La Ciudad de las Ideas (stylized as CDI) is an annual conference held in

Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...

, Mexico, produced by Mexican writer and television producer Andrés Roemer. Its objective is to debate ideas in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

, and other areas of knowledge. The event has been referred to as the "brain

olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

" by cognitive scientist

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...

. CDI speakers have included

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winners

Jerome Isaac Friedman Jerome Isaac Friedman (born March 28, 1930) is an American physicist. He is Institute Professor and Professor of Physics, ''Emeritus, ''at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Henry Kenda ...

Mario J. Molina Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (19 March 19437 October 2020), known as Mario Molina, was a Mexican chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemis ...

Jody Williams Jody Williams (born October 9, 1950) is an American political activist known for her work in banning anti-personnel landmines, her defense of human rights (especially those of women), and her efforts to promote new understandings of security i ...

Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman (; he, דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was award ...

, and

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...

; researchers

Robert Sapolsky Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In ad ...

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ...

Eduard Punset Eduard Punset i Casals (; 9 November 1936 – 22 May 2019) was a Spanish politician, lawyer, economist, and science popularizer. He held a degree in Law from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master's in Economic Sciences from the Uni ...

, Clotaire Rapaille,

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...

David Buss David Michael Buss (born April 14, 1953) is an American evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, researching human sex differences in mate selection. He is considered one of the founders of evolutionary psychology. Biogr ...

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

Michael Shermer Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of ''Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific ...

Craig Venter John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. ...

, and

Randi Zuckerberg Randi Jayne Zuckerberg (born February 28, 1982) is an American businesswoman. She is the former director of market development and spokesperson for Facebook, and a sister of the company's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Prior to working at ...

; and Oscar nominees Adame Pesapane (PES) and

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...

. Since 2008, up to 3,600 attendees have gathered in November in the historic center of

. The head and curator of CDI is Andrés Roemer, partner of the

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

Poder Civico A.C., together with

Ricardo Salinas Pliego Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego (born 19 October 1955) is a Mexican businessman, founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a corporate conglomerate with interests in telecommunications, media, financial services, and retail. He is the third rich ...

, President and CEO of

Grupo Salinas Grupo Salinas is a corporate conglomerate formed in 2001 by several Mexican companies. The group consists of: * TV Azteca - television and radio network * Grupo Elektra - products include finance, home appliances, consumer electronics, furnitur ...

. The thematic approach of the curator of the speakers is as follows: "Scholars/Policy and Makers" (leading academics and public policy makers), "Mex-I-Can" (talented Mexicans), "W-Under18" (children and young people), Debates, Art, Emotional, Technology, Artistic Interventions, and Entertainment. The festival has been promoted in Azteca Trece and Proyecto 40 and on the event's website, social media, and through a science bookstore located at the festival site. Since 9 June 2008, over 231 festival speakers have had their presentations published online. Fifty percent of the audience are between 16 and 25 years old.

History

2008: Cynosura

The first conference took place in Puebla's Convention Center in 2008. Its name is derived from the star

Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that ...

, also named ''Cynosura'' by the Greeks, pertaining to the

Ursa Minor Ursa Minor (Latin: 'Lesser Bear', contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation located in the far northern sky. As with the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, h ...

constellation. ''Cynosura'' took place from the 6th to 8 November, with the speakers allotted 21 minutes to present. The conference commemorated the 100-year anniversary of the scandal caused by the String Quartet No.2 in F Sharp Minor by Austrian composter,

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, with the atonality that disrupted traditional classic music.

2009: Re-evolution

Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris y Daniel Dennett en CDI 2009

From 2009 onwards, the University's Cultural Complex of the

Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla The Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) (Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla) is the oldest and largest university in Puebla, Mexico. Founded on 15 April 1578 as Colegio del Espíritu Santo, the school was sponsored by th ...

became the International Brilliant Minds Festival's official venue. La Ciudad de las Ideas celebrated the

International Year of Astronomy The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) was a year-long celebration of astronomy that took place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the pu ...

with a "night of telescopes" and, from 2009 to 2012, innovative ideas in science and humanities were acknowledged with the ''Innovation for Humanity'' Prize and the ''Entrepreneur for Humanity'' Prize. The winners of the ''Innovation for Humanity'' Prize in 2008 were Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker, while the ''Entrepreneur for Humanity'' Prize acknowledged nearly 300 individuals.

2010: The origins of the future

In 2010, CDI commemorated two historical events relevant to Mexico: the Bicentennial Independence Day Anniversary and the Centennial Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. The 2010 edition took place in the University Cultural Complex at the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla from the 11th to 13 November, where over 33 speakers attended. The winners of the ''Innovation for Humanity'' Prize in 2009 were

Dan Ariely Dan Ariely ( he, דן אריאלי; born April 29, 1967) is an Israeli-American professor and author. He serves as a James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Ariely is the founder of the research inst ...

and

Philip Zimbardo Philip George Zimbardo (; born March 23, 1933) is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later severely criticized for both ethical and scient ...

, and the ''Entrepreneur for Humanity'' Prize acknowledged 200 individuals.

2011: Reset

This edition of CDI took place from the 10th to 12 November 2011 in the University Cultural Complex at the

. As in 2009, the "night of telescopes" took place on Friday the 11th at 7pm. The winners of the ''Innovation for Humanity'' Prize in 2010 were

Michio Kaku Michio Kaku (, ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, futurist, and popular science, popularizer of science (science communicator). He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New ...

and

. The ''Entrepreneur for Humanity'' Prize was awarded to 120 individuals.

2012: The Magic of If

The fifth edition of the festival was titled "The Magic of If". This edition took place from the 8th to 10 November 2012 in the University Cultural Complex at the

. It included a new section dedicated to Mexican talent, called "Mex-I-can" and, on the other hand, the time for speakers to present reduced from 21 to 12 minutes. The winners of the Innovation for Humanity Prize in 2011 were

and

Dambisa Moyo Dambisa Felicia Moyo, Baroness Moyo (born 2 February 1969)Moyo showed a copy of an official document with her date and place of birth as part of a lecture she gave at TEDGlobal 2013, Edinburgh, Scotland. is a Zambian-born economist and author, ...

. For the 2012 edition, the ''Entrepreneur for Humanity'' Prize was transformed into a prize with great reach and significance, turning into an initiative that stimulates social

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

projects, called ''Gifted Citizen Prize''.

2013: Dangerous Ideas

The festival's sixth edition took place from 7 to 9 November 2013, with the title of "Dangerous Ideas". Ciudad de las Ideas 2013 also took place in the University Cultural Complex at the

and includes a new curatorial topic, "W-Under 18" that invited children and youth that are changing the world, like

Jack Andraka Jack Thomas Andraka (born January 8, 1997) is an American who, as a high school student, won the Gordon E. Moore Award at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with a method to possibly detect the early stages of pancreati ...

Boyan Slat Boyan Slat (born 27 July 1994) is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur. A former aerospace engineering student, he is the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. Initial interest in plastic pollution In 2011, aged 16, Slat found more plastic than fish while div ...

, and

Umi Garrett Umi Garrett (born August 15, 2000) is an American classical pianist. Early career Garrett began playing the piano at the age of four years. She began serious study of the piano under the instruction of Itoe Akimoto and Yoshie Akimoto. Currently ...

2014: Change the Word

The seventh edition of La Ciudad de las Ideas Festival took place from November 6 to 8. This was the first time that Metropolitan Auditorium of Puebla held the event.

2015: What's the Point?

The 8th edition of CDI was held from November 5 to 7 at the Metropolitan Auditorium of Puebla. In this edition we were accompanied by Isaac Hernández and Esteban Hernández who danced accompanied by the amazing Yuan Yuan Tan and Jurgita Dronina, as well as other 60 than 60 speakers participated.

2016: Play the Game

Play the Game took place from November 18 to 20. The Festival had great personalities such as Tim Urban and artistic talents such as Julieta Venegas, Ximena Sariñana, Butterscotch among others.

2017: Beyond X November

CDI 2017 took place at the Metropolitan Auditorium of Puebla, on November 17, 18 and 19. The tenth edition was full of amazing surprises and amazing speakers like Mario Molina, Noam Chomshy, Steven Pinker, Esther Perel among many others

2018: The Burning Questions

The Burning Questions took place at the Metropolitan Auditorium of Puebla on November 16, 17 and 18. More than 60 speakers from different areas such as economics, science, politics, technology and more participated.

2019: This Is Epic!

The XII Edition of the International Festival of Bright Minds: CDI 2019 This Is Epic took place from November 8 to 10 at the Metropolitan Auditorium of Puebla. Personalities such as Rigoberta Menchú, Guy Nattiv, Stefan Sagmeister, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Javier Santaolalla, Yusef Salaam among many others showed up making all the Auditorium felt amazed.

Gifted Citizen Initiative

This initiative began at La Ciudad de las Ideas 2012. Submitted projects are evaluated by a committee and the conference Board of Directors. The projects can be scientific, technological, social, ecological or artistic in nature, as well as concerning development or human rights. The most outstanding project is awarded

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

100,000. This prize is given in association with the

Singularity University Singularity Education Group (using the public names Singularity Group, Singularity University or SingularityU) is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a business incubator, and business consultancy services. Although ...

. Furthermore, the prize is backed up with the help of sponsors like Exitus Capital and

Aeroméxico Aerovías de México, S.A. de C.V. () operating as Aeroméxico (; stylized as AM), is the flag carrier airline of Mexico, based in Mexico City. It operates scheduled services to more than 90 destinations in Mexico; North, South and Central Ameri ...

. The GZ Prize was known as the "Entrepreneur for Humanity Prize" in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 conferences.

Speakers

The following is a list of people who have spoken at the Ciudad de las Ideas:

2008

Theme: "Cynosura"

2009

Theme: "Re-Evolution"

2010

Theme: "The Origins of the Future"

2011

Theme: "Reset"

2012

Theme: "Magic of If"

2013

Theme: "Dangerous Ideas"

2014

Theme: "Change the World"

2015

Theme: "What's the Point?"

2016

Theme: "Play the Game"

2017

Theme: "Beyond X"

2018

Theme: "The Burning Questions"

2019

Theme: This Is Epic!

Ideasta

A term coined by Dr. Andrés Roemer which refers to the assistant of La Ciudad de las Ideas, one of the most important international festivals of bright minds held in

Puebla City Puebla de Zaragoza (; nah, Cuetlaxcoapan), formally Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza, formerly Puebla de los Ángeles during colonial times, or known in English simply as Puebla, is the seat of Puebla Municipality. It is the capital and largest city ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, person who participates, encourages and otherwise interacts with the project that celebrates the most brilliant minds in the globe, but also formulates creative and revolutionary ideas about the world; a 'converter of society in an inclusive prosperity' and the one who comes up with new ways of thinking in order to create more

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

, novel paradigms, innovations and inventions in order to enhance its mind and open it multiple horizons, allowing it grow and development, because ideas:

References

{{reflist International cultural organizations Non-profit organizations based in Mexico Recurring events established in 2008 International conferences in Mexico Annual events in Mexico

History

2008: Cynosura

2009: Re-evolution

2010: The origins of the future

2011: Reset

2012: The Magic of If

2013: Dangerous Ideas

2014: Change the Word

2015: What's the Point?

2016: Play the Game

2017: Beyond X November

2018: The Burning Questions

2019: This Is Epic!

Gifted Citizen Initiative

Speakers

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

Ideasta

See also

References