Welcome to BUILD!

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), in partnership with the City of Bilbao, is pleased to welcome you to the second edition of the Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues (BUILD).

At BUILD’s inaugural convening last year, GMF launched a unique forum for leading transformative change in cities that supports greater sustainability, inclusion, and global engagement. The diversity of voices and contexts represented at BUILD allowed us to identify the common challenges and the potential for shared solutions between U.S. and European cities. Further, participants discussed the common elements of leading change, establishing cross-sector coalitions, and thoughtfully engaging communities.

This year’s BUILD will deepen our understanding of the core BUILD themes, while also focusing on moving from ideas to action. This goal is in keeping with GMF’s legacy of empowering and equipping local and regional leaders with new experiences, knowledge, and tools. We hope that this year’s programming will bolster your policy fluency and leadership acumen while strengthening this transatlantic BUILD cohort of forward-thinking urban leaders.

In reflecting on the outcomes from BUILD 2014, GMF identified specific opportunities for diving deeper into the BUILD themes and focusing on moving from ideas to action.

First, we will draw stronger parallels and explore the connections between the conference themes of leading sustainable and equitable urban transformation and bolstering global engagement. We will dig deeper into how leaders can link and leverage these agendas to establish more sustainable, inclusive, and globally engaged cities. By exploring policy and tactical similarities, you will deepen your understanding of an integrated approach to leading change that cuts across silos, sectors, and scales. In the main plenary session, we will hear from transatlantic leaders who have also taken steps to connect the dots between the BUILD themes. We also look forward to a one-on-one interview with Antonio Villaraigosa, who served mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013; Villaraigosa led the city through a period of dramatic global engagement and advancement of inclusion and equity for its 4 million residents.

Second, we will take a closer look at the eight elements of global engagement first introduced last year. As we learned, a comprehensive global engagement strategy can pay dividends for cities, including capturing new audiences and markets and forging durable ties between diaspora communities and their homelands. Through a breakout workshop, we more fully explore the policy innovations and tactics to advance leadership, business networks, and civic engagement to understand and activate eight assets of a city’s global engagement. A second breakout workshop will focus on the pressing challenge of engaging local elected officials and developing global engagement capacity among policymakers.

Finally, we will resume our conversation regarding the key issues that surfaced in the breakout discussions last year. This includes the importance of breaking down silos between policy areas and stakeholders and effectively

Stay connected while at your session via BUILDConnect or Twitter #GMFBUILD.

engaging diverse communities in dialogue to craft a shared agenda for change. We will bring these themes into several breakouts, including exploring the systems of community wealth building and the circular economy of cities.

As you prepare for BUILD, we ask you to take a moment and reflect on events over the course of the last year, which have brought many of the BUILD themes into sharp focus. Headlines today in the United States and Europe are dominated by topics strongly linked to equity, inclusion, sustainability, and global engagement, whether is it migration and the refuge crisis in Europe or the opportunity for cities to influence global policy at the upcoming COP21 in Paris. Cities and their metropolitan regions on both sides of the Atlantic are grappling with the policy pathways, community engagement approaches, and partnership opportunities to lead through this complex period. Like never before, the solutions to these complex challenges are equal parts local and global. The Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues is ready to serve its highest purposes.

As you prepare for BUILD, we urge you to reflect on the following:• What is my role as a leader in advancing an integrated and holistic change agenda in my city? What role

do I aspire to have?• What partnerships and alliances can I leverage to achieve this at the local, transatlantic, and global levels?• What practices and innovations can I offer as examples to my colleagues at BUILD?

We look forward to seeing you in Bilbao!

Washington

Atlanta

ClevelandChicago ChesterBaltimore

Austin

Denver

New York

Miami

MemphisLos Angeles

Fresno

FlintDetroit

Boston

San Francisco

San Antonio

Richmond

Pittsburgh

Winchester

Amsterdam

Copenhagen

Bucharest

Brussels Bonn

Birmingham

BilbaoBelgrade

BarcelonaMadrid

London Lodz

Istanbul

Turin

Sheffield

Nynäshamn

Porto

Paris

Warsaw

Helsinki

Freiburg

Seattle

Charlotte

Building a Global Network: BUILD 2014 Participants