Future Forward on November 20th: We hope you'll join us

(From left: Colin Angle of iRobot, Michael Greeley of Foundation Medical, Dan Bricklin of Alpha Software, Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, and Mick Mountz of Kiva/Amazon. At Future Forward 2013.)

The annual Future Forward gathering takes place Thursday, November 20th at the Harvard Innovation Lab. It has two goals:

1.  Discuss as a group some of the trends, technologies, usage patterns, and market shifts that will matter in a big way in the year ahead.
2.  Connect you with some of the most interesting entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, and big company leaders in town.

That's it. There are 10-minute talks, followed by Q&A. There are lunch table discussions at the end. It's a half-day event (8 AM - 1 PM), and everyone there attends free, courtesy of our sponsors. But it's invite-only, so if you'd like to be there you need to tell us a bit about yourself (we tend to filter out multiple attendees from one company, since space is limited. Here's the list of companies represented last year.)

Our topics and speakers in 2014 will include:

GIANT ROBOTS: Gui Cavalcanti, Founder, Imagination Fabrication

ENERGY TECH: Rob Day, Partner, Black Coral Capital

CONSUMER HARDWARE: Ben Einstein, Managing Director, Bolt

PLATFORMS & NETWORKS: Tom Eisenmann, Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship

WHAT I'M SEEING AT BLADE: Paul English, CEO and Cofounder, Blade

THE FUTURE OF VENTURE CAPITAL: Michael Greeley, General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners

TAKING TO THE SKIES: Helen Greiner, CEO and Founder, CyPhy Works

MONITORING THE HOME: Michael Phillips, CEO, Sense

THE MAKER MOVEMENT: Jules Pieri, Co-founder and CEO, The Grommet

We'll also be joined by several Harvard students demoing their startup ventures.

And if you're interested in demoing a not-yet-launched product or leading a lunch table discussion on a topic that *you* think will be a big deal in 2015 (these aren't company pitches, but rather they focus on important shifts and emerging technologies), drop us a note.

For photos of last year's event, see Dan Bricklin's Flickr set.

Nantucket Conference 2014: Audio from selected sessions

Sharing some audio from last week's Nantucket Conference, including sessions with the CEOs of Etsy, Warby Parker, Shutterstock, Constant Contact, Indiegogo, and Birchbox. Only a few "off-the-record" moments were clipped out, but otherwise these are the sessions in their entirety. You can click play below, or click the "down arrow" once you've selected a track to download it for later listening.

Also... here's the video that Slava Rubin showed during his session.

And here's a montage of photos from the 2014 gathering. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped out!

Photo montage from the 2014 Convergence Forum

Featuring speakers, participants, and lots of lobsters. More detail about the Convergence Forum on Healthcare Innovation here.

Audio from the 2014 Convergence Forum on Healthcare Innovation

Sharing some audio here from the 2014 edition of the Convergence Forum, held May 15 and 16th in Chatham, Massachusetts. We had 13 sessions this year, including our smaller lunchtime conversations; this is the audio from five of the sessions in their entirety. To be added to the invite list for future editions, fill out this quick form.

Click any of the track titles above to begin playing them. (Pictured above are Cubist CEO Michael Bonney and Vicki Sato, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School.)

The "Young Entrepreneurs" cohort for Nantucket Conference 2014

Each year, a group of organizations and individuals underwrite free passes to the Nantucket Conference for a select group of founders under the age of 30. This year, the 15th year of the conference, our underwriters were 10X Venture Partners, Dyn, Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot, Alex Goldberg of Canary Ventures, Scott Weller of SessionM, Verizon, and the UNH Center for Entrepreneurship. We're grateful to them, and to everyone who applied for a pass. (It's not a scientific process — underwriters get to choose from the list of applicants.)

Here's the 2014 cohort of young entrepreneurs:

• David Brown, ReachPeeps
• Chris Cicchitelli, CastleOS Software
• Brent Grinna, EverTrue (also our newest Nantucket Conference advisory board member)
• Kris Hopkins, SkiSmart
• John Kelleher, Bitcoin Bills
• Jonathan Kim, AppCues
• Akansh Murthy, HermesIQ
• Moritz Plassnig, Codeship
• Nick Rellas, Drizly
• Bobby Touran, ApplyKit
• Laura Wallendal, EdTrips

We hope to see you next month on the island, when our featured speakers will include Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker, Slava Rubin of Indiegogo, Gail Goodman of Constant Contact, and Prat Vemana of Staples, among others. And if you haven't received an invite, you can request one here.

(Pictured above are past Young Entrepreneurs Program participants Peter Boyce, now an associate at General Catalyst Partners, and Ryan Dawidjan, now at WildCard.)

Apply now: Sponsored passes to Nantucket 2014 for founders 30 & under

The Young Entrepreneurs Program continues at Nantucket 2014, June 5-7. We offer a small number of passes to founders age 30 and younger, courtesy of underwriters.

Entrepreneurs can learn more or apply for one of these passes here. And we're always looking for more generous companies & individuals to underwrite passes. (You'll receive receive copious thanks and adulation at the event.) Learn about that opportunity here.

Speakers at this year's conference include CEOs and founders of Warby Parker, Etsy, Constant Contact, Birchbox, DataXu, Indiegogo, and Dragon Innovation. We hope to see you there.