
POST COVID-19 SOCIAL INNOVATION
CREATIVITY, INNOVATION
AND RESILIENCE AFTER THE CRISIS
IN COLLABORATION WITH LE DEVOIR
Each spring, Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival brings together, in Montreal, writers, thinkers and artists from here and from abroad. A highlight of the Festival’s programming is a series titled Ideas & Society, which invites writers, philosophers, artists and economists to explore a number of critical issues and discuss how we can improve our world and make it more innovative and inclusive.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Festival was cancelled. But that’s not a reason to end the conversation on this vital topic. The Ideas & Society series of the 2021 Blue Metropolis Festival is taking shape before you, as the Festival’s guests and contributors go in search of the most innovative practices and creative ideas in order to imagine the future that awaits us.

VARIOUS PUBLIC FIGURES
3 QUESTIONS
1 BOOK
THE RESULT:
AN OVERVIEW OF INNOVATIVE,
RESILIENT AND SUPPORTIVE PRACTICES FROM
VARIOUS SPHERES.
THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS WELCOME TO COMMENT
ON BLUE METROPOLIS’S FACEBOOK PAGE,
WHERE WE ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
– Albert Einstein
Carolina Orloff,
Director and Co-founder of Charco Press, a publishing house based in Edinburgh (Scotland) and focused on contemporary Latin American literature.
Mauro Munhoz,
directeur, Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (FLIP), Brésil
Brésil
GUESTS
Carl Honoré,
Canadian journalist, author of the bestselling In praise of Slow and Bolder : Making the Most of our Longer Lives
Milder Villegas,
General Manager, Filaction and President of INAISE (International Association of Investors in the Social Economy)
Philippe Bélanger,
Philippe Bélanger, lawyer, Partner – McCarthy Tétrault, partner in the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group in Montréal and Chairman of the board of directors of the blue Metropolis Foundation
Dr. Ursula Eicker, Excellence Research Chair in Smart, Sustainable and Risilient Communities and Cities, Concordia University
Ulrich Schreiber, founder and director, Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin – to be interviewed by Shelley Pomerance, associate director of English-language programming, Blue Metropolis Festival, Blue Metropolis Festival
Fabrice Jaumont, auteur de La Révolution bilingue : le futur de l’éducation s’écrit en deux langues (TBR Books), chercheur à la Maison des sciences de l’Homme, Paris; plus de 25 années d’expérience en matière d’éducation internationale et de développement de programme de formation des langues
Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO of Lightspeed, Founder of Never Apart, author of Age of Union : Igniting the Changemaker
Emilie Turmel, Executive Director, Frye Festival, Moncton
Nicolas Zorn, Founding Director, Observatoire québécois des inégalités
Bertrand Gervais, professor in the Literary Studies Department, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM); member of the Executive Committee, Littérature québécoise mobile (LQM)
BLUE MET TALKS :
ON SOCIAL INEQUALITY
In spite of the progress of democracy and human rights, the world, our societies, life itself, are made up of many forms of inequality. Why is this? Is it inevitable? Can we alleviate or minimize some forms of inequality? Writers and thinkers from various fields reflect on this topic in a series of short stimulating talks.
C2 MONTRÉAL
THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES THIS FALL WITH C2 MONTREAL

Which books do you consider essential reading during a crisis?
Discover the choices of our guests

WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE ARE SAYING…
Some hopeful visions of the future:
Students Émilie Sarah Caravecchia (Université de Montréal) and Juhnke Peyton (New Brunswick University), winners of the 2020 Blue Metropolis Awards for Excellence in Indigenous Studies, for their essays on the situation of the First Peoples;
Gloria-Sherryl François, 2020 winner of the Blue Metropolis social innovation program “There’s Something About You”, for her project “The Black Book Initiative”
NAIVE OR VISIONARY?
Creativity and resilience … in a little way!
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here we present a selection of selected moments from the TD Metropolis Blue Children’s Festival and our educational programs.









