Climate Change: The Multi-faceted Challenge of a Just Transition to a Cleaner Energy Future
This first discussion will provide you a practicable global perspective on the four key challenges in tackling climate change and to move the world to a cleaner energy future.
The Hitchhikers Guide to New Energy Solutions
An exploration of the key solutions needed to achieve the shift to a cleaner energy future – this session will be full of surprises and will be in non tech speak!
The Energy Future and Social Inequality
There are unintended consequences as we drive towards a cleaner energy future – paradoxically energy is both the basis for growing prosperity and if done badly exacerbates social inequality.
Peter Bryant is a recognized thought leader and expert on the energy and mining sectors and especially the energy transition. He lives in Southern California, having immigrated to the US in 1996, from New Zealand by way of Australia, and has two daughters, one a doing her Masters at SMU and the youngest a rising senior in high school. He is widely published on these themes, including appearing on CNBC and being quoted by the Wall St. Journal, and sits on the Board of Advisors for two leading VC Funds, Chrysalix and Foundamental, that have a focus on multiple heavy industries, and also various emerging tech companies including Lilac Solutions, Symboticware and Safe.AI. In addition, he has served on the Innovation Councils for multiple mining and energy companies. He is an active speaker, including at COP26; CERAWeek 2022 and is an advisor and speaker for The Future Minerals Summit and Ministerial Roundtable 2023 in Saudi Arabia plus a keynote at the New Zealand Prime Ministers 2019 Just Transition to Net Zero Emissions Summit. His numerous writings have also included policy papers for a recent Ministerial Roundtable. Peter has advised many leading companies including Anglo American, BHP, Rio Tinto, Teck Resources, JCI, BP, GE O&G, Baker Hughes, Castrol, Edison International and Goldcorp.
Pamela Smilow grew up surrounded by art. Her father was a modern furniture designer, sculptor and painter. She was raised in a unique cooperative community founded by Frank Lloyd Wright, where all the modern homes were integrated into their natural surroundings. New York City, with its myriad museums and cultural opportunities, was her backyard. From a very early age, she knew that she wanted to be an artist. Although primarily self-taught in art, Pam did attend the University of Michigan (B.A., 1978) and spent one year studying ceramics at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France. She had her first one-woman show in Ann Arbor, Michigan when she was twenty-one and has continued to paint and exhibit ever since throughout the world, including exhibitions in Spain, France, Denmark and Japan. Her paintings are full of life, color and child-like primitivism. No surprise, since she draws on childhood experiences and memories for her vocabulary of symbols. Her work grows out of abstract expressionism but has a variety of other eclectic influences. Her interest in language brought her to Europe during the 1980’s and 90’s and she spent quite a few years living and painting there. This added a new Mediterranean and Nordic perspective to her work. Pamela met her husband, Danish artist Gert Mathiesen, in the late 1980’s and thus began a collaboration that lasted for many years. She works in a variety of different media including clay, printmaking, collage and painting. She also writes a popular weekly inspirational blog entitled “Things We Love.” Smilow’s work can be found in many private and corporate collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.
Lauded by the New York Times as “dramatic, emotional and evocative,” and by ABC of Madrid as “a musician of extraordinary emotive power” violinist/violist Laura Klugherz appears nationally and internationally as a soloist, concertmaster and chamber artist. Laura has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including a student Fulbright Award (Germany), and a Fulbright Post-Doctoral Research Award (Spain), and the Premio Juan Morales (Madrid) for Spanish music interpretation. After earning an Artists Diploma from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from University of Texas (Austin), she was appointed concertmaster of the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Bach Soloists. As specialist in music of Spain and the Americas and sponsored by the USIS and the Fundación Andes, she has regularly concertized and with concerts and workshops throughout Central and South America. Laura is the author of A Performer’s Guide to Spanish Music (Greenwood Press) and has recorded regularly on Centaur and Capstone Records. Her recording The Violin/Viola Music of Amy Beach was selected as soundtrack for Ken Burns’ PBS series The War. Her recording Echoes of the Americas features premieres from throughout the continent for viola and piano. From 2010-2016, Laura was acting violist with the Cuarteto Carlos Chávez of Mexico. Trained in yoga and Feldenkrais, Laura is also a specialist in somatic education for musicians.
Dr. José Guadalupe Flores was born in Tijuana and studied both in Mexico and the US, obtaining his BA, MA and PhD degrees at the University of San Diego and a Law Degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico. He taught for 42 years at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Tijuana. He has represented the Mexican Academic Community in many educational events at UNESCO and other educational institutions. He has done extensive research on Mexican and Cuban cultural affairs. He has presented altars during the Day of the 
