Richard Saul Wurman, the creator of the TED conference engineers a new gathering.
Message from the organizers:
“On 18-20 September 2012 WWW.WWW will make its debut.
“The first W stands for World….
“Water Wealth Women Waste War Well-being Wildlife Web Weather Wind Words Wonder Witness Wilderness Work Wunderlust Warming Wit & the Waking Dream
“WWW.WWW will be a gathering of the greatest, most interesting & curious minds in the world engaged in immersive & improvised conversation. It will celebrate the 21st century while drawing attention to the new patterns & convergences affecting our health & that of our planet.
“The experience will be streamed live to selected locations. It will be available by way of tablet app across all platforms.
“In the weeks following the app’s release, it will be updated with additional conversations captured during the breaks. It will also feature extraordinary visual imagery & a running line of Spanish & Mandarin translation.”
The event is further billed as “A celebration of improvised conversation: Intellectual jazz. Richard Saul Wurman, creator of the TED (1984-2002), TEDMED (1998-2010) & the eg conferences (2006), will celebrate improvised conversation in its most informative manner.
“No presentations; No schedule; No expensive tickets. Simply pairings of amazingly interesting individuals prompted by a question, generating a conversation. For 10 minutes to 50 minutes. And so it will go – conversations interlaced with threads of improvised music. An astrophysicist & a microbiologist. An actor & a playwright. A jazz musician & a classical one. An energetic exploration of the lost art of conversing.”
Partial list of presenters:
- Frank Gehry: Architect
- Mark Benioff: CEO Salesforce.com
- Jeffrey Katzenberg: CEO DreamWorks Animation
- Joi Ito: Director, MIT Media Lab, Chairman of Creative Commons and General Partner of Neoteny Labs
- Walt Mossberg: Preeminent Technology Journalist, Wall Street Journal, Co-Founder of D All Things Digital
- Maya Lin: Artist and Architect
- Norman Lear: Award Winning Television Producer, Chairman Act III Communications
- John Maeda: President, The Rhode Island School of Design
- Arem Duplessis: Design Director, New York Times Magazines
- David Rockwell: Architect and Designer, CEO Rockwell Group
- Danny Hillis: Inventor of Parallel Computing, Entrepreneur, Co-Founder Applied Minds
- Moshe Safdie: Architect
- Michio Kaku: Theoretical Physicist, Co-Founder of String Field Theory, Professor City College of New York
- Robert Greenberg: Chairman, CEO, Global Chief Creative Officer R/GA
- Steve Wozniak: Co-Founder Apple Computer, Technologist
- Nicholas Negroponte: Founder MIT Media Lab, Founder One Laptop Per Child
- Dean Kamen: Preeminent Entrepreneur and Inventor, Founder FIRST Robotics
- Bjarke Ingels: Architect
- Will Wright: Co-founder, Maxis, Founder and Chief Executive, Stupid Fun Club
- Uri Herscher: Founder, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles
- Julie Taymor: Film and Theater Director, Artist, Tony Award Winner