Cohorts Connect: Opening Session

Cohorts Connect at Building Bridges 2025 introduces a two-part model for structured connection and reflection to conversation and networking. It is designed to support peer exchange, deepen shared understanding, and strengthen cross-sector collaboration in a way that feels purposeful, open, and human. While the approach does not intend to achieve specific goals, through mutual, multi-contextual learning it can create conditions that prime a system for change.

This opening session will be hosted as a Warm Data Lab, facilitated by Nora Bateson and the Warm Data Lab team. Developed to explore the relational fabric of complex systems in an immersive manner, this method invites participants to suspend professional personas and engage as people—with stories, patterns, questions, and perspectives.

Rather than speaking about sustainable finance or climate targets, the interactive format has participants engaging in multiple, parallel group conversation, shifting between contexts, thus enabling a reflection on how societal challenges are interwoven. A short story will open the space, followed by the main session where participants join small groups each centered around a “context card” and are invited to freely move from group to group.

Instead of addressing the problems we face analytically, the Warm Data Lab format invites participants to appreciate their systemic nature in an immersive way. With no prior knowledge required, it conveys systems thinking to participants intuitively and can set the stage for change further down the line. All that is needed is curiosity and an explorative mindset.

“This isn’t about solving a problem. It’s about seeing the system more clearly—by seeing each other differently.” – Nora Bateson

The session ends with space for informal exchange and mutual learning. The atmosphere is intentionally light, open-ended, and grounded in trust-building.

An application process to join Cohorts Connect at Building Bridges 2025 will be launched in July.