Nils Gilman: Deviant globalization

Nils Gilman discusses Deviant globalization, the global flow of “repugnant” goods and services like drugs, human trafficking and illegal wildlife. Such globalization leverages the mainstream infrastructure of the formal economy along with any downsizing in the role of the state. Gilman asks what this means for countries in flux like Greece and Libya.

Laurie Leitch and Loree Sutton: Tapping social resilience

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, MD and clinical trainer Laurie Leitch, Ph.D., founded Threshold GlobalWorks to explore a neurobiological approach to social resilience. “We are all wired with it, in case you did not know that,” says Leitch. “We are born neurologically wired for resilience because our system is survival-based.”

Stephanie Coontz: Gender gaps

Stephanie Coontz, an historian of the family, discusses how globalization has brought more women into the paid work force. Coontz urges us to redefine our notions of gender equality, arguing that every worker has a right to a family life.

Lloyd and Zimbalist: Memory mapping the news

Alexis Lloyd and Michael Zimbalist, both from the New York Times R&D Lab, describe a new app for memory mapping the news, which they created for PopTech's iPad app. Unlike the old model of top-down publishing, it allows consumers to combine news with their own personal memories. Users can see timelines in real and perceived time and view stories from the archives within the context of their own lives.

Paul Needham: Owning electricity

Paul Needham’s organization, Simpa Networks, makes solar energy available to the poor. By using a pay-as-you-go pricing structure modeled after mobile phone cards, Simpa gives its customers ownership of the electricity. Once the initial cost of the equipment is paid off, the device belongs to the customer and their electricity is free.

Krista Donaldson's Design Revolution

Krista Donaldson runs D-Rev: Design Revolution, which creates world class products—market and user driven—designed to meet the needs of the four billion people all over the world living on less than four dollars a day.

Anne-Marie Slaughter - Lego World

Anne-Marie Slaughter shares her insights on the transformation of state and non-state actors. Whereas we used to exist within a world of nation-states, billiard balls knocking against one another, we now live in a network of modular, ad hoc organizations—both governmental and non-governmental.

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Anand Giridharadas: The New India

Anand Giridharadas, child of Indian parents who immigrated to the United States, returns to live in India as an adult. He encounters a culture shifting from traditional and collective values to a me-centric individualism. Giridharadas asks if the “American Dream” is better represented in places like the New India, rather than in our own increasingly calcified class system with limited upward mobility.

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