Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves is interviewed on stage
This extended beyond the audience however , creating this platform meant that sessions where the narrative is a joint one between speakers and delegates , required some inherent trust in the community onsite . Wyrley-Birch continued , saying : “ Inherently in both business and the events industry , we like to control things , we want certainty outcomes . I think in the world we live in now we realise , all successful content and social media output is crowdsourced stunts . The most entertaining thing you ’ ll ever see on TikTok is not highly polished and produced , it ’ s the 15-year-old who ’ s
The event brought together speakers from many industries
The garden played host to a variety of sessions
just created , in their bedroom , this amazing piece of content .
“ If we take that philosophy and run with it , we need to create the right environment , the right atmosphere , to generate that content , rather than trying to be prescriptive in the direction of sessions prior to the event .”
Building for tomorrow Talking about building the platform for the conversations is one thing , but what are the practical benefits of an event that aims to change the future of a nation in such turmoil . For O ’ Brien , it ’ s the impact of the sessions themselves and the onsite connections being made , he said : “ I want people to have an enriching experience whilst they ’ re here . I had a young person say to me yesterday , after a session that it had changed their lives , I ’ ve had the CEOs of a non-profit organisations come in and say that somebody in the audience has donated money directly and come up with another business initiative .
“ People are going away with an individual impact . But also , what ’ s more important is that they are going away with new contacts , new ideas for partnerships , new innovations , as well as looking at things in a different perspective .”
From an event perspective , hosting a large-scale event , debuting at Eden Project , with leaders from the Labour Party , EY , B-LABS , One Young World and many other impactful organisations , is an encouraging start . But for Wyrley-Birch , it ’ s only the beginning of something much bigger , he said : “ I ’ m going to echo the words of Nelson Mandela here ; you feel it ’ s impossible until it ’ s done . I don ’ t think Anthropy will ever be done . But if it is something that a year ago felt impossible , hopefully I ’ ll be looking back in three- or four-years ’ time and say ‘ Wow , what a movement have we created here ’.” I hope that it ’ s something that , in a few years ’ time , has built enough energy that it ’ s there for the next 20 or 30 years , not just something that was a moment in time post Covid-19 .”
Having been onsite , Anthropy was an event that stuck out in the mind for me , as someone who goes to a lot ( and I mean a lot ) of conferences , the noticeable difference in audience engagement , the passion of speakers and the feeling at Eden Project , really was something special . I wouldn ’ t be surprised if this event was just the start of a beautiful thing . CN www . conference-news . co . uk