October 19, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
Each fall PopTech holds an ideas conference that brings scientists, technology experts, social entrepreneurs, and others dedicated to social change to the small town of Camden, Me.
The idea is to spark innovative ideas as people with different types of expertise come together and learn about one another’s work, says Andrew Zolli, the New York charity’s executive director.
“We think there’s a lot of genius in the white spaces, in the places between the disciplines where they converge or they diverge,” he says. “You can often find new approaches that have never been tried before.”
Much of this year’s conference, which takes place Thursday through Sunday of this week, will stream live online. (You can sign up on the site to receive an e-mail reminder when the broadcast begins.)
The theme of the meeting is “The World Rebalancing,” and speakers include Unity Dow, a lawyer and human-rights activist from Botswana; Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president of Iceland; and Hayat Sindi, co-founder of Diagnostics for All.
To get a flavor of the meeting, watch Nathan Eagle’s talk at last year’s conference. The former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor left his job to start a company that lets people in developing countries earn money by performing tasks on their mobile phones.
