Coming up, November 2023 – two big events on the theme of Longevity, and both will have virtual access in whole or in part, which is the away to go if you can’t make it to Stanford, California or London, England. For me this will be the third time for each that I’ve attended virtually and as in previous times the line-up of speakers represents a wide range of perspectives from thought leaders from North America and Europe, laying out Longevity as a societal story.
Consistent with the central theme of Stanford’s New Map of Life (2018), this event headlines with the statement:
“The possibility of living for ten or more decades raises a uniquely twenty-first century question: what are we going to do with our longer lives?”
The Summit has two focal points with these lead questions – “Can we create a more comprehensive approach to funding our super-sized lives” and “How can we reinvent our cities, our support systems and our homes to support longer, healthier and more equitable lives?” Over forty speakers will fill out the agenda, including well-known names in this field in the US, such as Laura Carstensen, Ken Dychtwald, Marc Freedman, Richard Eisenberg and Paul Irving.
In the UK, the following week of Nov. 13 -17 it’s TheLongevity Week presented by the non-profit organization The Longevity Forum which launched in 2018, co-founded by Andrew Scott who is co-author with Lynda Gratton of the landmark book The 100-Year Life (2016) and its sequel The New LongLife (2020). This is the 6th Anniversary of the Longevity Forum, which started as an invite only event with a well networked group of thought leaders in this space – human longevity.
Only some parts of this week long event have Virtual access so here’s what I’ve signed on for on the Monday/Tuesday – the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Healthy Ageing Challenge. The 2023 main theme is Adding Life to Years and within this context the conference will focus on four areas where innovation aims to achieve the greatest impact: Care, Work, Staying Active and Housing. Later in the week I will attend the Investing in the Age of Longevity hosted by UK based investment media and events company Master Investor.
So it’s a busy two weeks. What I find interesting about attending both these events is the opportunity to compare the two in terms of how the subject of Longevity is viewed culturally – what is different, what is similar. Equally of interest this year will be to determine what if anything has shifted the direction forward, to take into account the fact that, given diverse societal stories are at play, the promise of Longevity outside more affluent societies is not the same experience.
