2013 is the year that Singularity University will expand its presence abroad. On November 15, SU will launch the Summit Europe - bringing together thought leaders and high octane doers in various technology fields. SU will convene thought leaders and breakthrough companies to explore exponential technologies and their impact on generating further advances.
Founded in 2008, the program has grown from a small, elite institution to include a 10-week post-graduate program and will now travel across the pond for a European summit. Bognar says that the program had been held twice per year (once in spring and once in autumn), but they received so many requests from corporations, governments, and other groups for a special 2-day version of the program and organizers decided to simply go ahead and have a summit.
Budapest won the rights to hold the first global summit and a contributing factor for the victory may have been the presence of the EU’s European Institute Of Innovation And Technology, a center which opened in 2010 and aims to support innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the bloc. All key educators will arrive from NASA Research Park in California (where the university is based) to conduct the summit.
The 2-day program in Budapest will run attendees $2,600 (1,950 Euro) at full price and $2,000 (1,500 Euro) if you buy now. It’s considerably more expensive than most of the events we cover, but this is a meeting of the minds and is geared towards executives. They have a brochure on their site which indicates that speech-topics for the upcoming event can include talks about improvements in robotics, the innovations in biotechnology, and the future of medicine. On the second day of the event, they will also talks about entrepreneurship, time for startups to pitch, and will finish with a period for networking.
Singularity University was founded by Peter H. Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. The concept of a new university that could leverage the power of exponential technologies to solve humanity’s grand challenges was proposed in September 2008. The following year the campus was established at NASA Research Park – in the heart of Silicon Valley – and the first SU Executive and Graduate Studies programs were launched. At the campus at NASA Research Park in Moffett Field, California, they teach the thinkers, scientists, and business executives who are motivated to help change the world leveraging technologies such as robotics, genetics, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.
