The things that make a great conference is learning new things, meeting cool people and not feeling overwhelmed with both.  Today I went to All Day Buffet’s The Feast at The Scandinavian House.

Presentations included:

• Vertical Farming by Columbia Professor Dickson Despommier
• Making Garbage a positive commodity by Terracycle’s Tom Szaky
• World traveler and organic soap maker Josh Onysko, founder of Pangea Organics.
• New Orleans as a Social Innovation Laboratory by Robbie Vitrano of Trumpet. In his presentation, he had one of the best Don Draper references, “Everyday I do God’s work, which is advertising”.
• Social Design  and Social Impact with Elizabeth Johansen from Ideo.
• Organizing Ideas with Scott Belsky of Behance.
• I miss Play Pumps but they bring water pumps to Africa
• Piers from PSFK talked about creators, communities and companies.
• If We Ran It by Michael Romanowicz and Marissa Shrum. Daylighting. Slashers. It’s a look at how young  people have an interdisciplinary approach toward career and work.
• Fame Theory by Jose Serrano-Reyes and Seth Aylmer. Using data to steer social capital.
• Chad Rea of EcoPop who challenged everyone to do the opposite of what they are currently doing.