About the conference
From the 22nd to the 25th September, Counterweight will be hosting the Counterweight Conference on Liberal Approaches to Diversity and Inclusion. The four-day conference will take place online and include pre-recorded talks on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) from over 40 experts. The conference comes as a response to increasing pressure on businesses to engage with D&I and will provide attendees with the theoretical and practical tools necessary to kickstart their D&I journeys. At Counterweight, we are concerned about the polarising effects of certain D&I approaches and we aim to open up an honest dialogue on how to address issues such as racism and discrimination through a liberal and unifying lens.
Why are we hosting this conference?
In the past few years, companies have faced growing pressure to engage with Diversity and Inclusion. Customers, employees and business owners alike want to ensure that their services and processes are inclusive. Too often, though, the ways in which people approach D&I come from ideological foundations that are divisive and sectarian in nature. In addition to this, companies continue to spend large sums of money on D&I trainings that simply aren't effective. At Counterweight, we think that D&I is important, though we're not convinced that the approaches described above are the solution. So, we started asking a lot of questions...
What would a liberal approach to D&I look like? How can we tackle discrimination and racism through a unifying lens? Do these approaches already exist? How can we do D&I in a way that values every individual in all their complexity and nuance?
Throughout the conference, we'll hear from experts in the field of D&I who can answer some of these questions. We hope that you'll come away with an understanding of how important D&I is and how we can approach it in a way that values unity, critical thinking and liberalism.
How do tickets work?
We have two ticket options:
Our standard ticket is available for free. This will allow you to view as many talks as you like, though each talk will only be available to view for 24 hours after it goes live.
Our all-access ticket is available for £50 (GBP). This gives you access to all the talks for a whole year, meaning you can refer back to them time and again.
What do we mean by 'liberal'?
We use the term 'liberal' to refer to all that is aligned with liberalism, rather than the newer US-meaning of the term connoting left-wing politics. Counterweight is a non-partisan organisation that believes that the binaries of left and right wing politics do little to help the polarised, sectarian world we now find ourselves in. We believe that universal liberal values such as tolerance, critical thinking, individualism and freedom are key to eliminating discrimination and racism. Find out more about Counterweight's mission and values here!
It's an online conference - what if you're not very tech-savvy?
The beauty of an online conference is that you don't have to spend time and money travelling to the conference destination. You can access talks from the comfort of your own home for a fraction of the price. However, we realise that not everyone is comfortable using unfamiliar technology. Click here to view a video tutorial for using the platform.
How can you support Counterweight?
At Counterweight, we are social entrepreneurs. We use our business to develop solutions to social issues. In our case, this means that we use donations and income to create educational resources (like this one!) in order to help people understand and promote liberalism. You're already supporting us by attending this event, but if you like what we're doing and want to help us further in our cause, you can donate to Counterweight using the blue donation button at the bottom of every page of the event site. We're also always looking for writers and volunteers, without whom none of what we do would be possible. Click here to get in touch.