CWA / CU Boulder
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For nearly eight decades, the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder has brought together global leaders, experts, scholars and students for thought-provoking conversations on issues shaping the world.
Last year, the free conference tackled timely topics like AI, censorship and oligarchy. This year’s will run from April 13-16, and the headliner of the 78th CWA will be Malala Yousafzai, who’ll speak at the closing event.
Yousafzai is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate and has been an advocate for girls’ education and human rights since the age of eleven, when she anonymously blogged about life under the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and its ban on girls’ education. In 2012, Yousafzai was riding a bus after taking an exam when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt; she was fifteen.
After surviving the attack, Yousafzai went on to found the Malala Fund to champion education for girls worldwide, become a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2014 and graduate from Oxford University in 2020 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.
“Malala’s voice embodies the spirit of CWA — bold, visionary and committed to engaging the issues of our world,” says Jon Leslie, vice chancellor for strategic communications and interim CWA director at CU Boulder. “We are honored to welcome her as our closing speaker during this milestone year for CU Boulder.”
Past CWA keynote speakers have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Molly Ivins and Amanda Gorman; last year’s was Grammy and Emmy award winner and Wicked star Cynthia Erivo.
The four-day event, which takes place via livestream and in person and attracts thousands of participants, is a volunteer, community and student-led effort. This year’s conference will also open the celebration of CU Boulder’s 150th anniversary.
“We have a program committee that is led by volunteers,” Leslie told Westword last year. “We have a community program chair who is external to the university and comes in and plays different roles on the program and committees to kind of lead up to that role. And then we have a student program chair who’s kind of the counterpart to that role for students.”
CWA is meant to be solutions-focused, rather than just griping about current issues. If there’s a time for hope and solutions, it’s definitely now.
The Conference on World Affairs takes place this year from April 13-16 online and at the University of Colorado Boulder, 1344 Grandview Avenue, Boulder. The conference is free, but the Yousafzai event, which is set for 7 p.m. on April 16, will be ticketed; learn more here.
