The Spanish-centric conference of brilliant minds, known in Spanish as El Ser Creativo (ESC), began on Wednesday, with a wide variety of topics being discussed, from global climate change to liberty. ESC is a privately run conference, which was launched in 2010 in the southern Spanish city of Málaga. Elizabeth Iguarta Royston, the Manager and representative of the Sponsor and Speaker Relations, told Bikyamasr.com that the aim of ESC is “to bring to Spain a new kind of event that was never presented since all events are usually very corporate and treat a specific topic. A similar conference run in the United States known as TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design)has been criticized in the past as being elitist, due to the fact that attendance is invite only, and ticket prices are usually in the thousands of dollars. This is not the case with ESC Royston said. “We choose to present ideas in multiple areas and allow all kind of public to purchase their ticket. Our prices go from corporate that include dinners with speakers to student tickets that can even purchase them for single days instead of the whole event.”The event boasts many notable speakers, every one of them leaders in their own fields. Notable speakers include Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a gerontologist at the University of Cambridge, whose research into combating ageing is both controversial and promising. Other notable speakers include Jeremy Rifkin, an economist, sociologist, activist, writer, political advisor and former advisor to the then-president Bill Clinton. Rifkin was one of the many speakers there who spoke on environmental issues society is facing. “It is time to do the right thing for our species to survive,” Rifkin said during the conference. According to him this requires “a new economic vision based on the exploitation of shared renewable energy.” Rifkin proposes the idea of a third industrial revolution, currently underway as part of the ‘Internet age.' This third industrial revolution is the transition from fossil fuel based technology and dependency to new sustainable forms. According to his book The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, Rifkin realized that “the great economic revolutions in history occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems. Friday's conference will have a panel of speakers “that will talk about liberty, and we are going to hear about the meaning of the word by speakers of different continents, Dambisa Moyo (Africa), Shirin Ebadi (Iran), Bernard Henri Levy (France) and Wang Xiaoping (China),” Royston continued. “We will also listen to David Konzevik who years ago predicted the unrest in Northern Africa.” Royston concluded by saying their dream would be to make Madrid, the host for the 2012 ESC conference, the City of Knowledge. BM
