Leadership centre named for assassinated senator Miguel Uribe Turbay holds first summit

More than a year after senator Miguel Uribe Turbay was assassinated during a campaign rally in Bogotá, his family, friends, and former teachers gathered at the Cosmos Hotel in Bogotá's Chico III neighborhood on October 7, 2026, for the center named in his honor's first summit. President Abelardo de la Espriella, a surprise attendee, received the Center's First Leadership Award.

"I am sure [Miguel] would have made a great president, and I told him when I visited him at the hospital. I said, 'If Miguel stands up from that bed, I will campaign for him,'" the president shared.

The center's leadership comprises Uribe Londoño and his wife, Delia Jaramillo, as well as co-founders Ramiro Avendaño and former Colombian Tourism Minister Mauricio Gomez Amin. Harvard public policy professor David King delivered the keynote address, explaining the five pillars of the late senator's legacy: values, purpose, freedom and democracy, consistency and resolve, and solidarity.

Uribe Londoño, the center's founder, revealed the project began in the hospital, where he and his wife prayed together, and that prayer turned into the center's purpose. The center aims to train young Colombians in values, public service, and democratic principles. Uribe Turbay's family has endured immense pain since his death, and the center is their way of ensuring his purpose remains alive and preventing others from experiencing similar agony.

The assassination of Uribe Turbay, a presidential hopeful and former senator, occurred on June 7, 2025, as he delivered a speech at a campaign rally. He was shot at least twice in the head and once in the leg, and died of his injuries on August 11, 2025, at the age of 39. He was the first presidential hopeful to be killed in Colombia since 1990, when three candidates were assassinated during that year's campaign.

During the summit, Uribe Londoño announced the Center's mission to be an ecosystem of leadership training for future generations. The central panel, moderated by Uribe Turbay's sister Maria Carolina, focused on what brave leadership means in practice, discussing the importance of making difficult decisions, holding convictions despite costs, and rebuilding trust in a polarized country.