Chiara Rosselli, Executive Director, APROPOS Group
As a team of highly driven individuals, one thing we don't excel at in APROPOS is celebrating our accomplishments.
The backlog of to-dos is always, irremediably, full — reflecting our somewhat disproportionate ambition and the unrealistic expectations we have of ourselves. Every win is tacitly measured against the ghost of all the other objectives we still want to reach.
This isn't a fantastic trait to have as a long-term staple of a team, as it leads, obviously, to significant fatigue. So today, I am dedicating some time to commemorating some of the highlights from APROPOS' first year.
The APROPOS launch party in March, where we were humbled by the warmth and support of our community of colleagues and friends who joined us in celebrating this important milestone.
Designing and launching our beautiful new website, as a testament to the kind of organization we aspire to be: ambitious, unorthodox and a little fun, too. (Receiving plenty of compliments for it from people working in the comms business was also a highlight in itself!)
Holding space for a difficult but honest conversation about war and the future of Ukraine and Europe in Warsaw, bringing together 19 political voices from across Europe, representing diametrically opposed political perspectives, and witnessing their sincere spirit of collegiality and determination to do their part in an impossibly heavy situation.
Presenting our thinking on how to effectively design dialogue spaces for trust-building across political divides in times of high polarization, at esteemed institutions like Chatham House and the Berghof Foundation, whose work is an incredible source of inspiration for APROPOS.
Being invited to present the work of our Open European Dialogue political network and dialogue platform alongside Delphi Economic Forum, Globsec, and the Paris Peace Forum—high-level players in the conference diplomacy field.
In the context of our Annual Policymakers Dialogue, designing a space for 50 politicians to grapple with the implications of AI and tech advancements on politics and society—and receiving the best feedback yet from one of our parliamentarians: "These were the best 48h since I joined Parliament 13 months ago!".
These are just a few moments worth celebrating that come to mind, but there are so many more big and small wins which we can be proud of as a team:
Setting up a wonderful new contact management system— Welcome to the team Albert!, having our work featured in the Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance, podcasting with the brilliant John and Sonia for The Influectuals podcast, being interviewed by PartyParty, hosting our first cohort of Junior Associates — Patryk, Olivia, Markku, thank you for your support!, as well as onboarding our new Program and Grants Coordinator, Marie-Thérèse, meeting new and inspiring people — Giulio, Sarah, Christian, Lisa..., our first intensive 'Process Design for Impact' capacity building training delivered at the Robert Bosch Stiftung, working on research and development of new products and ideas.
So here's to us, APROPOS team! I could not be more proud of what we've accomplished this year, or more eager to see what next year will bring.
Fingers crossed for a great 2024!