The third annual Greater Good Gathering will be held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs on February 6-7, 2020. Everyone interested in technology, the economy, politics and government, or the future should plan to attend.
Over the past three years, the Greater Good Gathering has brought together technologists, academics, entrepreneurs, journalists, and government officials from across the country to discuss how technological change is affecting government, society and the economy in this annual conference. The goal is to help create innovative answers to how individuals and institutions can advance the “greater good” – through the public, private and non-profit sectors – in this changing environment.
A partial listing of participants for this year’s conference – February 6-7, 2020 – so far includes:
• Eric Horvitz, Director of Microsoft Research;
• Tom Vilsack, former US Secretary of Agriculture;
• Erik Brynjolfsson, co-author of the New York Times best-seller, THE SECOND MACHINE AGE: WORK, PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY IN A TIME OF BRILLIANT TECHNOLOGIES;
• Soroush Abbaspour, director, Columbia-IBM Centerfor Blockchain & Data Transparency;
• Kalev Leetaru, one of Foreign Policy Magazine's Top 100 Global Thinkers;
• Mario Schlosser, CEO and co-founder of Oscar, an innovative health insurance company;
• Malcolm Frank, President of Cognizant Digital Business, and author of WHAT TO DO WHEN MACHINES DO EVERYTHING;
• Vijay Modi, Columbia University Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Director, Infrastructure Programs, UN Millennium Villages Project;
• George Friedman, geopolitical forecaster and strategist, founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, author of the forthcoming, THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: AMERICA'S DISCORD, THE COMING CRISIS OF THE 2020S, AND THE TRIUMPH BEYOND;
• Marina Gorbis, executive director of Silicon Valley's Institute for the Future, author of The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World;
• James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly;
• Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, co-founder of Veniam, author of Peers Inc: How People and Platforms are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism;
• David Rotman, Editor at large, MIT Technology Review;
• Christopher Sealey, President and Co-Founder, CoverUS mobile healthcare-data app, and founding general partner, Chain Link crypto asset hedge fund;
• Amy Dean, Fellow at The Century Foundation, labor activist, co-author of A NEW NEW DEAL: HOW REGIONAL ACTIVISM WILL RESHAPE THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT;
• Arun Sundararajan, Professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and author of THE SHARING ECONOMY: THE END OF EMPLOYMENT AND THE RISE OF CROWD-BASED CAPITALISM;
• Kyle Zimmer, President, CEO, and Co-founder of First Book, and one of Fast Company’s 45 Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World;
• Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor for National Review, columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute;
• Bob Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect.
This year’s conference also will be the culmination of “Greater Good” conversations involving average citizens at City College of New York, Union Theological Seminary in New York, the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Los Angeles and across Iowa in the run-up to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses at Buena Vista University, Simpson College, and the Cedar Rapids Public Library. And a special panel of workers in the retail, transportation and allied health sectors will discuss what’s happening to their jobs and their colleagues in these industries as a result of technology change.
Co-sponsored by the Columbia SIPA Urban and Social Policy Concentration, The Union Theological Seminary and the Academy of Political Science.
