Previously hosted in both Singapore and Thailand the ALMA Awards & Forum will be presented in Mainland China for the first time. The event is jointly organised by Element Magazine, Shanghai Pride and WorkForLGBT.

ALMA includes a Diversity & Inclusion Business Forum, which will be held in the afternoon at Grand Kempinski Hotel Shanghai while an award ceremony in the evening at The Pearl, a historic theatre in Hongkou district, will celebrate the work of community NGOs, public figures, journalists, entrepreneurs and business leaders.

The event aims to raise greater social awareness, to engage more public debate and to accelerate the progress of diversity and inclusion in the region. Organising committee members include Hiro Mizuhara of Element Magazine, Ah Qiang of PFLAG China and Paul Thompson, founder of LGBT Capital.

Organisers also announced that the event will centre on the theme of 和而不同 (Differences co-exist within harmony), a widely-shared ancient Chinese philosophy by Confucius, which reflects that the Chinese society has long been practicing the notion of “agreeing to disagree” in an effort to obtain social harmony by respecting different opinions as well as other differentiating factors that make one unique.

The lead sponsor for the business forum is American multinational technology and consulting corporation IBM.