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The Sixth-Annual Washington Ideas Forum: Conversations With Policymakers, Entrepreneurs, and More in the Nation's Capital

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Washington, D.C. (September 17, 2014)—Entrepreneurs and business visionaries, designers, educational disruptors, leading politicians, media minds, and bold-faced names in science and technology will come together October 29-30 to share their groundbreaking ideas at the sixth annual “Washington Ideas Forum,” presented by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic. Across two days of rapid-fire interviews and panels at the Harman Center for the Arts, the Forum’s speakers and moderators will discuss the transformative ideas and key issues directly affecting Americans’ national identity, politics, and core values. The Washington Ideas Forum expects to draw an audience of more than 1,500 people across the two days.

Speakers bringing their ideas to stage include:

  • BUSINESS: CrowdStrike CEO and Co-Founder Dmitri Alperovitch, Revolution Founder and Partner Steve Case, Southern Company CEO Thomas Fanning, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb, OpenTable CEO Matthew Roberts, The Carlyle Group Co-Founder and Co-CEO David Rubenstein, and Yelp Inc. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman
     
  • DESIGN: Alta Planning + Design President Mia Birk, Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson, The Ebeling Group CEO Mick Ebeling, and Flipboard CEO Mike McCue
     
  • LITERATURE: Americanah author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, There Are No Children Here author Alex Kotlowitz, Netherland author Joseph O’Neill, and Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story author Gary Shteyngart
     
  • EDUCATION: edX CEO Anant Agarwal, Cornell University President David Skorton, and GoldieBlox Founder and CEO Debbie Sterling
     
  • ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE: NRG President and CEO David Crane, XL Hybrids President and Founder Tod Hynes, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and BP Capital Management Chairman T. Boone Pickens
     
  • MEDIA: The Onion Editor Cole Bolton, New York Times Columnist David Brooks, Cook Political Report Editor and Publisher Charlie Cook, ABC News Senior National Correspondent Claire Shipman, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, and House of Cards Screenwriter Beau Willimon
     
  • POLICY: Former Atlanta Mayor and Purpose Built Communities CEO and Chair of the Board Shirley Franklin, Export-Import Bank President and Chairman Fred Hochberg, Delaware Governor Jack Markell (D), Houston Mayor Annise Parker (D), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Former Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation Janette Sadik-Khan, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Riverdale Mayor Evelyn Wynn-Dixon
     
  • SCIENCE & TECH: Institute for Brain and Society Chairman and CEO Jacopo Annese, Rethink Robotics Founder and Chairman Rodney Brooks, Shinkuro CEO and Co-Founder Steve Crocker, Allen Institute for Brain Science CEO Allan Jones, DEKA Research and Development Corporation Founder Dean Kamen, Fast Forward Labs Founder Hilary Mason, ZocDoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi, Intuitive Surgical Director of Medical Research Catherine Mohr, Princeton Neuroscience Professor H. Sebastian Seung, J. Craig Venter Institute Founder, Chairman, and CEO Craig Venter, and Stanford University Professor Tony Wyss-Coray

Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson will speak about The Innovators, his forthcoming book profiling the people who started the digital revolution, and will moderate portions of the event, along with The Atlantic’s President and Editor-in-Chief James Bennet; Washington Editor-at-Large Steve Clemons; National Correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates; National Correspondent James Fallows; and Editor Scott Stossel; Washington Ideas Forum Editorial Director and Bloomberg View Columnist Margaret Carlson; and MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell. Additional speakers and program moderators will be announced and a full schedule will be shared in the weeks ahead.

Media interested in attending the program, or with additional questions, should contact the press leads below.  For those unable to attend in person, the program will be webcast live via The Atlantic’s Events Channel and on the Aspen Institute’s live page. Follow the conversation online via @Atlantic_LIVE and @AspenInstitute, and by using #IdeasForum.

Comcast and The Walton Family Foundation are the Presenting Level Underwriters of the Forum. The American Federation of Teachers and Google are the Supporting Level Underwriters, and Allstate and GSK are the Contributing Level Underwriters.

AT A GLANCE:
The Sixth Annual Washington Ideas Forum
October 29-30, 2014
Harman Center for the Arts
610 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004

WATCH via The Atlantic’s Events Channel and the Aspen Institute’s live page
FOLLOW via @Atlantic_LIVE, @AspenInstitute, and #IdeasForum