A social media visionary on the future of mobile; a voice from an earthquake/tsunami-rocked country; and some of the world’s savviest women on their challenges today, sexual and social – we’re pretty excited about what next week holds for the current and curious in the wide world of conferences.
Dennis Crowley
First up, on July 13, Dennis Crowley, cofounder of Foursquare, will speak at New York’s Paley Center for Media. Named one of the “Top 35 Innovators Under 35″ by MIT’s Technology Review magazine (2005) and one of Fortune’s “40 Under 40″ (2010), Crowley is best known for his work with Foursquare, an industry leader in mobile social media. The two-year-old company enables users – approaching 10 million – to locate themselves via GPS in a city or region and find friends, businesses and other landmarks. The service combines mobile gaming with its social media and geo-local data, producing a package that should raise some eyebrows at Facebook and Yelp headquarters. Before Foursquare, Crowley cofounded dodgeball.com, one of the first mobile social services in the US, which was acquired by Google in 2005.
Jumping from geo-local gaming to national calamity, Japanese Consul General Hiroshi Inotama will be speaking at the Commonwealth Club on July 13. Twenty-seven thousand fatalities, 135,000 homeless, one nuclear scare and an estimated $309 billion in damages later, the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami still resonates throughout Japan and the world. Inotama will give an update on his country’s worst disaster in recent memory, and how his people are currently meeting the monumental challenge. He will also share his thoughts on how events across the Pacific impact the US and the rest of the world.
Speaking of worldwide impact, what do you get when the former Presidents of Chile, Switzerland and Ireland convene a summit on “Women Creating a Safe World”? A helluva lot of great ideas on women’s role in a perilous global landscape. The YWCA’s 4th International Women’s Summit, held July 12-13 in Zurich, will host 1,000 participants. Expect engaging talks on this year’s top themes, from “Inequality, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, HIV and Violence” to “Addressing the Social and Economic Dimensions of Violence Against Women.”