THE 2019 CONFERENCE

     The theme of our 2019 conference was “The Future of Us.” The conference pushed participants to consider how new technologies will change how we live, our social groupings, our social, political, and economic systems, our psychology, and more fundamentally, what it means to be human. This theme emanated from our deeply held belief that careful consideration of these questions is central to maximizing the benefits of innovation. 

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The conference advanced its theme by: 

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Drawing insights from wide-ranging perspectives. The conference included speakers from several disciplines, from technological researchers, to industry leaders, to philosophers. In addition to keynote addresses, speakers led smaller groups of participants in interactive workshops to spur participants’ independent thinking about the implications and potential uses of new technologies. 

Fostering collaboration among the world’s future leaders. Participants had the opportunity to meet driven students from around the country and abroad and form small teams to propose a product, research plan or policy that implements or improves a new technology with the mentorship of speakers.

Speakers

Anders Sandberg - Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute

Michele Reilly - Founder of Turing Inc.

Kai Landre - Cyborg and Artist

Ruha Benjamin - Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Author

Francesca Ferrando - Philosopher of the Posthuman

Phil Torres - Author, Associate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology

Robin Hanson - Author, Associate Professor at George Mason University

Aubrey de Grey - Longevity researcher, Chief Science Officer at Strategies for SENS Foundation

Natalie Kofler - Director and Founder of Editing Nature

Hod Lipson - Roboticist, Director of Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University

Noam Cohen - Journalist, Author

Susan Schneider - Baruch Blumberg/NASA chair at the Library of Congress and NASS and Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your MInd

Courtney Cogburn - Associate Professor of Social Work, Columbia University

Melinda Soares - NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Princeton Astrophysics

Ben Zion - Transhumanist Party Nominee for President

David Yaden - Researcher on Experiences of Awe, University of Pennsylvania

Whitney Huang - Engineer at Zipline 

Liz Parrish - CEO of BioViva

Sures Kumar - Speculative Designer at Google AI

Wei Liu - Head of Machine Learning at Nuro

Brett Frischmann - Professor in Law, Business and Economics at Villanova School of Law

Umer Hassan - Assistant Professor at Rutgers University of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Nathan Danielson - Software Engineer at CTRL-Labs

Daniel Elton - Staff Scientist at the National Institute of Health

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