative Lab during COVID-19.
Online coffee rooms: The conference included over 20 online coffee rooms, both randomly assigned to participants, or selected by theme.
Our next steps and how you can participate: After receiving valuable feedback from participants, and after consideration of the discussions and takeaways from the conference, Diplo is now entering a stage of follow-up activities on the future of meetings.
Feedback from conference participants

Kindest regards,

Geneva Internet Platform Team