The 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Unleash Imagination event melded together a curious audience of thoughtful parents, professionals, middle schoolers, high school and college students, colleagues, and friends to experience Francis Collins, Cory Doctorow and Esther Dyson and Steve Scully tackle the Clarke Conversation on Imagination.

We questioned and analyzed ‘How to Reweave Society for Collaborative Problem Solving.’

We challenged each other to take what we learned, and be better, until we meet again.

Thank you to our sponsors
for investing in the future of Unleash Imagination

Hughes
iridium

Congratulations to all of our Silent Auction Winners!

The 2022 Arthur C Clarke Awards Program

Anne Schuchat introducing The Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Francis Collins

Erik Viirre introducing The Imagination in Service to Society Awardee

Cory Doctorow

VINT CERF Introducing The Innovator Awardee

 

Esther Dyson

We enjoyed great food,conversation and a once in a lifetime opportunity for 1:1 discussions and photos with our awardees,before and after the program and are already looking forward to next year.

Can We reweave Society for Collaborative Problem Solving.

The 2022 Clarke Conversation on Imagination theme:

Can we reweave society for collaborative problem-solving?

Steve Scully | Moderator

View Full Bio
The 2022 Clarke awardees represent three of the very best in their respective professions. As one of America’s leading health experts, Dr. Francis Collins has navigated the nation through genome research, medical advancements, and a global pandemic. Esther Dyson is an entrepreneur who has been on the cutting edge of technology, human wellness and space exploration. Cory Doctorow has opened our eyes as a journalist and expanded our imagination as a writer.

Each awardee can be described as an extraordinary achiever in their respective field, allowing their imagination to link their talents and expertise. Their careers have also pushed the boundaries to better understand our world, as well as showing how we can create a better world for those of us who inhabit it. Moderator Steve Scully will engage the awardees in a spirited conversation on some of the leading issues facing us today, events in their lives which shaped their thinking, and looking collectively for their creative solutions.

At a time when so many of our institutions are under scrutiny and attack, this conversation will focus more on the solutions than on the problems. So much challenges the future of society and our planet that it can feel overwhelming to try to tackle each issue. But are there common conditions that could set a more collaborative and creative approach to their resolution? Are there ways in which the Internet and social platforms that often divide us also provide solutions to a way forward? Is there a way to heal the divisions so that we can weave a better future together? How do we restore trust in science, leadership and each other? The promise of the future is filled with innovation, hope and change. What does that mean for current and next generations on whose shoulders the future will depend?

These three awardees will offer unique perspectives, challenging our thinking and motivating us to look outside the box for those new ideas leading to answers. We will also engage with the audience for a true conversation. We invite you all to be prepared to raise your issues.

Watch the whole video of

2022 Arthur C. Clarke Conversation on Imagination
View Full Bio
Video

The Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Dr. Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.

for his exceptional contributions as a Physican-Geneticist, and for his Human Genome Leadership

Dr. Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his previous leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.

He previously served as the 16th Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2009. In 2017, President Donald Trump asked Dr. Collins to continue to serve as the NIH Director. President Joe Biden did the same in 2021. For those 12 years, serving an unprecedented three administrations, Dr. Collins oversaw the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, spanning the spectrum from basic to clinical research.

Introduction and special remarks by
Dr. Collins friend and colleague, Anne Schuchat
Dr. Schuchat Bio
View Full Bio
Video

Imagination in Service to Society Awardee

Cory Doctorow

for his imaginative Science Fiction creations, and exceptional Journalism and Technology Activism.

The awardee for Imagination in Service to Society is a science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. Mr. Doctorow is also a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. He holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor. He is an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science.

In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. He has won the Locus, Prometheus, Copper Cylinder, White Pine and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards.

Introduction and special remarks by
friend and colleague, Erik Viirre.
Dr. Viirre Bio
View Full Bio
Video

The Sir Arthur Clarke Innovator’s Awardee

Esther Dyson

for her incomparable leadership and vision as an Internet Policy Pioneer and Investor, Journalist, Author, Commentator and Philanthropist.

As a member of the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC), chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and founding chairman of ICANN, Esther Dyson has helped mediate and inform public policy regarding privacy, encryption, trust, and the assignment of Internet domain names.

Ms. Dyson has been widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in technology policy for more than three decades. Though she is now mostly focused on human well-being and health (through the 10-year nonprofit community health and equity project she founded in 2014, Wellville), she is returning her gaze to Internet governance as the world approaches Web 3.0. She hopes to help it avoid the governance issues she saw clearly in Web 2.0.

Dyson continues to invest in start-up Internet companies and to serve on various boards that seek to influence public attitudes and policy.

Introduction and special remarks by
Ms. Dyson’s friend and colleague, Vinton Cerf
Dr. Cerf Bio