I’m really excited to be speaking at the Images and Voices of Hope world summit in September in New York. I wanted to share the event with you because it addresses what I think is a very important question. The theme for this year’s event is “Mind Full Media” and the conference is designed to answer the question as to whether digital technology is, in fact, increasingly connecting or disconnecting us from ourselves and one another.

As we’ve discussed from various angles in this  blog, it’s difficult to strike the perfect balance between the joy of this newfound connectivity and the anxiety it creates as technology moves ever faster. This is especially true as we witness the historic events unfolding around the world that are both disruptive and transformative and increasingly enabled by social media, such as the Spring Revolutions in the Middle East or the recent riots in the U.K..

In short, the conference will be looking at how we maintain a healthy human experience in the context of digital technology. They will be inviting leaders in the fields of journalism, marketing, gaming, culture and the arts, to discuss these issues. Specifically, the summit will revolve around four main questions:

• How do we know what we know?
• How does our engagement with media shape our awareness?
• How do we know who our what we can trust?
• What do we do with what we know?

Having attended the conference the year before, I was struck not just by the caliber of people who spoke at the event, but also by the quality of conversations that were generated by the collision between different disciplines. If you are interested in the topic and event, I invite you to visit www.ivoh.org