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When Humans Transcend Biology - Ray Kurzweil
2:00 PM – 1140 Howe Hall Lee Liu/Alliant Energy Auditorium - Ray Kurzweil, the Human Computer Interaction Forum keynote speaker, successfully founded and developed nine businesses in OCR, music synthesis, speech recognition, reading technology, virtual reality, financial investment, cybernetic art, and other areas of artificial intelligence. His Web site, KurzweilAI.net, is a leading resource on artificial intelligence.

Global Justice and Human Rights - Noam Chomsky
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Noam Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His published works include: Language and Mind; American Power and the New Mandarins; For Reasons of State; Peace in the Middle East?; Reflections on Language; The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II (with E.S. Herman); Fateful Triangle; Knowledge of Language; Pirates and Emperors; On Power and Ideology; Language and Problems of Knowledge; The Culture of Terrorism; Manufacturing Consent (with E.S. Herman); Necessary Illusions; Deterring Democracy; and World Orders, Old and New.He is on faculty in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and was appointed Institute Professor. Part of the World Affairs Series.

Just an Essential Part of Everyday Life - Jeffrey Cole
6:30 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Jeffrey Cole is at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication as Director of the Center for the Digital Future and as a Research Professor. He is currently a member of the International Telecommunication Union's Forum Programme Committee and founded and directs the World Internet Project, a long-term look at the effects of computer and Internet technology on all aspects of society in over 20 countries. He was Principal Investigator of the Network Television Violence Monitoring Project, which in 1995, 1996 and 1997 issued annual reports to the television networks, Congress, and the nation. Part of the Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.

Comedy! Comedy! Comedy! with Bobby Lee
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Bobby Lee is a comedian and actor who has appeared in Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle and as a regular on FOX's MAD TV. He has also performed on NBC's Friday Night Videos, Comedy Central's Make Me Laugh, Showtime's Latino Laugh Festival, and Galavision's Funny is Funny, as well as in commercials for Maxwell House Coffee and IBM. Please note: ADULT CONTENT.

The Concert Hall that Fell Asleep and Woke Up as a Car Radio - Libby Larsen
7:30 PM – Mary-Ellen Tye Recital Hall, Music Building - Libby Larsen is a composer and musician. She will discuss innovations in transportation and communications have had central and essential influence on how our culture at large perceives classical music, including how radio and recordings have shaped our perceptions, our standards of quality, our attention spans.

Reinventing African Economies: Technological Innovation and the Sustainability Transition - Calestous Juma
7:00 PM – Benton Auditorium, Scheman Building, ISU Center - 2006 Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture - Calestous Juma is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government. He also coordinated the United Nations Millennium Project's Task Force on Science and Technology and Innovation, and is a former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Interrogative Design - Krzysztof Wodiczko
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Krzysztof Wodiczko is professor of architecture and visual studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At MIT, he is also director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which provides a teaching and research environment encouraging collaborations among artists, scientists and technologists. He is one of the leading artists of our time, producing artwork which meaningfully integrates digital media, designed objects, and computer technology. He has authored Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) and Public Address: Krzysztof Wodiczko (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1992). Part of the 22nd National Conference on the Beginning Design Student.

Restoration of the Regal Fritillary Butterfly on Iowa Prairies - Dianne Debinski
7:00 PM – Hughes Auditorium, Reiman Garden - Dianne Debinski and her students have initiated efforts to reintroduce Speyeria idalia (Regal Fritillary), a declining prairie endemic butterfly, to a reconstructed prairie at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, near Prairie City, Iowa.

Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series - Joseph Nye
6:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Joseph Nye joined the Harvard faculty in 1964 and became Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1995. Nye has served in three government agencies, most recently as chairman of the National Intelligence Council and as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs between 1993 and 1995. He was awarded the Intelligence Community's Distinguished Service Medal for both positions. He has served as a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a member of the advisory committee of the Institute of International Economics, and the American representative on the United Nations Advisory Committee on Disarmament Affairs. Nye has authored numerous books, including Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), and has published policy articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. Part of the Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.

The Interplay of Music and Physics - Laurie McNeil
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Why do musical instruments make the sounds that they do, and not others? Why are some combinations of sounds considered pleasing, while others are not? Physicists and mathematicians have pondered these questions for thousands of years, and the answers are fundamentally simple but practically complex. The close connection between music and physics will be explored in this presentation, from both the scientist's and the musician's perspective. Laurie McNeil is Chair and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina. She received her doctorate in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.