PopTech 2009: Videos and Images

Thank you to everyone for a wonderful PopTech 2009: America Reimagined conference.

Below are videos from the conference; you can find beautiful images of each speaker by Kris Krüg from Thursday and Friday on his personal site.

More images are in the PopTech Flickr account, the PopTech 2009 Flickr set, and the PopTech 2009 Flickr group pool.

We have made videos with highlights of each day along our special 2009 Social Innovation Fellows video and Science Fellows announcement, and we hope you will share these videos widely—each has a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Videos below are in the PopTech Vimeo account and our YouTube account.

First, highlights from Thursday, October 22, 2009, including Erica Williams’s passionate call to see her generation and their political interest as it really is, musician Zee Avi’s bright lyrics, artist Chris Jordan’s stunning photos of plastic inside albatross at Midway Atoll, Mayor John Fetterman on what his town isn’t, and kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin on waves, beads, and the movement of light.

On Thursday, we showed this video of the PopTech 2009 Social Innovation Fellows, who are young leaders with new approaches for social innovation working in for-profit and not-for-profit worlds, nationally and internationally; this year’s class includes Aviva Presser Aiden and Hugo Van Vuuren of Lebônê, Jason Aramburu of re:char, Eben Bayer of Ecovative Design, Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect, Deb Levine of ISIS, Inc., Josh Nesbit of FrontlineSMS:Medic, James O’Brien of Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School, Ory Okolloh of Ushahidi, Emily Pilloton of Project H Design, Hayat Sindi of Diagnostics For All, Taylor Stuckert and Mark Rembert of Energize Clinton County, Nigel Waller of Movirtu.

Highlights from Friday, October 23, 2009 include Dennis Littky on why kids drop out of school, Jay Rogers on building family cars, Rinku Sen on the continuing racial divide, Zoe Keating’s electronic layering of cello, Zach Lieberman on helping a paralyzed man make art, Hayat Sindi with a diagnostic lab on her fingertip, Robert Guest on why America’s greatest strength, and Josh Nesbit on how you can save lives with your old cell phones.

Also on Friday, PopTech announced the Science and Public Leadership Fellows, an intention of developing a corps of highly visible and socially engaged scientific leaders who embody science as an essential way of thinking, discovering, understanding and deciding. Nominations are open now until April 2010 on a rolling basis, and the formal training component begins in June 2010. (See the science advisors and supporters (Microsoft Research, National Geographic, the National Science Foundation) of the program.)

Finally, these are highlights from Saturday, October 24, 2009, including Michael Pollan on whether a vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius, Nick Bilton on what people used to believe about transportation and news, Neri Oxman on an eggshell membrane, Marije Vogelzang on designing playful eating, Naif Al-Mutawa on his goal for The 99 comic series, James Fowler on how and why we are connected, Dean Ornish on changing your genes by changing your lifestyle and walking for three hours a week to grow brain cells, and Zoë Keating, Ruby Jane Smith, Mark O’Connor musically closing the day.

UPDATED: We are posting the below revised Saturday video on Sunday, November 1st.

We look forward to seeing everyone at PopTech 2010!

Let us know your favorite parts of PopTech 2009 and what you would like to see in 2010 in the comments—

  • Meh.
  • Love it!

Comments

Name: Barry Deck

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the PopTech community — this global network of thinkers and doers, could identify and support a physical community in which to create visible transformation? For three days, we heard remarkable, inspiring success stories from different disciplines and locations around the world. What would happen if the learnings from PopTech speakers, fellows, and members could be deployed in one place? Would a local concentration of innovations in education, healthcare, urban agriculture, public policy, micro-factories, net-zero architecture, local currencies, etc. produce a positive feedback loop of innovation? Could a place like that become a laboratory for healing? An example for communities around the world?

Might it lead to the creation of a toolkit for transformation? A university of healing?

I was impassioned by John Fetterman’s work in Braddock, Pennsylvania. I loved hearing him say “Braddock is not a poor town. It’s an experiment.” He knows that for a person, a system, or an organization to change, it has to have a near-death experience. Humanity is having one right now, but many don’t quite realize the extent of it. Braddock’s near-death experience makes it a zone of extreme opportunity.

I was moved to tears when Dennis Littky announced his intention to put a school in Braddock. We were watching a healing process in real-time. That’s what PopTech is for, and I want to see more.

How many innovations could we implement in Braddock, or somewhere like that? Flint? Detroit? Cleveland? Change on that scale will not happen in Greenwich or Malibu anytime soon. (No offense if you live there. They’re lovely places filled with super-smart people.)

I would like to know how many people like this idea. Who could support, contribute, or lead such an initiative? I guess I’m just saying let’s make some more headlines. It’s why we showed up in the first place, and I wish I remembered who said that the earth doesn’t care, that it’s us that need fixing. That’s the truth. There’s so much to do, and nothing in the whole world should be more important to us.

Author-kristen-lg Name: Kristen Taylor

Thanks, Barry. We are thinking about how to expand our efforts in other small places, and we’ll tap you for your help as we keep thinking through it!

Name: Herb Kim

Kristen,

It was really nice to meet you in Camden last week. Thank you for the great work you did in keeping us informed as the official "@poptech" in addition to the many other things you are doing to make Poptech a continued success.

As you already know, I thought the conference this year was superb. I really enjoyed it and have voted with my feet by signing up for 2010.

On the topic of 2010 there doesn’t seem to be single place where the dates have been published. I may have asked Keryn for this already but I don’t seem to have any record of it in email so could you let us know via the blog or website as to the 2010 dates?

Many thanks. I’m sure you folks are still recovering from 2009 but here’s looking forward to 2010.

And I love knowing now that when I enter the words into ReCaptcha that I’m helping out with a larger mission to digitize books :-)

Herb

Author-kristen-lg Name: Kristen Taylor

Thanks, Herb! Great to meet you too. When we announce all the 2010 information, it will all be posted here on the blog too. So glad you’ll be joining us and Keryn is the right person to ask all the details—

Name: Keryn Gottshalk

Hi Herb,

PopTech 2010 will convene 20 – 23 October in Camden, Maine.

We look forward to seeing you there!
Keryn

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