Dear CBIE members, partners, friends, and colleagues in international education,

It is my pleasure to invite you to CBIE2020 – Canada’s international education conference – and our first-ever virtual conference.

We find ourselves at a critical juncture globally and locally. Societal challenges abound and are increasingly becoming more complex and intertwined. All the while, inequalities, vulnerabilities, and cleavages continue to deepen among citizens of the world with each passing day. There is considerable work to be done globally to build societal resilience for the future. As part of this dynamic global environment, international education has an important role to play, in particular, as it relates to contributing to Canada’s and the global community’s recovery from the pandemic.

CBIE2020 is about creating a space for all – each of us leaders within our institutions and communities – to come together to chart the path forward for inclusive and sustainable internationalization within Canada and beyond.

Our CBIE team has been working hard for many months on CBIE2020 with the objective of creating an inclusive virtual space where we can gather, connect, share, and learn from one another as we work collectively to harness the work of international education to help make the world a better, more inclusive, more sustainable, and resilient one for all global citizens.

You can look forward to over 70 plenaries and concurrent sessions that offer a diversity of voices that celebrate our lived experiences and perspectives. We want to create safe and supportive conference spaces that are more accessible to a greater breadth of delegates. This year for the first time, you will experience closed captioning and sign language services for many of the sessions presented at the conference.

Over five days, our virtual program will showcase all the elements of our face to face conference, including:

• Braindate
• a virtual exhibition hall
• presentation of the Excellence Awards
• the Gala (be sure to dust off your dancing shoes)
• Immigration Update sessions (to help us keep up with the quickly evolving policy
  frameworks)
• meetings of all CBIE Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and
• networking for all (a great opportunity to connect with Canadian and international
  colleagues from near and far), including facilitated networking specifically for new
  professionals in international education

We are also working on some new elements. Please stay tuned!

We look forward to engaging with you all at virtual CBIE2020 as we seek to make a positive difference in this world through international education.

Larissa Bezo

President and Chief Executive Officer, CBIE