Each year, I spend most of my time curating the Skoll World Forum program. We determine an overarching theme to provide connective tissue for the four-day program. We scope the topics most relevant to our audience of 1,200 change leaders from nearly 100 countries who descend on Oxford. We take the pulse of what’s happening in the world, and in our sector. We invite more than 100 speakers from all over the globe to share their expertise.
It became clear to us that the coronavirus was a real and widespread threat the same week we confirmed our final speaker and sent our materials to the print shop. It was a heart-wrenching and difficult decision to cancel this event that is near and dear (and productive) to so many. But it feels like a year has passed since we struggled with that decision.
While the Skoll World Forum is cancelled, our community is not. It is filled with the most creative, entrepreneurial, and intelligent people on the planet. They won’t let a crisis go to waste. Skoll community: this year’s Forum program is in your hands. Moving from a program that is tightly curated by a small internal team over the course of a year to one that is open-sourced, decentralized, and produced in two weeks? The Skoll team may sit in Silicon Valley, but this is my first big pivot.
The Skoll community rose to the occasion. We invited you to submit your own Virtual Skoll World Forum Week events in a newsletter on a Friday. By Monday, more than 20 sessions populated the calendar, and they keep rolling in. Now, more than 60 organizations have contributed virtual events to the newly-imagined platform for social change. There’s a virtual version of the Human Face of Climate Change Action Lab, which will now take a closer look at the intersection between climate change and COVID-19. In other sessions, we’ll hear from pandemics and global health systems experts, as well as those who are thinking about the effects of this pandemic on the social impact sector.
While the coronavirus will surely remain in the foreground of any discussion, other work can—and must—go on. The week will be filled with virtual discussions on a wide range of topics: from personal wellbeing to smallholder farming and government partnerships. And you’ll be able to connect with others in the network through virtual meetups, pub nights, and even dance parties. The centerpiece of our week will remain the celebration of the new Skoll Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship.
In this collective experiment, we ask for your grace. We are quickly adapting tools made for other purposes. Where the Skoll.org/schedule was intended to guide people in Oxford to Oxford-based events, we’re now using it as a central clearinghouse for events submitted by dozens of organizations, and they’ll take place on every platform imaginable. We’ll run into technological challenges. You’ll have to BYOB to virtual pub nights. And the Awards Ceremony won’t have quite the same grandeur outside of New Theatre in Oxford.
The Skoll World Forum has always been a “connection-first” event. It’s special because of the people who come to Oxford each year and bring their knowledge, dedication, and whole selves—and welcome others to do the same. They bring a generosity of spirit, and a lot of hugs.
A virtual Forum week will be something different. But in this unique and difficult time for everyone, I have no doubt that our community will bring what we all need most: hope.
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