McMaster University has been selected to host the 17th Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress, or NABIG, which will be held on campus May 24-27.

The congress alternates between the US and Canada each year. The 2017 congress in New York City included speakers such as Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, international labour leader Andy Stern, and renowned scholar and activist Frances Fox Piven.

Organized by the Basic Income Canada Network, U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, McMaster University and the Hamilton Poverty Roundtable, next year’s Congress will bring together basic income advocates and researchers, students, policy makers, and others from North America and around the world.

The general theme of NABIG 2018 will be on moving from the “why” of basic income to the “how.”

NABIG 2018 will be an especially important and influential event, says McMaster’s Wayne Lewchuk, an organizer of the event and a specialist in precarious employment.

Many international eyes are on Canada because of government interest and action on basic income in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Hamilton itself is a basic income pilot site.

Information on the Congress, including registration details, is available at http://www.basicincomecanada.org/news.