VRCLP chief executive officer Katrina Baddeley said the summit would bring together the best and brightest regional minds and would be the first such event open to the public.

“We have assembled a fantastic line-up of speakers who are leaders in their field, and together, we will explore three key themes, being innovation, collaboration and responsive communities,” she said.

Among the speakers will be Yvonne Wrigglesworth, chair of Community Leadership Loddon Mallee, which is hosting the event.

Ms Wrigglesworth said her personal contribution to the summit would be to join a panel discussion about “collaborative and resilient communities”.

“We’ve got some really great speakers and a lot of people, not only regionally, but from a national level coming to join us and in particular on the panel I'm on we’ll be joined by Craig Lapsley, who’s the emergency services commissioner and obviously a proud Bendigonian as well,” she said.

Ms Wrigglesworth said her presentation would focus on communities taking their destiny into their own hands.

“Our communities are often not sitting around waiting for the system to come help them,” she said.

“They are good at activating themselves, coming up with innovative problem-solving and really striving to bring the community along with them.”

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank regional and rural affairs strategist, Lauren Andrews, will speak at the summit’s opening and said she was looking forward to meeting with other local leaders from regional communities.

“Our bank has a long and proud history of working with regional communities, more than half of our customer service centres are located in regional and rural Australia, and we genuinely understand regional people and the communities they live in,” she said.

“We believe our bank has an important role to play in being a powerful advocate for rural and regional Australia, and we want to work to ensure the voices of regional people are central to an elevated debate about Australia’s social and economic strategies.”

Ms Baddeley said the opportunity to bring together such a knowledgeable and inspiring group of speakers for one event was an exciting one for regional Victoria.

“The summit will also afford business leaders, community leaders and our alumni with an opportunity to learn, to grow and expand their networks,” she said.

Registrations for the event, which is on for two days on August 16 and 17, are now open.

For more information and to register visit www.regionalleadershipsummit.com