Receive
Respond to a question or tension handed forward by another voice.
Speakers & panellists
Bring a reality the world needs to hear.
Not a standalone talk. A contribution to one evolving global argument.
You speak remotely, from wherever you are. Speaking is a volunteer, unpaid contribution.
- Fully online
- No travel
- All roles volunteer and unpaid
- 20–22 May 2027
Speaker participation is now being organized through the LEAD48 programme themes. Applications are not currently open.
Contributor opportunities will open through the LEAD48 programme themes. Read every theme brief and speaker question now.
The contribution contract
What you are signing up for.
Selected contributors develop their session with LEAD48. The final format and broadcast window are curated around the whole relay.
Ground
Speak from a region, community, discipline or lived reality you can credibly represent.
Advance
Offer evidence, honest limits and something people can use. Not promotion.
Hand over
Leave the next contribution with a better, more precise question.
One stream means no isolated slots: you may originate from one region, contribute to any theme and appear in a broadcast window hosted elsewhere. Those three labels are connected, but not interchangeable.
Twelve inquiry themes
Start with the tension you can move.
Contributors start from a theme, not a session. Each theme draws on the regions or the Global Convergence that examine it, and LEAD48 curates the exact conversations inside it. Read every theme in full.
When capability exists but never reaches the outcome
Where skills, money and technology are lost between having them and getting results.
When the door opens before people can walk through it
Access arrives faster than the capability to use it, and someone carries the gap.
Who keeps the value when it is created
Where the value of production and adaptation ends up, and who gets to keep it.
Inherited endowment, or a leadership choice?
How much of a transition is fixed by what a country inherited, and how much is still a choice.
Fund, sequence, defer or stop: when every choice is defensible
Choosing what comes first when every option is defensible and capacity is scarce.
Renewing a system that cannot be switched off
Changing a model while the systems it depends on have to keep running.
Adapting faster without spending the trust you will need later
Moving faster without using up the legitimacy institutions will need later.
The same link, as strength and as exposure
Connections that make systems stronger can be the first thing to fail: what to share and what to keep local.
Deciding for people who did not make the choice
Choices whose consequences fall on people with no say, including generations not yet born.
When the same evidence tells different stories
Averages, indicators and shared facts that different places, people and sectors read in opposite ways.
What changes when words and answers travel
Concepts and working solutions that change, or break, when they cross a border, a sector or an institution.
Problems no single place or system can solve
Challenges that outgrow any one map, and consequences that travel to where no one is in charge.
The research behind the themes also draws on public UN, UNESCO and SDG frameworks as reference points, not as themes to choose from. LEAD48 is independently organized and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the United Nations or UNESCO.
Region-based curation
Grounded locally. Connected globally.
Regional grouping is a curation tool, not a claim that any region has one voice.
North AmericaLatin America & CaribbeanEuropeSub-Saharan AfricaMiddle East & North AfricaSouth AsiaEast & Southeast AsiaAustralia & Pacific
Your regionWhere the contribution is grounded
×Your themeThe challenge you can advance
×Your handoffHow your insight changes the next conversation
Published before selection
No hidden criteria.
Every eligible proposal receives two independent substantive reviews. Quality comes first; regional, thematic and format coherence shape the final portfolio.
20% Theme contribution20% Regional grounding15% Evidence45% Originality, usefulness, dialogue, handoff & readiness
Read the full frameworkSpeakers & panellists
Choose one theme.
Bring one consequential insight.
Speaker participation is now being organized through the LEAD48 programme themes. Applications are not currently open.
Contributor opportunities will open through the LEAD48 programme themes. Leave one address and we will email you once, when they do.
Questions: charles.igwe@ci3pro.ca.