The Future We Want: Transforming Leadership, Accelerating Innovation and Unlocking Imagination
Day 1: July 23
2 pm, Forum Opening: Argyros Tierney Theater Opening Keynote Session
“Wayfinding The Future We Want”: Louis Psihoyos, Filmmaker, Executive Director, Oceanic Preservation Society
“Transforming Leadership for the Future We Want”: Dr. Martin Chungong, Secretary General, Inter-Parliamentary Union
“Accelerating Innovation for the Future We Want”: Meagan Fallone, CEO, Barefoot College International
“Unlocking Imagination for the Future We Want”: Jennifer Morris, President, Conservation International
Host: Welcome by Aimée Christensen, Founder, Sun Valley Institute & Sun Valley Forum
3:05 pm, The Future We Want: One Earth
The theme of the 2019 Forum is a call to action to build the future we want by leveraging successful solutions being pioneered worldwide. Justin Winters, Executive Director of One Earth will host this session with Mitch Anderson of Amazon Frontlines about how winning strategies to strengthen indigenous rights can ensure the future we want.
Host: Justin Winters, Executive Director, One Earth
Speakers: Mitch Anderson, Executive Director, Amazon Frontlines
3:35pm, The Future We Want: AI for Earth
Artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool to scale up and accelerate our impact for resilience worldwide. Hear about how Microsoft’s AI for Earth is partnering with over 300 (and growing!) organizations including the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and the National Geographic Society as well as grassroots groups and local communities to benefit solutions from fire mitigation to wildlife conservation!
Speaker: Bonnie Lei, AI for Earth Project Manager, Microsoft
3:50pm, The Future We Want: Our Individual and Planetary Health
Flowing through our veins, and flowing from our rivers into our oceans, are man-made chemicals that put our individual health and the health of our planet at risk. But we are on the cusp of exciting new action to make us, and our planet, healthier. Michael Green will share with you innovative collaborations and solutions that are underway to protect our health and the health of our planet.
Speaker: Michael Green, CEO, Center for Environmental Health
4:00 pm, Transforming Leadership: Inspiring, Engaging, Activating the Public for the Future We Want
David Gelber is co-founder and chairman of The Years Project. He served as Ed Bradley’s producer at 60 Minutes® for twenty-five years, during which he won every major journalism award, including a Peabody, two DuPont Awards and eight Emmy® Awards. Gelber and Joel Bach left 60 MINUTES in 2011 to create the Emmy-winning series Years of Living Dangerously and have focused on communicating stories about the climate crisis ever since.“I covered about ten war zones in my years at 60 MINUTES, but this story, global warming, is just as dramatic -- and more important --than any of them.”
Speaker: David Gelber, Creator & Executive Producer, Years of Living Dangerously
4:15 pm, Transformative Leadership for the Future We Want
In 2018, Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand announced that the nation would be where “success is measured not only by the nation’s GDP but by better lives lived by its people.” Hear how New Zealand is following in the footsteps of Bhutan, prioritizing citizen wellbeing over short term economic benefit, with its “Well-Being Budget” just launched in June 2019.
Speaker: Mark Prain, Founding Director, Hillary Institute of International Leadership
4:30 pm, Transforming Leadership: Women In Front
Women in leadership are showing how diverse perspectives deliver better outcomes, for profit, people and/or planet. Hear from women leaders across government, business, investment science and advocacy how they are supporting women in leadership and the results!
Host: Amanda Ellis, Executive Director Hawaii & Asia-Pacific, ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Speakers: Kristin Hull, Founder & CEO, Nia Impact Capital
Ellen Jackowski, Global Head of Sustainability Innovation, HP
Laura Liswood, Secretary General, Council of Women World Leaders
Jennifer Morris, President, Conservation International
5:10 pm, Transforming Leadership: Building Community & Connection
Ready to be inspired and moved to action? These three leaders are powerful advocates for building opportunity and community, reminding us of the connections we need to thrive, with each other and with all creatures, great and small.
Speakers: Mark Brand, CEO, MB Inc. & A.B.LF., Exec. Chef, American Refugee Committee, Professor of Innovation, USC
Dr. Susan Eirich, Founder & Executive Director, Earthfire Institute Wildlife Center & Retreat Center
Tyler Norris, Chief Executive, The Wellbeing Trust
6-7pm VIP Reception: The Warfield Distillery & Brewery
7-10pm Reception & Dinner: The Warfield Distillery & Brewery
Day 2: July 24
8:30 am, Forum Day 2 Opening: Argyros Tierney Theater
Transforming Leadership: Youth Claiming The Future
Youth are claiming their future, demanding action and building networks globally to transform the power dynamic between youth and adults. Hear from leaders who are raising their voices and mobilizing millions, reminding all of us of our duty to lead.
Host: Eamonn Store, Founder & CEO, FairShare
Speakers: Vic Barrett, Co-Plaintiff, Juliana v. The United States of America & Action Fellow, Alliance for Climate Education
Jonah Gottlieb, Executive Youth Director, National Children’s Campaign & Executive Director, Our Future Now
Ruby Horton, Founder, Sun Valley Institute Youth Council
Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, Lead Plaintiff, Juliana v. The United States of America & Co-Plaintiff in Chernaik v. Brown
Jamie Margolin, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Zero Hour & Co-Plaintiff in Aji P v. State of Washington
9:10 am, Accelerating Innovation: Islands As Innovation Laboratories
For millennia, islands have been centers of diversity and sources of innovation, generating scalable solutions that work. Island innovators will share their new approaches, business models and technologies so we might learn, replicate and collaborate with them to accelerate our impact.
Host: Amanda Ellis, Executive Director Hawaii & Asia-Pacific, ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Speakers: John Bailey, Co-Founder, Hawaiian Cloud Forest Coffee, Hawaii
Brynn Foster, Founder, Voyaging Foods, Hawaii
Anake Goodall, Chair, Hillary Institute of International Leadership, New Zealand
Henk Rogers, Blue Planet Foundation, Hawaii
Austin Shelton III, Asst. Professor of Extension & Outreach, University of Guam Center for Island Sustainability
10 am, Accelerating Innovation: Transforming The Food System
Traditional agriculture is highly-concentrated, centralized and a major source of environmental harm, but regenerative agriculture can be a major solution to our climate and community challenges and deliver prosperity for our farmers and rural communities. Healthy soils nurtured by regenerative agriculture absorb carbon and hold water better, resisting drought and helping to prevent floods, delivering greater productivity and resiliency. Regenerative agriculture can build rural economies and help to stabilize our climate. Hear how innovators and advocates are transforming our food system into a powerful force for human and environmental health and community prosperity.
Host: Kate Geagan, Principal and Founder at Kate Geagan, America’s Green Nutritionist
Keynote: Robyn O’Brien, Vice President, RePlant Capital
Keynote: John Piotti, President & CEO, American Farmland Trust
Speakers: Noah Deich, Executive Director, Carbon 180
Dayna Gross, Senior Corporate Engagement Advisor, Global Agriculture, The Nature Conservancy
Bonnie Lei, AI for Earth Project Manager, Microsoft
Renske Lynde, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Food System 6 Accelerator
Dr. Cristine Morgan, Chief Scientific Officer, Soil Health Institute
Jin Yang, Culinary Director, Boise Co-op
11:30 am, Accelerating Innovation: The Energy Transformation
There is a rapid energy transformation underway around the world to build resilient, clean, reliable, cost-effective and job-creating energy systems, but how do we move more quickly at scale? This conversation among utilities, buyers, and innovators will inform what is needed and how we get there.
Host: Amy Lientz, Director of Partnerships, Engagement and Technology, Idaho National Laboratory
Spark Talk: Kathy Araújo, Director, Center for Advanced Energy Studies Energy Policy Institute, Boise State University
Speakers: Shelley Cohen, Director of Solar Programs, DC Sustainable Energy Utility
Amy Davidsen, Executive Director, The Climate Group, North America
David Livingston, Deputy Director, Atlantic Council Global Energy Center
Tatjana (Tanja) Vujic, Director, Biogas Strategy, Duke Energy
12:15 pm, Lunch: Limelight Hotel Deck
2:00 pm, Transforming Leadership to Protect Our Public Lands
America’s public lands are an asset for their natural resources, recreation and enjoyment. What is the state of our public lands and what does it mean for our climate and for the communities surrounding them?
Host: Felicity Barringer, Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University
Speakers: Isaac Brown, Executive Director, Business Coalition for Conservation and Climate
Stephenne Harding, Senior Campaign DirectorCampaign for Nature, National Geographic Society
Jim Lyons, Former Under-Secretary for Natural Resources, U.S. Department of Energy & Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
2:35 pm, Transforming Leadership: Changing What We Value
Major banks, foundations, and family offices worldwide are recognizing the need both to mitigate climate change risks facing their portfolios as well as to tap into strategic opportunities to invest in climate solutions such as food and energy. Hear from the first major bank to make a commitment to divest from fossil fuels; about climate risk from the world’s largest asset manager; from an entrepreneur incubating solutions companies - and hear how investors are thinking about what this means for what to invest in, and when!
Host: Julie Davitz, Head of Impact Solutions, BNP Paribas / Bank of the West
Spark Talk: Ashley Schulten, Head of Responsible Investing, Global Fixed Income, BlackRock
Speakers: Daniela Fernandez, Founder & CEO, Sustainable Ocean Alliance
Jennifer Kenning, CEO and Co-Founder, Align Impact
3:05 pm, Accelerating Innovation: Investing in Disruptive Technology for a Net Positive World
Recent calls for investing in reforestation claim that it is perhaps the fastest, most cost effective and multi-benefit solution pathway to drawdown. Hear from inventor, physicist, and Google X Co-Founder on the power of innovating in concert with nature to open economically self-amplifying pathways to scalable restoration.
Speaker: Tom Chi, Inventor | Leader | Coach | Speaker
3:20 pm, Accelerating Innovation: Investing For Drawdown
Project Drawdown, “the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming,” identified the top 100 solutions to global warming. Hear how investors are
strategically driving capital into these powerful and growing sectors.
Speakers: Colin le Duc, Founding Partner, Generation Investment Management
Erik Snyder, Entrepreneur, Investor, CEO & Founder, Drawdown Fund
Matthew Weatherley-White, Co-founder & Managing Director, The Caprock Group
3:45 pm, “Political Climate” Podcast Presented by the USC Schwarzenegger Institute: Argyros Tierney Theater
Political Climate is the only podcast offering a look inside the trenches of how energy and climate decisions get made and the political interests powering them. The podcast offers a bipartisan platform for constructive debate on energy and environmental issues in America and is presented by the USC Schwarzenegger Institute and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Julia Pyper, contributing editor at Greentech Media, moderates the show with co-hosts Brandon Hurlbut, former Department of Energy Chief of Staff and Obama White House Deputy Director of Cabinet Affairs, and Shane Skelton, former energy advisor to Bob Latta (R-OH) and to former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI). Join the Political Climate team and a special guest for this live on stage taping!
Host: Julia Pyper, Contributing Editor, Greentech Media & Host, Political Climate Podcast
Speakers: Brandon Hurlbut, Co-founder & Partner, Boundary Stone Partners
Shane Skelton, Co-founder & Partner, S2C Pacific
Guest: Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder & Executive Director, Environmental Voter Project
4:30 pm, Innovation Laboratories, Youth Pitches, or FUN!
The Forum has a record of sparking new cross-sector collaborations, mobilizing capital towards promising ideas, and inspiring uncommon thinking. To drive even greater impact, in addition to main stage sessions, we are hosting action-oriented working sessions called “Innovation Laboratories” and will have four sessions held simultaneously, where participants can roll up their sleeves to work together in a more focused way to drive impact, connect with the Youth Forum participants to support their impact, or have fun with Fun Delivery in the park!
A: Transforming Energy for The Future We Want: Limelight Hotel, Silvercreek Room
We will continue the discussion from the main Forum session: There is a rapid energy transformation underway around the world to build resilient - clean, reliable and cost effective job-creating - energy systems, but how do we move more quickly at scale? This collaborative working session will provide the opportunity for us to identify gaps and needs and aim to spark new action. Our host will help guide the conversation with key participants including our panelists from the main stage.
Hosts: Amy Lientz, Director of Partnerships, Engagement and Technology, Idaho National Laboratory
Tim Profeta, Director, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy, Duke University
B: Transforming Food & Agriculture for The Future We Want: Limelight Hotel, Silvercreek Room
We will continue the discussion from the main Forum session: Industrial agriculture is highly-concentrated, centralized and a major source of environmental harm, yet regenerative agriculture can be a major solution to our climate and community challenges and deliver prosperity for our farmers and rural communities. Healthy soils nurtured by regenerative agriculture absorb carbon and hold water better, resisting drought and helping to prevent floods, delivering greater productivity and resiliency. Regenerative agriculture can build rural economies and help to stabilize our climate. Hear how innovators and advocates are transforming our food system to be a powerful force for human and environmental health and community prosperity. This collaborative working session will provide the opportunity for us to identify gaps and needs and aim to spark new action with a particular focus on regenerative agriculture. Our host will help guide the conversation with key participants including our panelists from the main stage.
Hosts: Noah Deich, Executive Director, Carbon 180
Kate Geagan, Principal and Founder at Kate Geagan, America’s Green Nutritionist
C: Youth Forum Pitch Session: Argyros Tierney Theater
Great ideas need to be communicated well in order to have impact. This fun and informal pitch session will be an opportunity for the Youth Forum to share their work and collaborate with topic experts and Main Forum attendees on the center stage. Hear their pitches of solutions for plastics, food and transportation, to learn, provide feedback and collaborate!
Host: Richard Greene, Communications Guru and author of Words that Shook the World: 100 Years of Unforgettable Speeches and Events
D: Have Fun with FUN.delivery: Forest Service Park
Join FUN.delivery and Fashion First Aid founder Kim Castellano for fun and games in the park across the street from the Limelight Hotel deck. Fun for all ages!
Host: Kim Castellano, Founder & CEO, FUN.delivery
6:00 pm, Reception & Dinner: Limelight Hotel Deck
6:45 pm, Dinner Address: Daniel Dart, Extreme Social Impact Entrepreneur
Daniel Dart is an extreme social impact entrepreneur, whose life experiences -- lead singer of a punk rock band, prison, and now global community-building in conflict zones -- have informed his fearless approach to impact. You think you can’t do something or it is too intractable? Daniel will shake up your assumptions and challenge us all to do - and be - more!
Host: Eamonn Store, Founder, FairShare
7:30 pm Special Screening: THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM
THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM chronicles the eight-year quest of John and Molly Chester as they trade city living for 200 acres of barren farmland and a dream to harvest in harmony with nature. Through dogged perseverance and embracing the opportunity provided by nature’s conflicts, the Chester’s unlock and uncover a biodiverse design for living that exists far beyond their farm, its seasons, and our wildest imagination. Featuring breathtaking cinematography, captivating animals, and an urgent message to heed Mother Nature’s call, THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM provides us all a vital blueprint for better living and a healthier planet.
Speakers: Amy Mattias, Co-Director, Local Food Alliance / Food & Farm Program, Sun Valley Institute
John Piotti, CEO, American Farmland Trust
Day 3: July 25
8:30 am, Forum Day 3 Opening: Argyros Tierney Theater The Future We Want: Military Leadership For Climate Security
Military leaders see firsthand the urgent and growing “threat multiplier” impact of climate change on global stability: from water shortages to sea-level rise, food supplies are at risk. Droughts and floods send desperate migrants fleeing, bringing groups into conflict. Hear these leaders’ insights and call to action.
Host: The Honorable Sherri Goodman, Senior Advisor for International Security, Center for Climate and Security and Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS)
Speakers: Lieutenant General Arlen “Dirk” Jameson (Ret.), United States Air Force, Advisory Board Member, The Center for Climate and Security
Admiral Paul Zukunft (Ret.), 25th Commandant of the United States Coast Guard
9:15 am, Transforming Leadership: Veterans Lead Our Climate Emergency Response
Hear from the co-founder of Elected Officials to Protect America, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the team of elected officials who are veterans, now mobilizing across the United States to combat our climate crisis.
Speaker: Alex Cornell du Houx, President / Co-Founder, Elected Officials to Protect America
9:25 am, Accelerating Innovation: Cities As Innovation Laboratories
In a rapidly changing world, leaders and innovators who are working to ensure urban resilience discuss how to make our communities affordable, healthy and resilient.
Speakers: Ksenia Koban, Vice President, Payden & Rygel Investment Management
Adam Marvel, Managing Director, Imfoco
Bruno Sarda, President, CDP North America
Steve Wysmuller, Global Lead Meteorologist, IBM/The Weather Company
10:00 am, Accelerating Innovation: Building Rural Resilience
Rural communities are facing sudden impacts from our changing world, from the energy transition, trade conflicts, and climate impacts such as fire and drought. There is an opportunity for rural resilience to instead build lasting economic opportunity with diversified economies and quality year-round jobs. This panel will share their vision and strategies for our rural resurgence.
Moderator: Kirk Siegler, Correspondent, NPR
Interview: Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands, State of Washington
Speakers: Emily Niehaus, Mayor of Moab, Utah
Darren Parry, Chairman, Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation
John Piotti, President & CEO, American Farmland Trust
Dr. Burton Webb, President, University of Pikeville
10:55 am, The Future We Want: Insurers Driving Resilience
The role of insurance in addressing climate change is important, complex, and largely opaque to the public. We’ll hear from a state insurance commissioner, a leader in the insurance industry, an international insurance regulator and a journalist who covers these topics, about how this industry which makes up 3 percent of the U.S. economy is addressing climate change and catalyzing action by others.
Host: Jay Bruns, Senior Climate Policy Adviser, Office of the Insurance Commissioner, State of Washington
Speakers: Jodi Bond, Executive Vice President, Global Government & Industry Affairs, Chubb
Don Jergler, Western Region Editor, Insurance Journal
Mike Kreidler, Insurance Commissioner, State of Washington
Olaf Sleijpen, Director of Insurance Supervision, Central Bank of The Netherlands
11:55 am, Accelerating Innovation: Mainstreet 2.0 - Bringing the Best of Wall Street to Main Street
Main Street 2.0 represents the best of both Wall Street and Main Street. What if we could invest with our values, leveraging all of our resources from philanthropic to investment capital? What if access to capital was available to every nonprofit, small business, start-up, cooperative, or fund? What may seem to be a pipedream is all possible if we educate and activate both the capital and social ventures. What we need to do is reimagine what is possible and to create a Main Street 2.0 that combines the best of what we had with Main Street relationship banking over 100 years ago with the benefits of Wall Street’s technology and risk products.
Speaker: Steph Gripne, Founder and CEO, Impact Finance Center
12:05 pm, Accelerating (Clean Energy) Innovation: The Bright Side of Opportunity Zones
While some are rightly skeptical about the promise of Opportunity Zones with real estate, this new Federal tax incentive is actually a high impact opportunity to invest in clean energy projects and companies in low-income areas in need of low-cost electricity with high resiliency, creating quality jobs and clean air. Hear from a practitioner about how this new vehicle can drive a “trifecta” of beneficial impacts!
Speaker: Jon Bonanno, CXO, New Energy Nexus
12:15 pm, Lunch: Limelight Hotel Lobby & Deck
Working Lunch: Turning Risk Into Opportunity: Islands, Coasts & Oceans
Working Lunch: Building Rural Resilience Across America
2:00 pm, Accelerating Innovation: Solving Ocean Plastic Pollution
Ocean plastics have rapidly become a global crisis, threatening food systems, ocean tourism and life in our seas. Hear from the innovators in philanthropy, advocacy and business who are scaling solutions to protect our oceans and solve the plastic pollution crisis.
Host: Emma Riley, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Lonely Whale Foundation
Spark Talk: Holly Kaufman, Author, No Such Place As “Away”: Plastic Pollution in the Oceans, Interaction Council
Speakers: Richardson Antoine, Haiti Field Manager, Thread International
Ellen Jackowski, Global Head of Sustainability Strategy & Innovation, HP
Benjamin Von Wong, Artist & Activist
2:50 pm, Unlocking Imagination: Storytelling for the Future We Want
How do we engage audiences to be inspired to act and to advocate for the future we want? Hear from award-winning storytellers from television, film, advocacy and marketing about the strategies that work!
Host: Geof Rochester, Founder, GRC Consulting
Speakers: Christi Cooper, Director, Youth vs. Gov, Barrelmaker Productions
Peter Horton, Writer/Director/Producer & President, Pico Creek Productions
Louis Psihoyos, Filmmaker, Executive Director, Oceanic Preservation Society
Sarah Finnie Robinson, Founding Director, The 51 Percent Project
3:45 pm, “Claiming the Future We Want” Livestream
What is the next generation doing and calling for to claim their future and build the future they want? Hear from the Sun Valley Youth Forum on the products of their labor and passion!
Host: Julia Pyper, Host, Political Climate Podcast & Contributing Editor, Greentech Media
Speakers: Youth Forum Representatives
4:00 pm, Closing Session & Call to Action
Solving our global challenges requires entrepreneurs and innovators leading alongside policymakers, major corporations and community leaders. Hear from S’well’s founder and CEO about the leadership, courage and vision driving their mission to rid the world of plastic bottles.
Keynote: Sarah Kauss, Founder & CEO, S’well
7:00 pm, Closing Celebration: Galena Lodge
BBQ & Hayrides!