About GBAS 2023: Making Conscious Futures

The 2023 Global Business Anthropology Conference, GBAS 2023: Making Conscious Futures, is an exciting opportunity for interdisciplinary thinkers to gather in Mexico City and explore the intersection of business and anthropology. Hosted by Universidad Iberoamericana and Universidad Autónoma METROPÓLITANA, the conference promises to provide a space for attendees to connect and exchange ideas, focusing on creating promising business futures.

The conference will run from June 1 to June 3, 2023, and includes keynote addresses, workshops, and other events. A unique immersion experience in Xochimilco-Chinampas is also included, offering a chance to experience the fusion of ancestral Aztec knowledge and global complexity.

Whether you are a business professional, anthropologist, or simply someone with a passion for conscious and sustainable futures, this conference is an event you won’t want to miss!

The Themes

The GBAS 2023 conference focuses on three core themes, namely awareness, connections, and uncertainty, as key factors in shaping conscious futures in business and beyond.

Awareness

Awareness is the starting point to understanding the complexity in a global/local business context. The ability to view multiple facets of a situation and extrapolate an understanding from macro and micro factors is crucial for appreciating the intricacies involved when looking into the future and exploring what it could mean for business. 

Future awareness is the ability to recall and review the past, understand the present, and be aware of the future in the context of rapid social change driven by innovations in technology and lifestyle. 

In this axis, we will explore a proactive anthropological awareness that helps build more resourceful futures that benefit from social and/or environmental innovations that bring positive business outcomes.

Connections

In a world where simultaneity unites us all, connecting is about having the sense to understand and value the difference. In this axis, we invite contributors who can help us identify and re-evaluate stakeholders involved in changing the present for a more conscious future. What are best practices for engaging with consumers, partners, collaborators, and consultants in business contexts where a better future matters? How has anthropology helped to develop conversations with business stakeholders to create active cooperation between groups of people so that they may bring about change?

Uncertainty

Business anthropology deals with uncertainty while inspiring possibilities, encouraging creative responses, fostering innovation, orientation, anticipation, and interventions. We invite proposals that show how to handle uncertainty to boost new business opportunities.

How do human-centered technologies deal with uncertainty and offer new opportunities for change? How does anthropology help create fresh visions of the future by studying limited resources? How can we manage unpredictability and chaos to anticipate new approaches to management, better communication solutions, improved team skills, and higher standards in all business areas?

The Formats

The conference offers four unique formats to explore and engage with the themes of awareness, connections, and uncertainty, including:

  • World Cafe – A coordinator poses significant questions on a specific topic to small groups.
  • Salons – Elaborate questions around a specific topic and facilitate an insightful discussion.
  • Ludic Creative Workshops – Turn the tables by playing with your audience by sharing ideas about the future of a business or solving a complex topic
  • Short Impro-Narratives – If you are more of a visual than a text person, this format is meant for you. 

The Venue: Universidad Iberoamericana

GBAS 2023 will be held at Universidad Iberoamericana (IBERO), located in the heart of Mexico City’s corporate district. The Mexico summit will be a space of encounter to interconnect diverse disciplines and great minds driven by the desire to create promising business futures.

IBERO is a leading private academic and research institution in Mexico, established 70 years ago as the nation’s first private university and oldest Jesuit university. With over 11,000 students and 73 programs (34 undergraduate and 39 graduate), IBERO offers a unique educational experience through its community of faculty, alumni, and professionals dedicated to real-world learning, drawing on the Jesuit legacy of improving oneself every year.

The Program

The preliminary program for GBAS 2023 is as follows:

Thursday, June 1st

  •  08:00 – Registration
  • 10:00 – Opening Ceremony
  • 10:30 – 11:30 – Matt Artz, Head of Product and UX at Artmatcher, New York, U.S.A. The future of Anthropology in Business
  • 11:30 – 12:00 – Coffee Break
  • 12:00 – 13:30 – 3 world cafe one salon & three ludic workshops Impronarratives
  • 13:30 – 15:30 – Lunch
  • 15:30 – 17:00- 3 world cafe one salon & three ludic workshops
  • 17:00 – 17:30 – Coffee Break
  • 17:30 – 19:00 – 3 world cafe one salon & three ludic workshops

Friday, June 2nd

  • 08:00 – Registration
  • 9:30 – 10:30 – Izabel Barros. Senior Partner at FRB Consulting. The future is now: how cultural anthropology can inform new ways of working to face it?
  • 10:30 – 11:30 – Juan Francisco Salazar. Professor at Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia. Futurities: anthropological orientations towards the ‘not as yet
  • 11:30 – 12:00 – Coffee Break
  • 12:00 – 13:30 – 3 world cafe one salon & three ludic workshops Impronarratives
  • 13:30 – 15:30 – Lunch
  • 15:30 – 17:00 – 3 world cafe one salon & three ludic workshops
  • 17:00 – 18:30 – Closing Ceremony & Launching of GBAS Summit 2025

Saturday, June 3rd

  • 10:00 – Visit to Xochimilco. Learning from ancestral knowledge in contemporary agroecological practices

Register & Attend

Visit the registration page on the GBAS website to get your tickets. Pricing options include:

The GBAS summit has three ticket categories: Mexican Students, International Students and Mexican Scholars, and General Admission. The prices are in USD and are as follows:

  • Mexican Students – Regular price $35, $28 until Jan 31st (20% discount), $32 until Mar 31st (10% discount), $35 until June 3rd.
  • International Students & Mexican Scholars – Regular price $88, $70 until Jan 31st (20% discount), $79 until Mar 31st (10% discount), $88 until June 3rd.
  • General Admission – Regular price $175, $140 until Jan 31st (20% discount), $158 until Mar 31st (10% discount), $175 until June 3rd.

All prices include participation in all summit activities, a participation certificate, three lunches, three coffee breaks, and a field trip to Xochimilco.

Closing

With its focus on awareness, connections, uncertainty, and innovative formats, including World Cafe, Salons, Ludic and Creative Workshops, and Short Impro-Narratives, GBAS 2023 promises to challenge and inspire attendees in equal measure. Whether you’re a seasoned business anthropologist or a student seeking to broaden your horizons, GBAS 2023 is a unique opportunity to explore the possibilities of creating conscious futures and taking an active role in shaping the future.

Don’t miss your chance to participate in this exciting and impactful event.