Intelligent infrastructure conference to focus on innovation

NEW YORK, N.Y. — The Economist has announced that United States Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, world-renowned architect Frank Gehry and others will participate in its upcoming Ideas Economy: Intelligent Infrastructure event. The conference, which will be held in New York City Feb. 16-17, will focus on the global challenges and innovative solutions necessary for building intelligent infrastructure.

Over the next several decades, the world will spend $30 trillion on infrastructure. Intelligent Infrastructure will explore how green architecture, geo-engineering, smart systems, and connectivity will allow countries and governments to create a smarter and stronger infrastructure. It will also focus on how cutting-edge development in this area can leverage the speed and vitality of private markets while at the same time including rsmarter government regulation.

“As the global population increases dramatically over the next 30 years, the demand for energy, water, transportation, financing and education will rise,” said Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Global Correspondent for The Economist.“Intelligent Infrastructure will bring together some of the nation’s foremost experts to discuss the growing demand and how infrastructure can address that, as well as create jobs and stimulate economic activity.”

Participants already confirmed to take part in the conference include:

David Bloom, Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health
Jonathan Bush, Chief Executive Officer, athenahealth
John Campbell, Chief Executive Officer, Waterfront Toronto
Neil Chambers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ChambersDesign
Henry Cisneros, Former Secretary, Housing & Urban Development; Chairman, CityView
Richard A. Cook, Partner, Cook + Fox Architects
Tom Darden, Executive Director, Make it Right
Dickson Despommier, Emeritus Professor, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health
Tristan d’Estree Sterk, Architect, The Office for Robotic Architectural Media
Edward Fenster, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, SunRun
Mark Gabriel, Chief Executive Officer, Halcrow Group
Stan Gale, Chairman and Managing Partner, Gale Management
Frank Gehry, Partner, Gehry Partners
David Gelernter, Professor, Computer science, Yale University
Bob Gilligan, Vice President, GE Energy, Transmission & Distribution
Nicholas Hann, Executive Director, Macquarie Capital Markets Canada
Jack Hidary, Founder, Jack Hidary Foundation
Rebecca M. HendersonRebecca M. Henderson, Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management, Harvard Business School
Nick Jeffery, Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone Global Enterprise
Mitchell Joachim, Co-founder, Terreform ONE and Terrefuge
Laurie Johnson, Co-author, “Clear as Mud”
David Keith, Director, ISEEE Energy and Environmental Systems Group, University of Calgary
Syd Kitson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kitson & Partners
Zach Karabell, President, River Twice Research
Parag Khanna, Senior Research Fellow and Director, Global Governance Initiative, New America Foundation
Madhu Koneru, Executive Vice Chairman, MEC Holdings
Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund
Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer, United States of America
Steve Lewis, Chief Executive Officer, Living PlanIT SA
Thom Mayne, Founder, Morphosis Architects
Nicholas Negroponte, Founder and Chairman, One Laptop per Child
Richard G. Newell, Administrator, U.S. Energy Information Administration
Rene Obermann, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Telekom
Amir Peleg, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, TaKaDu
Patrick L. Phillips, Chief Executive Officer, Urban Land Institute
Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution
Iqbal Z. Quadir, Founder and Director, Legatum Center for Development & Entrepreneurship
Carlo Ratti, Director, SENSEable City Laboratory, MIT
Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation
Saskia Sassen, Robert S.Lynd Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University
Andrew Shapiro, Founder and President, Green Order
KR Sridar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bloom Energy
Simon Stevens, President, Global Health, UnitedHealth Group
Brad Tirpak, Managing Director, Locke Partners
Petra Todorovich, Director, America 2050
James Wilsdon, Director, Royal Society Science Policy Centre
Tim Wirth, President, United Nations Foundation
Ken Yeang, Chairman, Llewelyn Davies Yeang

The event is sponsored by CA and Halcrow, with supporting sponsorship from GM. InnoCentive is the Challlenge Partner for the Ideas Economy series.

For more information on the program, speakers, or to register for the event, please visit https://ideas.economist.com/.