Aid Still Required was thrilled to be a guest at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference – Shaping the Future. We attended the third day of the conference which hosted over 3,000 attendees and represented 60 nations. There were 140 panels in just 3 days! The conference was focused on “jump-starting progress” to find tangible, sustainable solutions for modern social problems, as well as broadening of opportunities through providing greater access to capital, healthcare, & knowledge.

The panel on Philanthropy in Early Childhood Education featured Mark Shriver, Vice President and Managing Director of U.S. Programs for Save the Children whom we met at the Britweek gala dinner honoring sir richard bran and save the children on April 25th, Dan Pederson, founding President of the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and formerly with Newseek, as well as Anthony Berkley, Deputy Director of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. They discussed the importance of investing in early childhood education and discussed how we can encourage improvement in the quality of educational programs and services available to those most in need. They provided a lively, thoughtful exchange!

Later, we attended The Future of Journalism: who is going to report the news? The large panel featured many familiar faces! Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of Journalism Online and former President of The Wall Street Journal, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post, Bill Keller, Executive Editor of The New York Times, and Vivian Schiller, President and CEO of NPR. We were amazed to watch these seasoned, experienced journalists engage in powerful dialogue on how journalism is going to survive and evolve in the era of the new media.

The last panel we attended was The Business Behind the Show: Outlook for the Entertainment Industry which featured Terry Semel of Windsor Media and the former chair of Warner Brothers, Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, Chase Kerry, COO of Newscorp, Irving Azoff, Chairman of LiveNation and Robert Kotick, President and CEO of Activision Blizzard. They discussed what will happen to the DVD market, how we can keep Los Angeles the world’s capital of film making, and how network television will respond now that cable has proven its ability to turn out top-quality dramatic series. Hunter was able to ask this knowledgeable panel about the demise of CD in digital world, and how best ASR can market our upcoming release! The exchange resulted in some wonderful connections for ASR 🙂