It is with a sense of pride and with great satisfaction, that we look back at our latest held virtual meeting of which we are pleased to share the highlights, organized and directed by the Dutch Italian Business Association (DIBA).
During the meeting held on 8 June, DIBA was fortunate to engage two speakers that carried the evening. Her Excellency Désirée Bonis, Dutch Ambassador to Italy, sharing her experience -both cultural and diplomatic- and the essence of respect and empathy in a changing world.
The second part of meeting was entirely dedicated to Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, the Dutch classicist, poet, and writer. Ilja has taken the audience on a journey, explaining how he ended up in Italy, about his aspirations and his increasing knowledge and understanding of the Italian reality and Italy’s position in Europe and the Mediterranean area, his evolution of becoming and feeling European.
DIBA’s president, Angela Mannaerts and vice president Godelieve Cooymans, each in their own gifted way, managed to conduct the interviews in such a manner that it has unleashed the passion and engagement of the speakers to share their wealth of knowledge, experience and views with the attendants in a very generous way.
In fact, several questions of the participants were read from the chat box and presented to the speakers, such as the one related to the language in which Ilja dreams and what new books he is currently working on.
Modern technology and communication provided instant feedback from the attendants, showing positive approval and appreciation of content and conduct of the meeting. This is encouraging and we will certainly use the feedback to improve our meetings.
We wish to sincerely thank both Désirée Bonis and Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer for having shared their very inspiring experiences and views with us during a Spring evening.
