About
“We have to address misconceptions and fight against them with knowledge. Dialogue CafĂ© is an extremely important tool to develop knowledge globally, to educate.”
The Challenge: Addressing Global Issues
“The fundamental problems in the 21st century are shared global problems that don’t respect national boundaries. The solutions that these problems demand will require the engagement of humanity in its full diversity.”
Dialogue Café: Connecting People for Greater Social Innovation
Technology has an enormous potential to help better the lives of people, however, technology does not solve problems. People do.
The premise of Dialogue Café is that given the opportunity, ordinary people will explore their common interests, even across geo-political divides. TelePresence screens in cafés will enable people to chat, exchange ideas and collaborate in new ways. People can be directly involved in creating solutions in their communities - solutions that need not be isolated. A broad dialogue with a diverse group of people can exponentially expand our collective ability to solve problems and innovate as a global community.
Dialogue Cafe will provide people from all walks of life, in different countries, the space and tools to get together to solve complex problems.
Dialogue Cafés around the world will be linked by high definition screens so that ordinary people from different cultures can meet, talk and innovate together. The cafes are a bottom-up movement that complements the tradition of addressing sustainability issues from the top.
Inventing Collaboration for the 21st Century
Dialogue Cafés can transform the way people collaborate and the level of social innovation the dialogue ultimately generates. This is one pebble in the pond that sparks broader public engagement on issues challenging society today. Tapping into the full diversity of people, places, ideas and experiences around the globe will help us to innovate and bring the best solutions forward.
Over time, Dialogue Café will align with a wider range of global organizations to innovate and develop solutions such as broaden healthcare availability, drive urban development, encourage cross-cultural conversation, and support community initiatives all through greater connectedness amongst people from all walks of life.
Multistakeholder Partnerships Are Key to Success
Multistakeholder partnerships are critical to create new marketplaces for social innovation and greater sustainability. Under the patronage and institutional support of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), the Dialogue Café initiative is being developed by the Anna Lindh Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Cisco and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).
The research phase is complete with the involvement of students from the Central Saint Martins of the University of Arts London, Istanbul Bilgi University, and New York University.
Become Part of the Dialogue Today
