Saturday Smarts: Mashable's List of Great Minds in Action

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-08-01 14:03:00 UTC
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Last week, Mashable put together a great list of the top 7 places to watch great minds in action. As you might expect, the world famous TED conferences took the top spot. The real cool parts of the list are those listed after.

Number two was Pop!Tech, a conference that for many attendees has a devotion and excitement unlike I've ever seen associated with an event. Pop!Tech happens each fall in Camden, Maine (just a couple hours from my hometown), and brings together brilliant people for incredible conversations. They also have a "Social Innovation Fellows" program that has trained incredible folks like the teams from Global Citizen Year, Ushahidi, and FrontlineSMS.

Number three was Business Innovation Factory summit, an annual event in Providence, RI which one of my colleagues had told be about but I hadn't really understood the full coolness of until the article. This year's Summit is going to bring together leaders from business, academia and the nonprofit world, including my favorite millennial generation researcher Don Tapscott. What's especially cool is the way that BIF has helped rebrand Providence as a place of innovation and creativity.

These events are part of an exciting trend towards public smarts. Smart in this case doesn't mean just brainy in a traditionally research-y way, but it means creativity and excellence and the ability look at things differently.

Check out Mashable's full list here and watch some of the sample videos below:

frogdesign's Joshua Klein at BIF-4

Author Suketu Mehta

Hans Rosling shows you the best stats you've ever seen

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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