This page is an archive of COSM 2021. COSM is an exclusive national summit on the converging technologies remaking the world as we know it. For decades, George Gilder has written presciently about the technological revolutions shaping our world, from the microchip in Microcosm, broadband in Telecosm, and now the cryptocosm in Life After Google. What a world: artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G, crypto-currency, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing, the biotech revolution, and internet commerce — all are converging in Seattle, and at COSM. The mission of the conference is to stimulate debate and deliberation amongst industry leaders on the unities animating these apparently divergent technology areas. The future meets here.
Held at the Bellevue Hyatt on November 10-12, the summit illuminates the synergy between Seattle and the world and provides a scene of civilized conversation and exchange. It highlights the global tide of innovations from this pullulating pacific haven of leading tech companies and celebrates innovation and human creativity, while examining threats to its continued dominance both here and abroad. Provoking debate and deliberation on the cosmic unities fusing apparently divergent technologies and conflicting empires, our mission is to acclaim the accomplishments, while reclaiming the values and virtues that made them possible. From artificial intelligence and blockchain to 5G and WiFi6, from tokenized time to blockchain, from cloud computing to the quantum revolution, from the “spatial web” to the efflorescence of space flight, it is all ascending in Seattle, and at COSM.
Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor. He cofounded PayPal, led it as CEO, and took it public; he made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he serves as a director; and he cofounded Palantir Technologies, where he serves as chairman. He has provided early funding for LinkedIn, Yelp, and dozens of startups, many run by former colleagues who have been dubbed the “PayPal Mafia.” He is a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded companies including SpaceX and Airbnb. He started the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young entrepreneurs, and he leads the Thiel Foundation, which works to advance technological progress and long-term thinking. He is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to …
Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Professor of Innovation
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August 5, 2022
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Metcalfe is an engineer and entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe’s law, which describes the effect of a telecommunications network. Since January 2011, he has been Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise. Metcalfe has received various awards, including the IEEE Medal of Honor and National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his work developing Ethernet technology. In addition to his accomplishments, Metcalfe has made several predictions which failed to come to pass, separately forecasting the demise of the Internet, wireless networks, and open-source software during the …
He received his graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. From 2000 to 2001 he was with Nanovation Technologies as a designer and product manager for photonic devices. From 2001 to 2003 he was a postdoctoral fellow in chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University working on self-assembly, biomedical devices (he co-invented the method resulting in the founding of Claros Diagnostics Inc. (acquired by OPKO Health)), and organic devices. He has been an assistant professor (2003-2008), an associate professor (2008-2012), and an affiliate professor (2012-present) in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Washington. He was with Google from 2010 to 2014 where he was a Google Distinguished Engineer and a Director at Google . He is the creator of …
Matt invests in a broad range of software and data driven companies with a focus on cloud computing, dataware, intelligent applications and the intersections of innovation (where life science and data science intersect). He believes in the Learning Loop for entrepreneurs who journey from curiosity to triangulation and decision making. This leads to positive outcomes and ongoing learnings. Before joining Madrona in 2000, Matt was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC). He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology-driven sectors and prior to that worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse. For more about Matt and lessons learned from 20 years of VC investing, traits of …
Ms. Kristin Zimmerman has been Managing Director at Morgan Stanley since January 2017. Ms. Zimmerman served as an Administrative Associate for Cherokee Investment Partners, LLC. She manages the accounts for Cherokee International Management, LLC, Cherokee International Services Limited and Fairview Global Real Estate. She joined Cherokee in 2001. She is ranked 1st in her class. Outside of work and school, she is one of North Carolina’s top professional horse trainers with over 100 students, including state, regional and national champions. Ms. Zimmerman is also a student at North Carolina State University where she is majoring in political science with a law and political theory concentration. LinkedIn …
Ari Emanuel is an American businessman and the CEO of Endeavor, an entertainment and media agency. He was a founding partner of the Endeavor Talent Agency and was instrumental in shaping its June 2009 merger with the William Morris Agency. …
Speaker Newt Gingrich is Chairman of Gingrich 360, a multimedia production and consulting company based in Arlington, Virginia. As former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Gingrich is well known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994, creating the first conservative majority in the House in 40 years. He was a Republican candidate for President of the United States in 2012. Gingrich is a Fox News contributor, podcast host (Newt’s World), and syndicated columnist. He is the author of 40 books, including 18 fiction and nonfiction New York Times bestsellers. His latest books include Trump and the American Future: Solving the Great Problems of Our …
Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president for the Information Platform & Experience team at Microsoft Corp., and is part of the Online Services Division’s senior leadership team. He is responsible for vision, product strategy and R&D for the Bing services and platform that includes mobile, mapping, and speech. Pall joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer. He has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure, starting with LAN Manager Remote Access Service. Pall was part of the Windows NT development team, working on the first version of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 as a software design engineer, all the way through Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of core …
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and president of Sinovation Venture’s Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures, managing US$1.7 billion dual currency investment funds, is a leading technology investment firm focusing on developing the next generation of Chinese high-tech companies. Prior to founding Sinovation in 2009, Dr. Lee was the president of Google China. Before this, he held executive positions at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Dr. Lee received his Bachelor degree from Computer Science from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Carnegie Mellon and the City University of Hong Kong. He is the author of seven top selling books in Chinese and launched AI Superpowers …
Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, CEO of the Digital Power Group (a tech-centric capital advisory group), faculty fellow at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and an advisory board member of Notre Dame University’s Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values. Previously, he cofounded and was chief tech strategist of Digital Power Capital, a boutique venture fund, and was chairman and CTO of ICx Technologies, helping take it public in a 2007 IPO. Mr. Mills is a contributor to Forbes.com and coauthor of The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005; Number One on Amazon’s science and math rankings). His articles have been published in …
Philip M. Parker is a Professor of Marketing at INSEAD and the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Management Science. Before joining INSEAD, he was a Professor of International Strategy and Economics at the University of California, San Diego. He has taught at Harvard University, MIT, Stanford University, and UCLA, and delivered courses in various countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe. He has degrees in Finance and Economics, and a PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. …
Stephen is the Chief Architect with Microsofts’ Worldwide Services. After joining Microsoft in 1999 he has worked with more than 35 government agencies spanning the Department of Defense, Civilian, Intelligence, Healthcare, State and Local organizations as well the Gates Foundation and pseudo-government groups such as Red Cross, and the United Nations. He has presented for Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence Group (EEG), the International Association for Software Architecture (IASA), Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Conference (TwC) as well as being a speaker for the Project Management Institute (PMI). His work on combining Agile and formal practices and recovering failing projects has been published in the IEEE library and elsewhere. He is a co-author of the Practical …
Technology Analyst and Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
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August 5, 2021
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Bret Swanson is a visiting fellow at AEI’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy and president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic research firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy. He advises investors and technology companies, focusing on the Internet ecosystem and the broadband networks and applications that drive it. Swanson is also a scholar at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, where, since 2005, his research has centered on economic growth and policies that encourage it. For eight years Swanson advised technology investors as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report and later was a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, where he directed the Center for Global Innovation. Swanson began his career as an …
Dan is a Founder of Verses Technologies Inc — an advanced Artificial Intelligence and Spatial Networking company. He is also a founder and architect of the spatial web — the next generation of the Internet (IEEE Standard P2874). These two projects work together to deliver a new generation of globally, networked, Smart Software Solutions for Businesses, Governments, Education and Health organizations. VERSES has offices in the US, Europe and Asia and is currently developing the Europe-wide Drone Management Standards for the European Commission. Dan also co-authored the best-selling book – The Spatial Web – and is often a keynote speaker on the impact of technology on business and society. …
Director, Quantum Alliance Initiative, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Editor
August 5, 2021
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Arthur Herman is a senior fellow and director of the Quantum Alliance Initiative at Hudson Institute. His research programs analyze defense, energy, and technology issues. Dr. Herman is the author of nine books, including the New York TimesBest Seller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (which the Economist named one of its Best Books of 2012), To Rule the Waves, Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior, and 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder. Dr. Herman is a frequent contributor …
COSM 2021: Paradoxes of the New World of Technology
What a world: artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G, crypto-currency, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing, the biotech revolution, and internet commerce. The mission of the conference is to stimulate debate and deliberation amongst industry leaders on the unities animating these apparently divergent technology areas. The future meets now.
Steve Buri — President, Discovery Institute George Gilder — Author, Technology Futurist, Co-Founder of Discovery Institute
12:10
Is Technology Soaring or Slumping?
Peter Thiel — Technology Entrepreneur, Investor, Philanthropist George Gilder — Author, Technology Futurist, Co-Founder of Discovery Institute
1PM
Not Showing at a Theater Near You
Navigating the New Media Landscape
Ari Emanuel — CEO, Endeavor
1:30
Networking Break
2PM
NFTs: The Reinvention of Property
In the case of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, actual ownership with legal standing is never in fact transferred for the underlying digital file. What makes NFTs valuable? And what does it mean to own them?
George Gilder (moderator) — Author, Technology Futurist, Co-Founder of Discovery Institute Bill Dembski — Mathematician and Philosopher Jules Urbach — Founder and CEO, OTOY
2:45
Break
3PM
Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
Setting the annus horribilis of 2020 in historical perspective, Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters. The lessons of history that this country — indeed the West as a whole — urgently need to learn, if we want to handle the next crisis better, and to avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline.
Steve Buri — President, Discovery Institute Niall Ferguson — Historian and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution George Gilder — Author, Technology Futurist, Co-Founder of Discovery Institute
4PM
Knowledge vs. Doom
The Time-Price Revolution
Gale Pooley — Associate Professor of Business Management, BYU Hawaii
4:30
Adjournment (Dinner on your own)
All times, sessions, speakers, and panels are subject to change.
7:30-
Thursday Breakfast (provided)
9AM
The Cloud Revolution and the Convergence of New Technologies
Unleashing the Next Economic Boom
Mark Mills — Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
9:30
Quantum Computing
What Does it Change?
Julie Love — Director of Quantum Computing Business Development, Microsoft Corporation
10:15
Innovations in Biotech
Killing Disease and Living Longer
Matt McIlwain (moderator) — Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group Stephen C. Meyer— Director, Center for Science and Culture Jim Tour — T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Rice University Matthew Scholz — CEO, OISIN Biotechnologies
11AM
Break
11:10
The Nanotech Revolution
Our Zero-Waste Energy Future
Jim Tour — T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Rice University
11:30
The New IC
From Nanoscale to Waferscale
Andrew Feldman — Founder and CEO, Cerebras Systems Pierre de Rochemont — Founder, Frontier NanoSystems, LLC Sean Lie — Co-founder & Chief Hardware Architect, Cerebras Systems
Luncheon
NOON
You Control the Algorithm
The Next Generation of Internet Search
Phil Parker — Founder – Botipedia, INSEAD Chair Professor of Management Science
12:30
Blockchain and the New COSM Architecture
Telecom expert Dan Berninger will facilitate a discussion examining the past, present, and future of the Internet. Together they will outline a compelling picture of a next generation internet that is less cumbersome, more efficient, and more secure.
Daniel Berninger (moderator) — Independent Communications Architect Bob Metcalfe — Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Professor of Innovation Gurdeep Pall — Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Dan Mapes — Founder, Verses Technologies Inc
1:30
Networking Break
2PM
Is It the End for Silicon Valley?
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new era of hybrid work, and allowed many workers to operate remotely. What does this mean for major tech centers like Silicon Valley and Seattle? And what are the advantages for competitors like Austin and Miami?
Babak Parviz (moderator) — Vice President, Amazon Inc. Mayor Lynne Robinson — City of Bellevue Walter Myers III — Principal Engineering Manager, Microsoft Bob Metcalfe — Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Professor of Innovation
3PM
Break
3:15
The Great China Debate
Mariana Parks — Board Member, Discovery Institute Bret Swanson (moderator) — Technology Analyst, Visiting Fellow AEI Newt Gingrich (via videoconference) — Former Speaker, US House of Representatives George Gilder — Author, Technology Futurist, Co-Founder of Discovery Institute
4PM
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence
Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do
Erik J. Larson — Author, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence
4:30
Break
4:45
In the Auditorium (3rd floor) Botipedia Demonstration (Optional)
The Next Generation of Internet Search
Phil Parker— Founder – Botipedia, INSEAD Chair Professor of Management Science
6PM
Hosted Reception
7PM
A Keynote Dinner in Three Parts
Steve Buri (welcome) — President, Discovery Institute
The State of the Ether: A Discussion
George Gilder — Co-founder, Discovery Institute Bob Metcalfe — Internet Pioneer, Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Professor of Innovation
Reflections on Twenty COSMs
Carver Mead — Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied, California Institute of Technology
AI 2041: Ten Visions of Our Future
The former president of Google China and bestselling author of AI Superpowers imagines our world in 2041 and how it will be shaped by AI. By gazing toward a not-so-distant horizon, Lee offers urgent insights into our collective future — while reminding readers that, ultimately, humankind remains the author of its destiny.
Kai-Fu Lee (via videoconference from China) — Computer Scientist, businessman, and writer
All times, sessions, speakers, and panels are subject to change.
7:30AM
Friday Breakfast (provided)
9AM
SPACs, IPOs, and Direct Listings
New Tools to Unlock Capital Markets
Matt McIlwain (moderator) — Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group Kristin Zimmerman — Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Michael Nordtvedt — Partner at Wilson Sonsini Bryan Mistele — CEO, INRIX
10AM
Artificial Intelligence, Cyberwarfare, and Military Preparedness
Hanna Tomory (moderator) — Deployment Strategist Stephen Meyer — Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute Arthur Herman — Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute Robert J. Marks — Director, Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
11AM
Will Wi-Fi 6 and LEOs Be the Real 5G?
Bret Swanson (moderator) — Technology Analyst, Visiting Fellow AEI Gilad Garon — Co-founder and CEO, ASOCS Stephen Cohen— Chief Architect, Worldwide Enterprise Services, Microsoft George Gilder — Co-Founder, Discovery Institute
