Yesterday morning we had a fantastic session connecting London, Dialogue Cafe Lisbon and about 40 civic leaders taking part in the Partnerships for Urban Innovation Conference at the World Expo in Shanghai.

We had a fantastic conversation about the role of Dialogue Cafe as a platform for sharing knowledge and collaboration at the global level. Lots of interesting insights from our participants In Lisbon - Barbara Coutinho and Teresa Cardoso from MUDE, Luis Jeronimo from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Maria Coutinho from Design Battle. We talked about the role of Dialogue Cafe as a platform for co-creation, bringing together designers, students and non-profit organisations in developing innovative social and community-based projects.

Here's a photo of the event from Shanghai!

On 27th May 2010, we officially launched the first two Dialogue Cafes in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. We were joined by Candido Mendes, Former President of Portugal and current UN Special Envoy for the Alliance of Civilizations, Jorge Sampaio, Dialogue Cafe President, Diogo Vasconcelos and Simon Willis, Global Vice-President Cisco in Rio and by Mayor of Lisbon, Antonio Costa, President of the Gulbenkian Foundation Rui Vilar, President of the FCCN Pedro Veiga and Director of MUDE, Barbara Coutinho.

Finally, we're back in London after an emotional, hectic, exhilarating, and at times deeply moving two weeks in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro for the launch of the first two Dialogue Cafes. It's taken the team almost two years to get here but now, we're truly at the beginning of what promises to be an exciting and important social venture.

Dialogue Cafe is about bringing together diverse groups of people so that they can share experiences, learn from each other and work together to make the world a better place. This means connecting students to talk about important social and topical issues - to help them broaden their horizons and learn about people and places beyond their own experiences - and at times, beyond their own imagination. It means bringing people together who are tackling some of the greatest social challenges of our times - like climate change, inequalities, youth unemployment, illiteracy, digital exclusion, ageing societies and the growth of chronic disease. Together, they can learn about what works and what doesn't, improve their own practice, and eventually, replicate projects in their own cities and countries. Dialogue Cafe is also about showcasing the art, heritage and culture of the cities in which we're based. This means connecting artists, musicians and writers to talk about their work and the influences they share.

Which is why, for our launch, we decided on an ambitious day long programme of events to capture the diversity and richness of the kinds of activities we're going to enable through the first two Dialogue Cafes at MUDE in Lisbon and the Candido Mendes University in Rio. 

We started off with a short introduction of the teams in Lisbon and Rio then launched straight into a fantastic session with 10-15 school students in each Dialogue Cafe, aged 15-18, on the subject of sustainability and climate change. The session was introduced by Isabel Castro in Lisbon and then the students talked for about an hour about the issues which interested and affected them the most. They also made suggestions about how climate change could be tackled. At the end the students swapped email addresses and Facebook names and are now hoping to meet up on a regular basis to continue the conversation and the connection. Then we had another great session, this time with university students and professors on the subject of e-learning. The session was introduced by Eliane Costa in Rio and then the students talked animatedly on issues such as distance learning, digital inclusion and new models of learning.  It was incredibly exciting to see the school and university students enjoy the sessions as they did - one of the school students promised that he'd continue to get good grades if it meant that he could come back to Dialogue Cafe!

Then we had the official inauguration with Antonio Costa, the Mayor of Lisbon, Rui Vilar, the President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Pedro Veiga, the President of the FCCN, and Barbara Coutinho, Director of MUDE in Lisbon and President Jorge Sampaio, UN Secretary General's High Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations, Prof. Candido Mendes, the Dean of the Candido Mendes University, Diogo Vasconcelos, the President of the Dialogue Cafe Association and Simon Willis, the instigator of the Dialogue Cafe project and Cisco Global Vice President.

Then we had an afternoon (in Rio - evening in Lisbon!) of music and theatre. First with rising star Marisa Teixeira who sang a beautiful traditional Portuguese Fado. Then sketches from the play "A Natureza do Olhar" by Portuguese poet and writer Fernando Pessoa.  Then the grand finale - a transatlantic jam session between Carlos Martins in Lisbon and Aleh Ferreira in Rio. They took turns to play a song and in between, they talked about their music, the music that influenced them and then the influences on Portuguese and Brazilian music - and how the two developed symbiotically. It was an incredibly exciting moment - and gave a glimpse of what we could do in the future with Dialogue Cafe. 

If Thursday wasn't ambitious enough, on Friday - the following day - we were showcased at the UN Forum for the Alliance of Civilizations - also taking place in Rio, at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM). The Forum brought together around 2,000 people, including political leaders, civil society activists, youth groups, faith communities, foundations, students and journalists  from around the world to discuss and take action in order to improve relations across cultures, combat prejudice and build lasting peace. We had a Dialogue Cafe pod onstage and did a live session, moderated by Riz Kahn of Al Jazeera and Simon Willis, connecting to the Dialogue Cafe at the Candido Mendes University (UCAM) in Rio.  At UCAM, we were joined by J.D. Stanley (aka our technical genius), Luisa Sena, manager of the Dialogue Cafe in Rio (whose enthusiasm and energy is inspiring) and Aleh Ferreira who sang one of his excellent songs to the whole Forum.  

The two days were an amazing achievement. Enormous thanks go to all the people who worked incredibly hard to make it possible. Especially, the teams in Lisbon and Rio for the amazing work they did in organising the launch and making it such a success; to Olly and Chris who worked 30 hours straight to install the pods at UCAM and MAM; to Natalie for her resourcefulness and willingness to help; to Nuno for always making sure that things get done; to JD and Steve for the long hours, technical prowess, connectivity and cables!; to Sergio for his unbridled commitment and enthusiasm and for making it possible; to Simon for having the crazy idea in the first place and the resolve to take it forward; to Diogo for his trust, support and vision and to Sara for never taking no as an answer. It's been an immense privilege and honour to work with you all and I'm looking forward to doing it all again in London, Ramallah, Toronto, Istanbul, San Francisco, Amsterdam and more!
 

Official inauguration of Dialogue Cafe in Rio de Janeiro from Dialogue Café on Vimeo.