Thursday, September 15, 2005
CNN, Clinton, Bono and then some
I was invited to attend a taping this morning of a special edition of CNN Connects, which featured a conversation between President Clinton and Christiane Amanpour. Or so I thought. In fact, it was an excellent panel discussion consisting of one main panel and a side panel. The main panel consisted of President Clinton, Queen Rania of Jordan, Wangari Maathai (the Kenyan Nobel peace prize winner), Jeff Sachs, Paul Wolfowitz and Bono. I was sitting in the second row waiting for President Clinton to walk in, when instead, a man in a dark blue jacket, black jeans and fly shades walks in. I suppose you could say I was pleasantly surprised, in light of my last post on this blog.
Anyways, the panel was held to coincide with the Clinton Global Initiative meetings taking place in New York this week. What made the discussion special was not just the terrific main panel, but the calibre of people on the side panel. They included Mohammed Younus (of Grameen Bank), Jim Zogby, C.K.Prahalad, Senator John Glenn (also the orbiter), Abdullah Abdullah (foreign minister of Afghanistan), Ted Turner and so on. The discussions ranged from global poverty and economic development to climate change to religious conflict and reconciliation. The main discussions were followed by a half hour Q&A session, which involved questions from the audience and from the side panel.
If you are interested, as I am, in the whole idea of making the private sector, capital markets and technology work towards catalyzing economic development, the Global Initiative might well be a good place to keep track of, if today's discussion was any indication. The investment and enterprise group at CGI also consists of some very interesting cats including President Zedillo, George Soros, Hernando DeSoto and Hank Paulson.
PS:I have no idea when this special airs on CNN, but keep a watchout for CNN Connects, featuring Christiane Amanpour and President Clinton. It's on right now (4 pm EST) on CNN International.
PPS: For some reason, Parmeshwar Godrej was sitting in the audience, unless I am badly mistaken. I had no idea she was interested in this sort of discussion.
Anyways, the panel was held to coincide with the Clinton Global Initiative meetings taking place in New York this week. What made the discussion special was not just the terrific main panel, but the calibre of people on the side panel. They included Mohammed Younus (of Grameen Bank), Jim Zogby, C.K.Prahalad, Senator John Glenn (also the orbiter), Abdullah Abdullah (foreign minister of Afghanistan), Ted Turner and so on. The discussions ranged from global poverty and economic development to climate change to religious conflict and reconciliation. The main discussions were followed by a half hour Q&A session, which involved questions from the audience and from the side panel.
If you are interested, as I am, in the whole idea of making the private sector, capital markets and technology work towards catalyzing economic development, the Global Initiative might well be a good place to keep track of, if today's discussion was any indication. The investment and enterprise group at CGI also consists of some very interesting cats including President Zedillo, George Soros, Hernando DeSoto and Hank Paulson.
PS:
PPS: For some reason, Parmeshwar Godrej was sitting in the audience, unless I am badly mistaken. I had no idea she was interested in this sort of discussion.
