Maine Wisdom Summit
Thank you for joining us at the Change AGEnt Summit!
The Maine Council on Aging Presents:
The Change AGEnt Summit
Creatively building purpose, belonging, and inclusion into our new longevity
September 27, 2023 | 8:00am – 4:30pm
Augusta Civic Center, Augusta, ME
From building longevity-ready communities to aligning health spans with life spans, the 2023 Change AGEnt Summit sparked creative and innovative thinking on what it will take to build systems that support healthy, engaged living into our 80s, 90s, and beyond!
We were joined by over 300 Change AGEnts on September 27th to help us build an age-positive Maine – thank you for joining us!
We’re living longer than ever before but our thinking about aging and older people hasn’t changed, and our communities, institutions, and systems haven’t caught up to support our new old age. While change is hard, it’s time to embrace a new map of life and build flexibility into how we learn, work, and live across a lifetime. This informative, interactive, and inspiring Summit explored what’s holding us back from embracing aging as a lifetime journey of learning, growth, and health and how a shift in perspective can propel us to positive action that can transform our workplaces, communities and economy.
Below you’ll find the graphic illustrations that captured the innovations and inspirations of the day – plus meet the amazing speakers, full program, and more!
Special Thanks to Our 2023 Sponsors
Exclusive Premier Keynote Sponsor
Exclusive Summit Awards Sponsor
Diamond Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
Highlights from the 2022 Maine Wisdom Summit
Breaking the Limits
Cultivating a Vision for Equity in Aging
Tuesday, September 21, 2022
Virtual – Zoom Platform
On September 21, 2022, we were thrilled to present the 9th Annual Wisdom Summit, Breaking the Limits, Cultivating a Vision for Equity in Aging hosted by the Maine Council on Aging.
Older Mainers are diverse powerful productive people! Now, say it with us. Older Mainers are diverse powerful productive people! This is the new mantra we’re adopting as we break the cultural limits of age-based negative stereotypes.
People who live with age-positive stereotypes live 7.5 years longer and with less anxiety and disease than those who live with negative attitudes. Those who age with “purpose” live longer and with less cognitive challenges. We’ll be happier in old age than during any other time in our lives. Yet we swim in a culture that reinforces the eventuality of disease, isolation and decline in later life, and that magnifies disparities from other systems of discrimination as we age.
It’s time to break these limits and to cultivate an age-positive culture in Maine, one that fully embraces Maine’s diversity. Join us as we learn together how ageism, ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia are interconnected, and why we need to consider all of these issues as we cultivate a vision for equity in aging in Maine.
Throughout the day we learned and had meaningful conversations on ways to break the cultural limits of age-based negative stereotypes. We were thrilled to have two keynote speakers Dr. Tracey Gendron, Chair, Gerontology, Executive Director, Virginia Center on Aging, and Dr. Leslie Hill, Professor Emerita of Politics, Bates College. Special thanks to our Exclusive Premier Keynote Sponsor, Androscoggin Home Healthcare + Hospice. Click here, to view a full list of speakers.
We were thilled to finish the day by celebrating the good work of the MCOA’s annual award recipients. The awards ceremony was sponsored by UnitedHealthcare. To learn more about the 2022 awardees, click here.
Thank you to all who joined us for the 2022 Wisdom Summit!
Dr. Tracey Gendron
2022 Wisdom Summit Keynote Speaker
Dr. Leslie Hill
2022 Wisdom Summit Keynote Speaker
Highlights from the 2021 Maine Wisdom Summit
Embracing a New Normal
Bouncing Forward to Build an Age-Positive Culture in Maine
Tuesday, September 21, 2021 | 8:00 am to 4:00pm
Virtual – Zoom Platform
The 8th annual Wisdom Summit, held on September 21st, explored what it will take to build an age-positive culture in Maine with resilient communities ready to meet the needs of their older residents.
This pandemic has shown us our “normal” way of thinking about aging and older people is a narrative that needs to change. How we think, act, and talk about our own aging and older people matters. It not only impacts our physical and emotional health, but culturally, it impacts all of the systems around us. It’s time to embrace a new, more balanced view of aging, one that helps us build an age-positive culture in Maine, and leads to support for changes necessary to support healthy aging.
We were thrilled to be joined by our Keynote Speaker Louise Aronson, MD MFA, who is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The author of the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood, she is a regular contributor to the New York Times and the New England Journal of Medicine among other publications. Her book has transformed how people think and feel about aging – and her keynote at the Wisdom Summit helped inspire us all to action! The keynote sponsor for this year’s Summit was UnitedHealthcare.
The morning session featured a panel of leaders from different segments of our economy where they discussed how age-bias plays out in their fields and the tools available to overcome bias to build more age-positive cultures.
The afternoon focused on community resiliency, with a specific focus on housing and the built environment. We were thrilled to be joined by our afternoon keynote speaker Environmental Gerontologist Emi Kiyota, PhD, founder of Ibasho. She is inspiring communities to take a principle-based approach to planning and design to build more inclusive and resilient communities – and her keynote was incredibly inspriational to all who attended!
Also, Dan Brennan, Director of MaineHousing, discussed current efforts to develop housing and supportive services for older Mainers, and opportunities to expand the way we currently develop housing in Maine. A panel of experts followed to share their ideas on how we can move the needle on the kinds of housing older people want, right in their own communities.
We were thilled to finish the day by celebrating the good work of the MCOA’s annual award recipients. The awards ceremony was sponsored by Androscoggin Home Health Care + Hospice. To learn more about this year’s awardees, click here.
Thank you to all who joined us for this year’s Wisdom Summit!
The event agenda can be found in the program by clicking the Summit Program icon below. Biographies for Keynote Speakers and Panelists can be found in the Event Program.
Highlights from the 2020 Maine Wisdom Summit
Aging Well Through COVID
Supporting Resiliency & Growth in the Midst of a Pandemic
September 16th & September 23rd, 2020 – Virtual Event
The 7th Annual and first ever virtual Maine Wisdom Summit connected participants to innovations and collaborations that have emerged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and inspired participants to envision how to use this crisis as a launching point for bold solutions and big ideas, building towards our goal of making Maine a place where we can all live healthy, engaged, and secure lives.
Summit participants heard from state policy leaders, discussed what’s been working to support healthy aging and our care workforce, and learned how to be effective advocates. Sessions included ageism and equity, the future of the workforce that cares for Maine’s older adults, and strategies for combating isolation and loneliness.
We were thrilled to have Former Assistant Secretary of Aging, Kathy Greenlee, join us as this year’s Premier Keynote Speaker. In addition, we were thrilled to be joined by Keynote Speakers; Garrett Martin, Executive Director, Maine Center for Economic Policy; Patricia D’Antonio, Vice President, Professional Affairs, The Gerontological Society of America, Program Director, Reframing Aging Initiative; and Susan Wehry MD, Chief of Geriatrics, University of New England, PI/Director, AgingME: Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP). To hear their presentations, please click on the Session Recordings icon below.
The event agenda can be found in the program by clicking the Summit Program icon below. Biographies for Keynote Speakers and Panelists can be found at the Speaker Bios icon below.