Pop!Tech 2008: "Scarcity and Abundance"

(Credit: Pop!Tech)

I will be attending the Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine this week. For the twelfth year, Pop!Tech will convene a network of 600 remarkable thinkers, doers, leaders, and global change agents in science, technology, social innovation, business, environmentalism, globalization, media, education, and many other fields for a four-day exploration of ideas shaping the future.

This year, the organizers will pay particular attention to the 21st century dynamics between systems based on scarcity and those based on abundance, in areas ranging from digital social networks to biology to peacemaking. Among the speakers are Chris Anderson (Wired, "The Long Tail"), Malcom Gladwell ("The Tipping Point"), Paul Polak (IDE), Clay Shirky ("Here Comes Everybody"), and Frank Warren ("Post Secret"). I especially look forward to meeting in person linguist George Lakoff (communication graduates like me may recall him as the godfather of "framing") and "songstress" Imogen Heap (I'm a big fan).

My employer, frog design, supports Pop!Tech's Accelerator program, which has the mission to incubate social innovation ventures. Together with a coalition of partners including iTeach, the Praekelt Foundation, Nokia Siemens Networks, Aricent, and the National Geographic Society, we have been working on Project Masiluleke over the past year, a path-breaking effort that harnesses the power of mobile technology to address one of the world's gravest public health crises. This ambitious initiative will leverage the ubiquity of mobile devices in South Africa to help fight the country's crippling HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics. Robert Fabricant, executive creative director at frog, and our partners will present Project Masiluleke to the public at the conference on Friday.

I will be blogging from Pop!Tech so stay tuned for more.