Sarasota Looks for International Luster from Day of Lectures

PINC Sarasota will bring in global speakers on a variety of inspiring topics

When people leave Florida Studio Theater on Nov. 6, Anand Pallegar wants them to feel energized and to be brimming with new ideas. That is the whole premise behind the inaugural PINC.Sarasota event, which in less than two weeks will take over the theater in downtown Sarasota for a whole day.

PINC, which stands for People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity, will bring 16 international storytellers from a wide variety of backgrounds to Sarasota for the first time

“It’s an interactive experience about sharing and building ideas,” said Pallegar, founder of Sarasota-based At Large Inc., a services innovation company

Pallegar worked with Olivier Van Lindonk and his wife, Karen Fay, to bring the event from Europe to the United States.

Local tourism, community and education boosters see the appeal of the event and hope it draws creative minds to Southwest Florida. They compare it with the better-known TED Talks ó creative and unique discussions around the world that began in California.

“It’s like TED Talks on steroids,” said Mark Pritchett, senior vice president with Gulf Coast Community Foundation. “One of our priorities in our grant-making initiatives is building an innovation economy in the Sarasota region. “When Anand came to us for help, it made sense for us to be a sponsor.”

Like the Gulf coast Community Foundation andThe Ringling College of Art and Design and Visit Sarasota also are PINC.Sarasota sponsors.ing the inaugural event.

John Barker, professor of experimental trauma and orthopedic surgery (Germany)

Barker’s research led to one of the world’s first human face transplants. At PINC.Sarasota, Barker will discuss his new research that focuses on a patient’s ability to harness the body’s inherent regenerative capabilities to regrow the patient’s own face instead of transplanting faces from donors.

David Gallo, director of special projects, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (USA)

Gallo has been on expeditions to the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceansa and the Mediterranean Sea, and was among the first oceanographers to use a combination of manned submersibles and robots to map the undersea world. He helped in the search for Malaysian Airline flight MH370.

Bunker Roy, social activist and founder, Barefoot College (India)

Roy was the winner of the 2013 Clinton Global Citizen Award and was selected as one of the TIME 100 Most Influential Personalities in 2010 for his work in educating illiterate and semi-literate rural Indians.

Rob Swan, arctic explorer (U.K.)

Swan is the first person to walk to both the North and South poles. His 900-mile journey to the South Pole stands as the longest unassisted walk ever made on Earth. Swan has served as special envoy to the UNESCO director general and as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Youth.

Dorji Wangchuk, engineer, filmmaker, journalist (Bhutan)

Wangchuk is an adjunct professor for media studies at the Royal University of Bhutan. He was formerly the director of the Royal Office for Media and press secretary to the royal family of Bhutan. Wangchuk pioneered the introduction of TV in Bhutan in 1999.

Martin Oeggerli, micronaut (Switzerland)

Oeggerli, a science photographer who takes photos of the microcosm, explores inner space. His camera is a scanning electron microscope that produces high-resolution images in which minuscule details are enlarged up to 500,000:1.

Alexander Kumar, doctor, photographer and scientific explorer (U.K.)

Kumar is a British-born, part-Indian medical doctor who has lived, worked and traveled to 80 countries on all seven continents and is an experienced expedition medic to remote areas of the world. He conducted the first piece of research on HIV among Inuit.

Dickson Despommier, founder, Vertical Farming Project (U.S.)

Despommier’s idea is to strive to replace traditional, horizontal farming with vertical greenhouses that can produce anything from grain crops and vegetables, to poultry, pork and fish. He is an emeritus professor at Columbia University and adjunct professor at Fordham University.

Alan Moore, writer and consultant (U.K.)

Moore’s book, “No Straight Lines,” sketches a vision of the network society that is currently evolving. Moore warns that companies and organizations that fail to convert to a more democratic form of leadership will ultimately fall by the wayside.

Jon Jefferson, author and documentary-maker (U.S.)

The documentary film maker has produced projects for the History Channel, Arts & Entertainment Network and others. His attention turned to forensic science when he produced two National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm, a research facility at the University of Tennessee created to unravel the mysteries of postmortem human decay.

Nadja Schnetzler, founder of BrainStore (Switzerland)

Schnetzler helped found one of the world’s first “idea factories,” and wrote “The Idea Machine,” a method for systematic idea development that she co-created and used in more than 600 projects.

Joost Elffers, publisher and creator “Play With Your Food” (The Netherlands)

Whether the subject is the cutting of cheese or the uniform of former American Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Elffers has a story to tell. In 1973, Elffers produced Tangram, an old Chinese puzzle, of which 1.5 million copies were sold worldwide.

Christopher Lloyd, journalist, author, publisher, lecturer (U.K.)

Lloyd launched the first online edition of The Sunday Times and became its Web editor. Five years later, he was appointed CEO of Immersive Education, an education software publishing company based in Oxford, England.

Miles Rohan, senior director of digital asset management at Nickelodeon (U.S.)

Rohan also is one of the founders of The Corduroy Appreciation Club, which is a group for those who share a passion for the comfort and rough elegance of their preferred fabric.

Wiebe Wieling, president of the Eleven Cities Tour (The Netherlands)

Wieling is the president of the Koninklijke Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden, a 200-kilometer race on natural ice. It also is called the “Tour of Tours” because of its harsh conditions and physical challenges. The last race was 17 years ago. Wieling finished the “Elfstedentocht” twice.

“The event has a solid reputation internationally, and the ability to bring something so forward-thinking to Sarasota seemed like a perfect fit for us,” said Erin Duggan, director of brand with Visit Sarasota, the county’s tourism agency.

“This is giving us the ability to market the destination and offer visitor information to those who are considering attending and the many internationally based speakers,” Duggan said. “Word of mouth is a powerful tool for us. If internationally known speakers enjoy their time here and talk positively about their experience, it will have a positive impact on tourism here.”

A Dutch beginning

The creative confab has nearly doubled in size since it began in The Netherlands 15 years ago. The Sarasota conference will run as a sister event to the original, which continues to be held annual in the Dutch town of Zeist.

The public is invited to attend and hear 20-minute talks by the 16 speakers. The list of speakers attending the event have yet to be announced.Lunch and dinner are included with PINC admission. The dinner will be at The Francis, next to Louie’s Modern in downtown Sarasota.

Dickson Despommier, founder of the Vertical Farming Project and a professor at Columbia University, is among the speakers coming to Sarasota for the first time.

Despommier, who is among the early pioneers of vertical, or indoor, farming, has lectured at TED Talks and the Netherlands PINC event.

“PINC is far more personal than TED Talks. I was invited because I was teaching people about something they’d never heard of before. That’s what this is all about,” he said. Topics discussed will include oceanography, orthopaedic surgery and business innovation in addition to vertical farming.

“Hosting a conference like PINC really shows what’s so magnificent about Sarasota,” Ringling College president Larry Thompson said. “We live on the creative coast, where the arts and culture organizations are top notch and there are a lot of creative endeavors going on around us.”

“I am really hopeful that PINC.Sarasota finds a home permanently in Sarasota, so we can continue to take these creative and innovative approaches and help apply them to all kinds of businesses in the area, not just the arts,” Thompson said.

“This event belongs here.”