Global Threats...
Global Opportunities

GLOBAL THREATS…
GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES
May 8-9, 2007
Washington, D.C.

members' workshop
Media Futures
May 7
1:00– 4:30 pm

Mike Hawley previews the
conference (MP3)

conference overview
At times, we are inundated with a litany of global threats that seem likely to alter how we live, how we work, and how we view the future. For some, just knowing that problems exist impels their solution. And finding answers in technology to the biggest, toughest hurdles is what often drives researchers and entrepreneurs toward real breakthroughs. This conference will concentrate on innovative technology solutions in development that have the potential to significantly affect our environments.

We're concerned with numerous issues: climate change, global warming, terrorism, dwindling energy supplies, health care, genetically modified crops, clean water, and population growth. In each case, new technologies, researchers, and entrepreneurs are creating and developing exciting, effective initiatives that address these formidable problems.

Venture capitalists are directing their interest toward "green" technologies of all sorts. Future scenarios include smarter, cleaner ways to find more oil and coal, aided by enhanced visualization, which could help stabilize energy prices; nanoparticles grown in the lab that eat toxic waste; new wireless and embedded networks that ease traffic congestion; and smaller, more powerful implants that improve our health and bring mobility to the paralyzed. We may not be able to stop nature’s biggest threats, but we can mitigate their impact with canny (and even uncanny) technology. Increasingly, the linchpin for breeding such solutions is our rapidly evolving worldwide information infrastructure.

Which technologies will prove best to circumvent the threats we face? Where are the global technology advances likely to come from? What business opportunities will follow? How much better can we make our environment when life meets technology? In some cases, ever more intelligence and infrastructure is needed; in others, it’s political and economic will.

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Partial list of speakers

Dr. Richard Carmona, The 17th Surgeon General of the United States, Vice Chairman, Canyon Ranch, and Distinguished Professor of Public Health, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona
Ms. Denise Caruso, Founder and Executive Director, Hybrid Vigor Institute
Mr. David Douglas, Vice President, Eco-Responsibility, Sun Microsystems
Dr. Daniel Durda, Senior Research Scientist, Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute
Dr. Merrick Furst, Co-founder, Damballa, Inc.
Dr. Larry Gordon, Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Dr. Volker Hartkopf, Director, Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Thomas Harmon, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of California, Merced
Dr. Eric Haseltine, Associate Director of National Intelligence, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Mr. Tom Kiser, Chairman, CEO, and Founder, Professional Supply, Inc.
Dr. James Lovelock, Author, The Revenge of GAIA
Dr. Sean P. O'Brien, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Information Processing Technology Office
Dr. Michael Raynor, Deloitte Research Distinguished Fellow, Deloitte Consulting
Dr. Glenn Roberts, Chief Engineer, MITRE Corporation
Dr. Linton Wells II, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Dr. James Wilson, Division Head, Integrated Biodefense, Imaging Science and Information System Center, Georgetown University Medical Center
Mr. Richard Saul Wurman, Architect, Author, and Chairman, 19.20.21. LLC

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