Forward Thinking: A FORA.tv Original Series

We're thrilled to invite you to watch our first original video series, Forward Thinking.




The four episodes salute visionary leaders in the fields of music, architecture, design, and business:

Ge Wang - Co-founder and CTO of Smule, assistant professor of music at Stanford University



Rachel Armstrong - Fellow at University College of London's Barlett School of Architecture, Medical Doctor, TED Fellow



John Maeda - President of Rhode Island School of Design



Jacqueline Novogratz - Founder and CEO of Acumen Fund



These remarkable individuals are distinguished by their original approaches to vexing problems, and more important, by their roles in spreading big ideas.

We'd like to thank Mercedes-Benz, our series sponsor, and Halogen Networks, our business partner on this exciting project.

We invite you to enjoy this FORA.tv Original Series.

Live Today: Shai Agassi and the Trillion Dollar Transportation Opportunity

FORA.tv is pleased to present tonight a LIVE Premium Event featuring Shai Agassi, Better Place founder and CEO. The program begins at 7 PM PT and is hosted by the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.

Agassi has what has been called a "breathtakingly ambitious" systems-based approach to electrify the automobile and help free the world from its dependence on oil. This is a rare chance to hear directly from Agassi his perspectives and preconditions on how the transportation will continue to unfold and the role that Silicon Valley and the wider investor community can play.

REGISTER NOW to join us and participate in this unique conversation on the upcoming transportation revolution.

Live Today: Social Entrepreneurship in America with Conchy Bretos

FORA.tv is pleased to present tonight a LIVE Premium Event featuring Conchy Bretos, Ashoka Fellow and CEO of MIA Consulting. The program begins at 6 PM PT and is hosted by the Commonwealth Club.

Tonight's discussion is part of Social Entrepreneurship in America, a Commonwealth Club special series featuring leadership thinkers and pioneers in the field of social entrepreneurship. Running through March 2011, this 13-part series includes such notable speakers as Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, Sally Osberg of the Skoll Foundation, Premal Shah of Kiva, and Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund.

About tonight's speaker:
Conchy Bretos
CEO, MIA Consulting Group, Ashoka Fellow
In 1993 Conchy Bretos was appointed to the job of Florida Secretary for Aging and Adult Services, a position that allowed her to see firsthand the thousands of low-income elders and disabled adults who were not getting the service they needed to stay in their homes. As a result, many ended up in nursing homes prematurely, because they could not afford in-home care or assisted living facilities. Bretos became the driving force behind the nation's first public housing project - the Helen Sawyer building in Miami - to bring assisted living services to older adults who just need a little help to stay in their homes. Today she runs a consulting company that has helped 40 public housing projects in a dozen states bring assisted living services to their residents.

Be sure to REGISTER NOW for this remarkable series.

For more information, visit Social Entrepreneurship in America.

Winners Announced for Wired Business Conference Twitter Contest!

It's with great pleasure that we announce the five lucky winners of free online passes to the Wired Business Conference: Disruptive by Design, streaming live on June 14 at FORA.tv.

Thank you to everyone who retweeted the contest message.

The five winners are:

@scotsullivan




@vpsingh




@FatBlood




@motiooon




@GeoffSlaughter




Congratulations to the five of you, from all of us at FORA.tv!

The Wired Business Conference is now less than a week away. Register now to join us on June 14 for this landmark event.













Disruption happens.
How you respond is what separates the leaders from the left behind.

Experience The WIRED Business Conference: Disruptive by Design live, as it happens!

On June 14, disrupters of the first order will convene at the Morgan Library in New York to talk to Wired Magazine editors on how to respond to change, and how to use it to your advantage. From start-up founders to CEOs of huge companies what these speakers share is an aversion to business as usual. How you decide to respond is what separates the leaders from the left behind. Today's smartest executives know that disruption is constant and inevitable. They've learned to absorb the shockwave that change brings, and can use that energy to transform their companies and their careers.

This year's speakers include:

* Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine
* William J. Bratton, Chairman, Altegrity Risk International; Former Commissioner, NYPD and Chief, LAPD
* Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution; Cofounder, America Online
* Caterina Fake, Cofounder, Hunch
* Bre Pettis, Cofounder, Makerbot Industries; Cofounder, NYC Resistor
* Mark Pincus, Founder, CEO, & Chief Product Officer, Zynga Game Network
* Vivian Schiller, President and CEO, NPR
* Clay Shirky, Author; Adjunct Professor, Interactive Telecommunications Program - NYU
* Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President, and CEO, FedEx Corporation
* Howard Schultz, Chairman, President, & CEO, Starbucks Coffee Company

Follow us on Twitter @foratv. We look forward to seeing you!

See Christopher Hitchens LIVE on FORA.tv this Friday at 7:00 PM EDT

LIVE on FORA.tv:
Christopher Hitchens at the New York Public Library
Friday June 4, 2010 7:00 PM EDT
SUBSCRIBE TODAY

On Friday, June 4 one of the world's most provocative intellectuals comes to the New York Public Library for a conversation with Paul Holdengraber, Director of LIVE from the NYPL -- and to the Internet, for a live webcast on FORA.tv.

FORA.tv proudly invites you to watch this extraordinary NYPL event live on your computer from anywhere in the world.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY



Hitch-22: Some Confessions and Contradictions
A Memoir

How did Christopher Hitchens become Hitchens?

Christopher Hitchens, tackling nearly everything with unmatched enthusiasm, erudition and, at times venom, has up to now barely touched upon one subject: his own life.

After many years writing about world issues and traveling to some of the most dangerous places on the planet, comes his memoir Hitch-22. Though Hitchens can navigate any argument with great dexterity, his memoir focuses on those whom he has loved, those he has abhorred, and those who have helped shape him throughout his life. The memoir answers this question: How the hell did Christopher Hitchens become Christopher Hitchens?

With tenderness he writes about his parents -his mother Yvonne, in particular, “a beautiful woman who loves me” and about his father, Commander Hitchens, whose “liver was that of a hero.” In a form that is anything but shy, Hitchens describes his complex and warm relationship with his mother, whose Jewish heritage he discovered only after her suicide.

The memoir naturally touches upon friendships, both lost and found over the course of his life. Hitchens' many sketches of friendships and ex-friendships from Martin Amis to Noam Chomsky, Edward Said to Gore Vidal are delivered in a style that is at once ironic, witty and tough-minded. A legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for literature, Hitchens has at times ridiculed those who claim the personal is political, even though he has often seemed to illustrate that very idea.

Paul Holdengräber, Director of LIVE from the NYPL, in conversation with Christopher Hitchens, will goad him to help bring into focus the many sides of Hitch, thereby illustrating Robert Frost's dictum that "a liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel."

FORA.tv + YouTube = 25,000 Subscribers!

Hooray! We just passed the 25,000 subscribers mark on the FORA.tv YouTube channel.

A big thank you from all of us at FORA.tv to all 25,074 of you (and counting).

These numbers put us above other big media outlets. For instance, CBS News has 19,000 subscribers, CNN 17,000 subscribers, and Fox News about 11,000 subscribers.

So, another HUGE congrats to our manager of syndication, Nick Ryan, and to our passionate, engaged community of subscribers on YouTube. The FORA.tv YouTube channel is distinguished not only by the high-quality of its video programs, but most important, by the insightful comments of its viewers.

So, if you haven't yet visited us on YouTube, we invite you to join the conversation:

http://youtube.com/foratv

Live Event: The Churchill Club's 12th Annual Top Ten Trends Debate

What new trends will take shape in the year ahead?

Find out at one of the Churchill Club’s most anticipated programs of the year: The 12th Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate.

Watch this FORA.tv Premium Event LIVE at 7:10 pm on May 19th, and ON-DEMAND afterwards.

Join us as we welcome the techno-industries’ leading (and most opinionated) visionaries as they make predictions for the year ahead. Our usual live audience of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest—all with opinions of their own—will be asked to agree or disagree.

Speakers:
Ron Conway, Angel Investor, SV Angel
Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings
Kevin Efrusy, General Partner, Accel Partners
Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
David Weiden, General Partner, Khosla Ventures

Moderator:
Tony Perkins, Founder, AlwaysOn

BONUS: At the end of the evening, one of the panelists will be voted this year's Trend Idol!