Nashville, Tennessee – The Global South Summit convened at Music City Center on November 11 and 12, bringing together 400 top executives and senior decision makers from the corporate, government, academic, media, finance, and NGO communities from around the world with a distinctive focus on creating abundance through innovation in food, health, and prosperity
“Our ultimate goal is to advance global action to create food, health and prosperity in regional innovation hubs and mindful living communities around the U.S and world so that every individual has an opportunity to flourish,” said Scott T. Massey, Chairman and CEO of the Summit’s organizer, the CumberlandCenter.
Speakers included William Frist, M.D., former Majority Leader, U.S. Senate; Jean-Claude Saada, Chairman & CEO, Cambridge Holdings, Inc.; Bill Haslam, Governor of Tennessee; and Karl Dean, Nashville Mayor. Also speaking were leaders from international institutions such as the World Bank; governmental organizations such as the US Economic Development Administration and Small Business Administration; and leading universities, including Harvard, Notre Dame, Purdue, UC Davis, Vanderbilt and Southern Methodist University.
Keynote speakers were Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and Editor at Large of TIME magazine; Peter Diamandis, Chairman & CEO of XPRIZE, which leads the world in designing and launching large incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity; and Howard-Yana Shapiro, Chief Agricultural Officer at Mars, Incorporated, and Senior Fellow at UC Davis.
Six finalists took part in the Global Food & Health Innovation Challenge, a competitive investment opportunity to identify breakthrough prototypes, technologies and early-stage ventures that hold promise for transformative impact on health and food and are scalable business enterprises. Two hundred twenty international submissions were received. The candidate selected for the $1 million investment award was US Biologic of Memphis, Tennessee. US Biologics has developed a platform that disrupts the transmission cycle of Lyme disease, the #1 vector-borne disease in the world.
Two days of conference panels and presentations organized around improving global access to health, food and prosperity were accompanied by opportunities to engage with experts in year-round online working groups to address specific issues raised at the Summit; to learn about innovations at Nashville’s Innovation Center, at an event hosted by Mike Shmerling in the historic David G. Stone building and attended by the Governor and Mayor, both of whom welcomed Summit speakers and spoke about the importance of the event.
In addition, the Cambridge Mindful Living Foundation and oneC1TY hosted the oneC1TY Idea Lounge throughout the conference where participants met with colleagues, signed up for working groups, learned about mindful living philosophy and contributed ideas for Nashville’s oneC1TY project.
The Global South Summit is the signature event of the CumberlandCenter, a nonprofit university-business alliance. The Center serves as the global independent operating nonprofit of the Cambridge Mindful Living Foundation and as the onsite think tank and nonprofit convener at oneC1TY, the first fully implemented mindful living community in the United States now being developed in Nashville by Cambridge Holdings, Inc.
