Often the name of an organisation gives you a good idea about what it stands for. The name LGBTQ+ Founders does not do that, so when we from East meets West got to know Ignacio Nietocarvajal and Kristaps Krafte, the co-founders of this organisation, they needed to clear the fog in our minds but very quickly we became quite enthusiastic about this unique initiative that fills a gap in ways of supporting new LGBTIQ initiatives.

We also realised that we had as organisation a lot in common! Not only do both of our organisations believe in community, support and influence through our actions, each of us is quite active in a challenging business environment, and who want to support the LGBTIQ communities in their own field of excellence. LGBTQ+ Founders is a community devoted to LGBTQ+ founders, investors, supporters & friends, to share solutions and successfully deal with all kinds of challenges they encounter. You are curious about this new initiative and want to know more about this offer?

Every initiative, be it a profit or non-profit project, starts with a great idea. But the journey from an inspiring idea to an entrepreneurial success is filled with numerous challenges. Important is to get here the support from professionals who can tell you how to deal with challenges and help you to take the right decisions. East meets West is happy to present in its March SPOTLIGHT SERIES such a helping hand. We recently met Deborah Abate, the head of BØWIE Incubator, and realised we have a common language. We both believe in inspiration which is needed to take own actions. It was at the end of 2018 that the BØWIE Incubator project was born in the minds of the Be You Network members (follow on LinkedIn). From the first edition in 2019, it received a strong interest in Switzerland and neighbouring countries. In 3 years, more than 130 project leaders representing more than 70 projects have been supported by BØWIE Incubator.

How much do you know about the situation in Hungary? We all are aware of the recent Hungarian Legislation, that makes providing information on LGBTIQ to people under 18 years the object of legal sanctions. This comes in addition to already existing laws against the well-being of the LGBTIQ community (e.g. ban on gender change).

For our October SPOTLIGHT recording we invited Támas Dombos, the true expert on what the situation is in Hungary. He made us familiar with the new legislation in Hungary, the local political context and most importantly, the implication of the legislation to workplace inclusion. Legal aid services are among the key activities of Háttér Society, the leading Hungarian NGO where Támas serves as the member of the board.

For our September SPOTLIGHT recording we invited a true expert on the topic of advancing LGBTIQ Economic Empowerment - Phil Crehan. He has a great track record in social inclusion and economic development with an LGBTIQ focus. This also brought Phil to the strategic role the World Bank is playing in improving the LGBTIQ well-being, a role that is not enough known. The World Bank Group is the premiere economic development institution in the world not only in terms of its budget, but also in terms of intellectual capital and leverage with governments. There are five parts of the World Bank Group and in this SPOTLIGHT, we focused on the World Bank itself and how this institution can be better understood by LGBTIQ organisations, business owners and people. With this we offer you the unique opportunity to leverage this institution to combat homophobia and transphobia. It is a very new agenda for the World Bank, started about 10 years ago. But now it is one of the internal policies and many of their data analytics, their programs, and their ways of mitigating the risk of exclusion, all has to address also looking at LGBTIQ inclusion

Our summer break is over and we are back in full speed! This includes our famous SPOTLIGHT SERIES. For August we actually invited ourselves to the studio and had a great fun talking about our 2021 East meets West Conference. We talked about what motivated us to go to Poland and build a studio there, about moments we loved and moments we were sad about and of course, we went once again through the agenda and picked the most important messages from our speakers.

At the occasion of IDAHOBIT, The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, we talked to renowned Slovak researcher and lecturer Veronika Valkovičová PhD about LGBTIQ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): What do such ERGs stand for? Is this only a recent invention and what do we know about their roots? Why do these ERGs exist? What’s needed to make them an important part of an organisation? Created in 2004, IDAHOBIT draws the attention to the violence and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, and sex characteristics. Why May 17th? On this day in 1990 The World Health Organization decided to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.

When it comes to LGBTIQ Diversity & Inclusion in Europe, Poland is the country that dominates the headlines... though with negative or even shocking news. For our 7th East meets West SPOTLIGHT SERIES we travelled (virtually) to Krakow, the second largest city in Poland, once the capital of Poland, now one of Europe's most beautiful cities. What is the situation in Poland right now? What drove once progressive CEE power-house to country where we find over 100 "LGBT-Free Zones"? Where do local communities find the strength to fight and, is all so negative? We talked to Mateusz Gędźba who serves as President of the Board of the FEDERACJA ZNAKI RÓWNOŚCI (Federation Signs of Equality), and where he looks after all legal and formal documentation and reviews and negotiates the contracts on behalf of the Federation. ZNAKI RÓWNOŚCI is the first Polish federation which brings together organisations that act for the LGBTIQ community. Their currently 9 member organisations run various initiatives, from cultural and artistic ones, through legal representation and assistance, to sport and health-related initiatives, and have all one in common: to build an open and diverse society, free from any sort of discrimination, in particular discrimination concerning sexuality and gender.

For our 6th series we had the pleasure of talking with Robert Hutchinson PCC, FRSA, the Co-founder of The Gay Happiness Project. Robert is a transformational coach, leadership consultant, and founder of The Authentic Life Company who specialises in self-awareness and personal development. Since 2017 together with Christopher Samsa, who is a positive psychologist and senior consultant with the NeuroLeadership Institute, they have run The Gay Happiness Project, an impactful, modular program which brings together gay men in a positive, safe and non-therapeutic space. The program is based on a unique blend of mindfulness, applied neuroscience, positive psychology and self-compassion.

For our 5th series we had the pleasure of talking with Rob Curtis (he/him), the CEO and Co-founder of the Daylight - Banking for LGBT+ people, by LGBT+ people. We got to know Rob as the driving force behind this retail banking innovation and got a great understanding of the "why" and "how" of the different way of banking the US LGBT+ community will be catered for by Daylight. Never heard of Daylight? Really? Daylight is the first and only digitalbanking platform in the U.S. specifically designed for the LGBT+ community by the LGBT+ community. Daylight prepares members for the future faster by helping them to navigate the finance system, generate smarter habits, and connect with a community working together to build the life they deserve without compromise.

Back with our SPOTLIGHT SERIES, this time we "travelled" to Canada to meet and talk to famous Randy Boissonnault on how "the life after politics" (how Randy calls it) looks like. We talked to him about The Global Equality Caucus, why it exists, what the goals are and how can it help fighting for LGBTIQ equality in Europe and around the world. We also asked about the current situation in Canada and... also this time the recording was so much fun! At the end of our interview, we somehow moved to a totally different topic. We learned about Randy's diet and source of his eternal energy and... we got tips on how to train for an Ironman! :)

This time something very very special! We brought on stage four international authorities who each of them was able to look at Corporate Social Responsibility from a specific, very personal point of view - Adela Horakova, Nikita Baranov (he/him), Fabrice C Houdart and Jens Schadendorf This dynamic combination of people and ideas delivered what sometimes happens with a podcast, it becomes an eruption of rich ideas, surprising findings and inspirational guidelines, going from another perspective on pink-washing to a surprisingly positive evaluation of the COVID19 pandemic for the future of the Corporate Social Responsibility, certainly for our LGBTIQ community…

SPOTLIGHT SERIES is a promise made at the 2020 East meets West Conference "Connecting the Dots" to bring on a virtual stage interesting organisations and individuals from our Network. We talked to #SOC, Sarajevski otvoreni centar (Sarajevo Open Center) about their upcoming Diversity Certification program in Bosnia & Herzegovina, to Deutsche Aids-Hilfe E.V. and their #workingpositively campaign and finally to the Lithuanian Diversity Charter which is one of the youngest but growing fast.

Excited to have Open For Business at our SPOTLIGHT SERIES premiere. Kathryn Dovey, Drew Keller and George Perlov talks about the Economic and Business Case for Global LGBTI Inclusion. Open For Business is a coalition of leading global companies dedicated to LGBT+ inclusion. Our task is to present the business rationale on global LGBT+ inclusion: successful, enterprising businesses thrive in diverse, inclusive societies and the spread of anti-LGBT+ policies runs counter to the interests of business and economic growth.