President Obama to Host White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH—President Obama will travel to Pittsburgh Oct. 13 to host the White House Frontiers Conference, a national convening that the White House is cohosting with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University to explore the future of innovation here and around the world. The convening will include topics in the November issue of WIRED, which will be guest-edited by the president on the theme of “Frontiers.” The conference will focus on building U.S. capacity in science, technology, and innovation, and the new technologies, challenges, and goals that will continue to shape the 21st century and beyond.

The White House Frontiers Conference will bring together some of the world’s leading innovators in Pittsburgh to discuss how investing in science and technology frontiers will help improve lives, including progress and investments that are keeping America and Americans on the cutting edge of innovation.

“We at Pitt are very pleased to partner with Carnegie Mellon to host the White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, a city developing a reputation as an innovation hub,” said Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. “This is a welcomed opportunity to bring notice to the city and its commitment to the importance of supporting research and development, and to further the message of the need for continued support of science at a national level.”

The conference will include programming featuring five “Frontiers” of innovation:

• Personal frontiers in health care innovation and precision medicine;
• Local frontiers in building smart, inclusive communities, including through investments in open data and the Internet of things;
• National frontiers in harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence, data science, machine learning, automation, and robotics to engage and benefit all Americans;
• Global frontiers in accelerating the clean energy revolution and developing advanced climate information, tools, services, and collaborations; and
• Interplanetary frontiers in space exploration, including our journey to Mars.

Additional themes will cut across the conference’s programming, including the importance of cross-sector collaboration for solving difficult challenges; education innovation to develop skills for Americans at all levels; job creation across these sectors; and equity, to ensure all Americans have access to these innovations and benefit from advances in these frontiers.

Over the past eight years, President Obama has committed his administration to reinvigorating and broadening participation in the American scientific enterprise through a strong commitment to basic and applied research, innovation, modernization, and education.

To learn more about the conference, please visit FrontiersConference.org.

The University of Pittsburgh, among the longest-established institutions of higher learning in the United States, is a nationally and internationally renowned public research university offering programs in the arts, sciences, humanities, professions, and health sciences. Pitt ranks fifth among all U.S. universities in grant funding awarded by the National Institutes of Health and is among the nation’s leading public research universities, according to The Top American Research Universities report issued by The Center for Measuring University Performance. Serving more than 34,000 students on five campuses, the University offers 400 degree programs through its 16 schools and colleges.

###

8/30/16/klf/jm