This is a Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation meeting. The initiative was launched in 2020 as the COVID pandemic brought face-to-face learning to a grinding halt all over the world. We were teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses on democratic participation and global development at Stellenbosch University (South Africa), the University of Toronto, Scarborough (Canada) and University West (Sweden). Our students told us that they felt isolated. They missed daily interactions with their peers and the other formative interactions that make for a rich, fulfilling university life. We tried to nimbly adapt to recorded or real time lectures, while trying to facilitate and encourage student participation. But we and the students felt that something more was needed. So we created the Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation. The idea was to bring students together to learn and interact around a shared set of issues.
