Join the global online conversation!
These are troubling times, and we need to relate globally and within our countries. As a species, we are facing a polycrisis of wicked problems, we have the means to solve them, and we need to discuss what really matters.
To quote the Schuman Declaration from 1950 after World War 2:
World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.
So, let us be creative, curious and open-minded together and discuss how we can relate better to each other, to the planet, and to past, present and future.
On Saturday, March 22, 2025, you can join the online Global Meeting on Equinox again! There will be presentations and participants from around the globe, and your voice will be heard too!
The theme this time is What it means to be human and how we can relate better to each other, to the planet and all life one it, and to our past, present, and future.
Over the course of 18 hours and 8 sessions, we will travel online from Oceania via East Asia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America to North America. Each of the sessions will have its own sub-theme:
- Oceania: Indigenous peoples and cultures,
- East Asia: Justice,
- Asia: Knowledge,
- Middle East: Life experience,
- Africa: Mental models,
- Europe: Nutrition,
- Latin America: Openendedness,
- North America: Peoplehood.
Read the article about the themes here:
The Global Meeting on Equinox is a global conversation in March and September each year about what it means to be human and how we can create a future where everybody can thrive.
We share insights into the challenges facing people and planet: the culture, ideas, and man-made interventions that lock us into structures that generate fewer and fewer ever-more-powerful winners and millions of losers.
This is not about a utopia or soft psychedelic philosophy. This is where research meets values and dreams. We look to an improvement within the existing rules. Collaborative instead of competitive games. A “game of life” where people are free to move but do not end up polarised.
Program
Oceania, East Asia, Asia, & the Middle-East:
04:00-12:00 / 4am-12pm UTC
Hosts:
Eliane Metni
Lebanon & Canada
Folarin Gbadebo-Smith
Nigeria
Lene Rachel Andersen
Denmark
Martin Ivarson
Sweden
Robert McTague
USA & Romania
Oceania:
05:00-06:45 / 5:00am-06:45am UTC
18:00-19:45 / 6:00pm-7:45pm Wellington
16:00-17:45 / 4:00pm-5:45pm Melbourne
I for Indigenous culture and what it means to be human
Navigating Planetary Pedagogies Through Multiple Timescapes
Conceptions of time shape our approach to planetary challenges and education. The Western understanding of time fails to acknowledge the plural timescapes that coexist across cultures, ecosystems, and species. Read more…
Chris Speed
Australia
Beyond the school gate: The value of fostering relationships between schools and theatre companies
Melissa will explore the importance of relationships between schools and theatre companies to enable teachers and students to engage in authentic theatre experiences and to foster students’ understanding of their relationship to themselves and to their world. Read more…
Melissa Newton-Turner
Australia
East Asia:
07:00-08:45 / 7:00am-08:45am UTC
16:00-17:45 Tokyo
15:00-16:45 Beijing
J for Justice and what it means to be human
Chinese education and what it means to be human
Yi Heng Cheng
China
Relational Money: Regenerating money through relations
By digitizing the Chinese cultural concept of 關係 Guanxi. and combining it with technical advances in borderless cryptocurrencies, decentralized social networks and verifiable credentials: a new global system of cooperation is possible. Read more…
Pindar Wong
Hong Kong
Rethinking Ningen(Human) and lifelong learning
In Japan, one of the words that represents “human” is ningen. How does the relate to lifelong learning and what it means to be human? Read more…
Hironobu Shindo
Japan
Asia:
09:00-10:45 / 9:00am-10:45am UTC
16:00-17:45 Bangkok
14:30-16:15 Mumbai
K for Knowledge and how we relate to and integrate different forms of knowledge. People who possess indegenous, traditional, modern and post-modern knowledge, respetively, have very different ways of seeing the world, which makes communicating across knowledge systems difficult. Read more…
Sanchita Shekhar
India
19-year-old cycling across the world to save soil?
Sahil Jha is deeply worried about how we treat the thin layer of soil that is the life source of civilization. To bring attention to the matter, he is bicycling around the globe and will tell us about his journey. Read more…
Sahil Jha
India
Gandhi’s conception of Basic Education: Is it relevant in the 21st century?
Gandhi proposed an integrated approach to education, engaging in crafts and skills while developing a sense of aesthetics. Exploring various intellectual facts of arts and the sciences, while realising the underlying ethics and values. In other words, an integration of the hand, the head and the heart. Read more…
Barun Mitra
India
The Middle East and Conclusion:
11:00-13:00 / 11:00am-13:00pm UTC
14:30-16:30 Tehran
11:00-13:00 Rabat
L for Life Experience and what it means to be human
How do we learn from mistakes? Most of us live in no-mistake cultures, but what does that do to us? Read more…
Eliane Metni
Lebanon
A cross cultural vision of education
We are in the process of developing a think tank in both Tunisia and France to help ensure a sustainable future where human rights values, respect and exchange between cultures would be main objectives. Read more…
Hela Nafti
Tunisia
From Education to Empowerment: How We Relate and Rise Together
The situation of women in Afghanistan should not be a concern for Afghans alone—it is a global issue. We are all interconnected. The denial of women’s rights in Afghanistan sets a dangerous precedent that affects us all. Read more…
Nargis Zadran
Afghanistan
Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America:
14:00-22:00 / 2pm-10pm UTC
Hosts:
Eliane Metni
Lebanon & Canada
Folarin Gbadebo-Smith
Nigeria
Lene Rachel Andersen
Denmark
Martin Ivarson
Sweden
Robert McTague
USA & Romania
Africa:
15:00-16:45 / 3:00pm-4:45pm UTC
17:00-18:45 Cape Town
16:00-17:45 Lagos
M for Mental Models and what it means to be human; Mental models allow us to make sense of the world–except when they don’t. How do mental models help us and how do they inhibit our opportunities for improvements? Read more…
Folarin Gbadebo-Smith
Nigeria
What do we have in common with a Fish?
My father asked me the above question when I was a cocky teenager. The question confirmed in my mind that my Dad and his generation had certainly lost it… read more
Christopher Mbanefo
Nigeria & Switzerland
Europe:
17:00-18:45 / 5:00pm-6:45pm UTC
19:00-20:45 Kyiv
18:00-19:45 Paris
N for Nutrition and how we relate to food, health, and beauty. Industrialized food production solved the problem of hunger in many places, now millions of people are overweight. Enter: Wegovy, the new savior. Why? — Bring your own cake! Read more…
Lene Rachel Andersen
Denmark
We Are The ReGeneration. Resolving the connection crisis.
We’re not in a climate crisis, we’re in a connection crisis. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. We are nature. The root of our current problem is that we behave as if we don’t belong, as if we are not part of this planet. Read more…
Mark Aink
The Netherlands
Concopia – Reconnecting Humanity through Conversations
An introduction to Concopia – a card deck of curiosities and questions that encourage us to rethink and reenchant the world. Read more…
Nadja Pass
Denmark
Latin America:
19:00-20:45 / 7:00pm-8:45pm UTC
16:00-17:45 Sao Paulo
14:00-15:45 Bogotá
O for Openendedness and what it means to be human
The capacity for true openness—the good kind—means looking forward without attempting to contain the future, yet without letting it slip away. Read more…
Diego Galvalisi
Uruguay
Relating and What it means to be human
Today, humanity finds itself caught between two eras: one that is fading away, and another one, still unpredictable, that is emerging between fear and exhaustion. Today, human being is danger or hope. Read more…
Silvia Zimmermann del Castillo
Argentina
North America:
21:00-23:00 / 9:00pm-11:00pm UTC
17:00-19:00 / 5pm-7pm Washington DC
14:00-16:00 / 2pm-4pm Vancouver
P for Peoplehood and what it means to be human
An update from the political landscape in the US
The United States seem less united than ever before, and international relations are torn apart; what is actually going on? Phil Steck is a Democratic member of the New York State Assembly. Read more…
Phil Steck
USA
Centering relationship amid apocalypse in the United States
How we do this — and what may be most difficult in the process of centering relationship — will differ among us. How we center relationships will also affect the possibilities it opens. Read more…
Heidi Steltzer
USA
From Polarization to Polarity – the relational synthesis of Yin and Yang, as personal and political value sets
Sally honours the ancient teachings of the Tao as a contemporary understanding of the current fragmentation of personal and political dynamics; from dating difficulties, to the gender wars, to political tensions between nanny-state, social democracies, and the right wing rise of fascism. Read more…
Sally Adnams Jones
Canada
What it Means to Be Human is a series of online events the first Saturday after Equinox, a series of articles, and a book.
Watch the presentations from the September 2024 event here
Intro article for the September 2024 event by Lene Rachel Andersen and Folarin Gbadebo-Smith