The 2020 edition took place in October 2020, at the height of the second wave of the Covid epidemic. Conditions were unique all over the world. Events with live audiences did not exist at the time. The entire production of the event had to be transformed. The situation required constant flexibility of the whole team. This year’s Globsec was held in June 2021.
For the third year in a row, Jan Binar, the CEO of McCann Prague, was President of the Jury and shared his thoughts. “It’s amazing how many innovations and good ideas have been born in an extremely difficult year of pandemic. Agencies have proven that events, whether in physical, hybrid or digital form, can help clients meet business goals. Event agencies were able to take care of themselves and show the way to the organisation of events, where the state administration was unable to do so. Moreover, at a time when they themselves had little, they found the resources and time to take a socially beneficial event without the right to remuneration,” he said.
A 3D environment was created for the purposes of the conference and tailored to the client. The main idea of the whole visual was the idea of knights at a round table, and Globsec, the international discussion forum on world security, offers this metaphor by itself. Key visual then offered a panoramic view of the outlines of buildings, primarily the bridge in Bratislava. The Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising and Bratislava Castle as symbols of the host country were supplemented by other iconic buildings from around the world – they were symbolically connected by the Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising.
GLOBSEC 2021 BRATISLAVA FORUM
The 16th edition of the Bratislava Forum took place on 15 – 17 June 2021. While adapting to the new reality of today’s world affected by the pandemic, similarly to the 2020 Forum, this year’s edition was again held in a hybrid format, allowing attendees to participate both in-person and virtually. One of the keynote speakers was also Pope Francis.
The key message of this year’s conference focused on how resilience lies in the heart of current and future EU-NATO cooperation. The EU strategic compass and NATO Strategic concept need to be converging and complementary. Yet, the struggle lies in protecting democracies against authoritarian regimes, foresight and risk assessment. This year’s GLOBSEC Forum brought some of the most influential leaders from international politics to Bratislava.
GLOBSEC is a non-political non-governmental organisation based in Bratislava. Since 2005, the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum has been organising an annual security conference – next to Davos, the most important European security conference, which is attended by world leaders every year. Despite all the limitations and uncertainties that the team behind the event faced, it was possible to organise a hybrid conference, which became a prototype of its kind, one of the first hybrid world events ever.
