The World Summit theme is Creative Intersections and each day a field of 70 speakers from all over the world will explore three broad aspects of the central theme: place, people and projects. Throughout the Summit, delegates will also have an opportunity to participate in a vibrant arts programme and attend performances from the Melbourne Festival.

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Highlights include:

Keynote sessions

Jacques Martial, came into his role as President of Paris's Parc de la Villette with an express policy of inclusion for both local residents, many of whom are from North Africa, and who use the park for family leisure but seldom enter its major cultural facilities.

Wan Smolbag, will discuss the theme from a very different perspective, as a theatre company that receives foreign aid to support its social welfare and health programmes that are delivered via drama (theatre and TV) and music throughout Vanuatu and its remote islands.

Catherine Cullen, will discuss local arts policies from her perspective as Deputy Mayor in charge of Culture for the City of Lille, and bring a worldwide perspective gained through her Presidency of United Cities and Local Government's Committee on Culture.

Alison Tickell, established Julie's Bicycle in 2007 as a not-for-profit company to unite and lead the music industry in tackling climate change. Julie's Bicycle has brought together a coalition of scientific and industry figures to map the carbon profile of the industry and take practical steps to reduce it.

Panel sessions

Chairman of the US National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, Director of India's International Artists' Association, Pooja Sood, and Lockie McDonald from Western Australia will talk about creative intersections in three very different places in the world.

Moroccan journalist and playwright, Driss Ksikes, Mexican anthropologist, Lucina Jimènez, and South African playwright and cultural activist, Mike van Graan, will talk about places where the arts intersect with real danger.

Held over two days, the Summit's 18 roundtable sessions will encourage delegates to debate many aspects of creative intersections such as health, education, and creative industries as well as:

• Indigenous wisdom of place Indigenous Australian artist, Vernon Ah Kee and the Canada Council's Louise Profeit-Leblanc will discuss how Indigenous peoples have a richly layered connection to 'country' and how this intimate knowledge can inform 21st century environmental behaviour, especially through the arts
• Rebuilding communities Maria Victoria Alcaraz from Buenos Aires, Komi M'Kegbe Foga Tublu from Benin, Pilar Kasat from Community Arts Network Western Australia, and Elise Huffer, from Fiji, will discuss how the arts help rehabilitate communities that have been hit by extreme environmental or economic disturbances.
• Invigorating cities Arts Council England's Moira Sinclair and other speakers will discuss the infinite ways in which the arts play a role in places where rich and poor increasingly live side by side, and diverse cultures of age and race jostle, and consider whether arts policies are responding to these realities or whether new frameworks are required.
• Moving fast and flexible - the changing landscape of digital technologies Cambridge University's Becky Schutt, ANAT Australia's Gavin Artz, media lawyer Shane Simpson and European Culture Foundation's Katherine Watson will discuss the fear that download culture will eat away at traditional arts audiences, and that there will be a shift to new forms of creativity away from books, theatre, live music.
• The art of misdemeanour Creative Scotland's Andrew Dixon and big hART Australia's Scott Rankin discuss where policy fits in the intersection of arts with 'outsider culture' as well as the work of artists in prisons and in other contexts outside the law.
• It's not just a case of 'show me the money' India Foundation of the Arts' Anmol Vellani and philanthropist and chair of the National Arts Gallery Australia, Rupert Myer, will discuss the relationship between the philanthropic spirit and public policy in the arts.

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