Remarks from David Gautschi and David Nagel
The two of us have been collaborating to build a community of people who are interested in the future of energy. People who want to share their ideas, their experiences, their concerns, and even their questions. People who want to work together to create practical solutions to real energy problems.
We have called this community “Forum2100.org”. Our goal is to build a global community of interested people from different walks of life who can learn from each other, and who can then apply these learnings in their local contexts. The primary lens for everything we examine is business. We want to look at the role business can play in addressing energy opportunities and energy concerns. We recognize that other lenses – such as public policy, regulations, and consumer choice – also play a role in shaping our energy future.
We also recognize that while many people are concerned about the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, energy security and energy affordability are also important concerns. The distribution of energy supply can be impacted by geopolitics, and energy poverty is a real and pressing concern in large parts of the world. Forum2100.org is interested in any business-based innovation that can improve the environment, enhance energy security, or make energy more affordable.
So that tells you a little bit about what we are trying to encourage. We had an inaugural meeting in New York City on May 5th, 2017. There were about 20 attendees, who unanimously agreed on the importance of forming a community to discuss business and energy. But then we wanted to do something to keep the conversation going! The community we are trying to build is spread across the globe – so it would be a significant logistical challenge to hold a lot of in-person meetings. Instead, we elected to hold a regular discussion online, and to invite interested members of the public to join us.
And this brings us to our “Business & Energy Talks”. We have created a 30-minute format which follows the general framework of Ted Talks. Each presenter – is provided up to 18 minutes – but not a second more! – to share their ideas with the online audience. All the talks will take place on Zoom.com. We send you the link a couple of days before the talk. You might want to log in a couple of minutes before the start time – as we will launch the discussion promptly to respect everyone’s time.
Each talk will be moderated by one of us, who will introduce the speaker and then let them make their presentation. We will then ask the speaker questions of our own, as well as questions submitted online by the audience. We will follow up each talk with an email summarizing the key points of the talk, plus answers to some of the questions we didn’t have time to cover. We’ll also include additional information such as the schedule of future “Business & Energy Talks”, and how to access the archive of prior talks.
If you would like to be a presenter at one of our future Business and Energy Talks, please contact us at this website with a general description of the topic you wish to cover, and we will follow up with you.
Any member of the public is welcome to participate in our “Business & Energy Talks”. If you’d like to become an official member of the Forum2100.org community – and create direct connections with other community members – you only need to do two things to apply:
- Send us a brief bio – one paragraph to one page max.
- Indicate which member of the Forum2100 community is sponsoring you. In most cases, this will be the person who told you about our talks. We hope you will join our next event.