Education Month: Building Global Connections
Week two of BCI’s education month, the Institute’s annual global celebration of learning, development, and connection in the profession, was themed ‘Building Global Connections: The Power of the BCI Community’.
Designed to celebrate the strength of the BCI global network, it aimed to enable professional connections across regions and industries to foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and a sense of belonging in a dynamic, international community.
There were a mix of lunch and learn sessions and webinars, covering both technical and cultural subjects, such as the rise of AI, cross-border resilience software, and cross-cultural collaboration.
Highlights
The lunch and learn sessions looked at key contemporary issues: the rise of AI, supply chain resilience, operational resilience, and the future of resilience.
In ‘The Rise of AI’ the focus was very much on the balanced use of this burgeoning technology – looking beyond the hype to practical uses in such things as business impact assessments. A key point raised was that this is an augmenting technology, not something that will replace resilience and continuity functions.
These sessions were evidence-based, with findings drawn from recent reports including the BCI Horizon Scan report 2024, the BCI Supply Chain Resilience Report 2024, the BCI Operational Resilience Report 2025, the Resilience Vision 2030 Report and the white paper launched during this month: The Skills of the Future.
Culture
A fascinating thread in the other webinars of the week was understanding the role of culture in effective resilience strategy. This started with ‘Resilience Software that crosses borders and languages’ presented by Battleground’s Joe McDavitt and Eli Goldberg. The session revealed how smart, AI-driven software turns complex, cross-border resilience challenges into manageable, confidence-building routines.
Prem Nath, CEO at Feenix Safety & Crisis Management, presented ‘United We Stand: Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Crisis Management.’ When things ranging from natural disasters to cyberattacks ripple across continents and cultures, effective responses also demand multicultural, cross-functional teams. The webinar looked at how cross-cultural dynamics shape decision-making, communication and leadership in crises, and how to turn cultural complexity into a strength.
In ‘Building Resilient Culture: Lessons Learnt from the Flight Deck’, former airline pilot and co-founder of resilience tech start-up Bolst, Joshua de Maid, took a look at building resilient cultures, guided by his experience of aviation’s resilience revolution. He discussed the principles that reduced incidents 58-fold - turning fragility into opportunity using honest reporting and continuous learning to foster transparency, accountability, and adaptability.
What to look out for next week
For the final week of BCI Education Month the theme is ‘Sharing Experience - Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring in Action.’ The mutual benefits gained from collaboration in a cross-generational team will be discussed, a theme further explored in ‘Cross-generational Knowledge Transfer in Practice’.
There is also an interesting personal experience to look out for as Sandra Bartley MBCI talks on the theme: ‘My Experience of Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring’. The Women in Resilience group also have a focused session called ‘Communication & Professional Edge: Career Success Habits.’
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About the author
Brian Runciman
Content Manager, The BCI
