University Times

President Barack Obama will travel to Pittsburgh Oct. 13 to host the White House Frontiers Conference in partnership with Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University.

The event will bring together some of the world’s leading innovators 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.

The conference will focus on building the nation’s capacity in science, technology and innovation, and advances toward five “frontiers” of innovation:

• Personal frontiers in health care innovation and precision medicine;
• Local frontiers in building smart, inclusive communities, including investments in open data;
• 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 include 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.

The conference will include topics inspired by the November issue of WIRED, which will be guest-edited by Obama. The theme of the issue is “Frontiers.”
Details on the exact location of the conference were not available as the University Times went to press. To learn more about the conference, visit FrontiersConference.org.