The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will host the Illinois Global Summit from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 19 at the I-Hotel & Conference Center.
The Summit is a one-day symposium that honors Vision 2030: Illinois’ Global Strategy and will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions, and networking among other things.
Vision 2030 is a global vision that not only answers a call to action to utilize resources to find solutions to global challenges and trends, but also creates the foundation the university needs to be a pre-eminent public research university with a global impact for the next 150 years.
To be specific, Vision 2030 focuses on dedicating significant efforts and resources on the African continent, Latin America, and parts of Asia that are underrepresented in the university’s global profile.
Dr. Sammer Jones, the director for Global Relations, said the Summit is important not just for the campus but for the community.
“It’s a declaration of our campus commitment to continue our global work and to expand our work in areas that we have not been visible in,” Dr. Jones said.
Overall, Dr. Jones said although they have been doing great work in the Global South for decades, Vision 2030 marks the first time UIUC is expanding on its promise of becoming a preeminent public research institution with a global impact as an entire university not just a single department, unit or college.
“This is our pledge to say that we don’t just want a college or department engaged, we want the entire university engaged,” Dr. Jones said. “We are a preeminent global institution. When we talk to other institutions about expanding the work in Latin America and Africa, everybody is so excited to see what we put together. We are leaders.”
Registration is required for the event except for the Fulbright Poster Showcase, which is open to the public. Registration can be found at https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/256916318.
Overall, information on the Global Summit is housed under the Global Strategy website under the Global Summit tab. Or it can be found here: https://publish.illinois.edu/global-strategy/global-summit/.
There, individuals can find the full schedule, speaker bios, registration information and resources for travel to the university.
The full schedule will only be available online at https://go.illinois.edu/GlobalSummitSchedule.
Additionally, the Global Summit will be streamed live and the URL to view the livestream is https://go.illinois.edu/GlobalSummit.
The Summit is also part of the university’s International Education Week of celebrations.
IEW aims to raise awareness about the breadth of international education activities and resources available in our community.
A full calendar of events for IEW can be found at https://go.illinois.edu/IEWevents.