[10.13.09 | Carnegie Music Hall]

The Pittsburgh Middle East Institute’s Second Annual Conference will feature Fareed Zakaria, CNN commentator and editor of Newsweek International, on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland at 8 p.m.

Zakaria, a leading authority and scholar on the global economy, geopolitics and international relations, will discuss “The Real Solution to the Middle East Crisis.”

Zakaria is host of CNN’s international affairs program, “Fareed Zakaria GPS” which airs on Sundays worldwide. He writes a regular column for the U.S. edition of Newsweek and the Washington Post and is the author of several books, including “The Future of Freedom,” and his recent best seller, “The Post-American World.”

In 1999, Zakaria was named “one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century” by Esquire magazine. In 2007, his name was included among the 100 leading public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy, where he had once served as managing editor. He has received a host of awards and honorary degrees, most recently at Brown University where he was the 2009 commencement speaker. He serves on the board of Yale University, The Council on Foreign Relations, and The Trilateral Commission. He received a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard.

[10.14.09 | Duquesne Club]

The conference will continue with a Wednesday, October 14, business symposium at the Duquesne Club, providing an interactive discussion on energy sustainability and emerging technologies. The event will provide a practical approach to business investment in the Middle East.

Details»

2009 General Conference Information

• Overview
• Speakers
• Sponsors

Watch the Nov 11, 2009 Event: “Egypt in the 21st Century”

2008 Conference Recap

The Top 11 Reasons Pittsburgh Leads:

#1 The Economist Magazine (June 2009) ranked Pittsburgh as #1 Most Livable City in the United States

#2 Foreign Direct Investment Magazine named Pittsburgh one of the Top Ten Major Cities of the Future.

#3 President Obama selected Pittsburgh to host the G-20 Summit September 24-25, 2009, because Pittsburgh symbolizes economic renewal and has transformed itself into an economy that embraces new and green technologies.

#4 Pittsburgh is recognized worldwide as a leading center of high technology and life sciences. The Pittsburgh Technology Council has 1,400 member firms.

#5 Leading industries include energy, software engineering, computer science and information technology, healthcare delivery, advanced manufacturing, medical device technology, robotics, and green innovation.

#6 Pittsburgh’s great research universities include Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

#7 The Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which represents more than 300 major companies, has identified Pittsburgh’s energy economy, including sustainable energy, as a key strength of the region.

#8 Centers specializing in sustainability include the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (University of Pittsburgh), the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education & Research (Carnegie Mellon University), Sustainable Pittsburgh, the Rachel Carson Foundation, and the nationally recognized Green Building Alliance.

#9 Energy-related and green companies include: Flabeg (solar thermal technology); Veolia (low energy desalination); PPG (wind energy, and energy efficient window coatings); Serious Materials (High R value windows); Tegrant (High R value insulated concrete building components); BPL Global (smart power grid technology)

#10 Pittsburgh has been a leader in the energy industry since oil was first discovered in 1859 near Pittsburgh. The Mellon family then organized Gulf Oil Corp. The region was built on fossil fuels: oil, coal, and huge deposits of natural gas.

#11 There are 700 energy companies in the region, including leading corporations such as: Westinghouse (nuclear energy), Consol (coal), and Equitable Gas. The National Energy Technology Laboratory is located in Pittsburgh.

[Pittsburgh Business Times – by Anya Litvak] 09.25.09 It just so happened that the Pittsburgh Middle East Institute scheduled its second annual conference two weeks after the G-20 summit.

And it just happened the two-year-old nonprofit organization, begun by three Iranian women to breach the cultural and economic divide between Pittsburgh and the Middle East, was focusing on green energy during its three-day event in October.

“The whole thing about capitalizing around the G-20 is that you have everybody thinking about this city that has sort of this international aura now,” said the institute’s founder and president, Simin Yazdgerdi Curtis. “We’re not isolated. Pittsburgh is out there, and our conference is a demonstration of that.”

In fact, institute Vice President Massy Paul has begun referring to the event as the mini G-20 summit. But the buzz around the group has been building since it burst on the scene with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman headlining its first conference last year, which drew around 2,500 people.

This year, it’s Newsweek columnist and CNN analyst Fareed Zakaria headlining the event.

Also present will be a delegation from Oman, which gave the institute a list of companies with which they’d like to meet during a three-day visit, including Acquatech, CONSOL Energy and CMU, among others.

“For an organization our size, for them to send 15 people, including the secretary general of the ministry of foreign affairs,” Paul said, pausing with near disbelief. “It’s mind boggling how people have been receptive.”

For Paul, the high rank of both the international political officials and American business leaders interested in the institute’s mission speaks to the hunger for developing new economic markets in the Middle East.

Those business relationships will heal the damaged perceptions each culture may harbor against the other, Yazdgerdi Curtis said, drawing on the idea of “smart power” pioneered by Harvard professor Joseph Nye.

The high-minded mission comes with a hefty price tag. The organization raised $200,000 last year and is hoping to surpass that this year, Paul said. But that’s just enough to fund the infancy of its mission.

“Our goal is to build an institute. We’re not really going to be happy with having one or two lectures a year,” Paul said. “We need endowment. We’re not talking about a few thousand dollars. We’re talking about building an institute.”

The institute counts 62 local companies among its sponsors, supporting firms and partners for the conference. Among them are Pittsburgh giants such as Westinghouse Electric Co., Burt Hill, Comcast and Bombardier, and smaller companies and media outlets, including this one.

The institute’s sponsorship package for the upcoming event ranges from the platinum $100,000 spot to the $25,000 silver label. The presenting sponsor is UPMC, which operates emergency medicine systems in some Qatar hospitals and is pursuing other opportunities in the country.

CONSOL Energy kicked in a few thousand, said Tom Hoffman, vice president. The coal giant doesn’t have any dealings in the Middle East, nor is it looking to branch out there, Hoffman said.

“It was really an intellectual interest in seeing if these two very different cultures have anything in common in how we handle energy,” he said.

Michael Mullen, vice president of corporate and government affairs for the H.J. Heinz Co., said in an e-mail that Heinz is a sponsor because it has a growing business in the Middle East and wants to support efforts that build a better understanding of the region and its business environment.

“Heinz sees the Middle East as a potentially dynamic market with a growing economy and over 200 million consumers,” Mullen said. “In Egypt, for example, Heinz has achieved an 80 percent share of that nation’s ketchup market.”

In five years, the institute’s founders hope to be the premier organization for business and cultural exchanges with the Middle East.

PITTSBURGH, PA – The second day of Pittsburgh Middle East Institute’s 2nd Annual Conference will feature national and international experts in green technology — including officials from Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The Wednesday morning business symposium “Building the Green City: Pittsburgh & the Middle East — Energy and Green Technologies,” will provide an interactive discussion on energy sustainability and emerging technologies. The event will provide a practical approach to business investment in the Middle East.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS:

The Keynote Address will be delivered by His Excellencey Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Al Busaidi, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Sultanate of Oman, with an introduction by Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh Mark Nordenberg.

PRESENTATIONS:

US-QATAR BUSINESS COUNCIL

The Honorable Ambassador Patrick N. Theros, President, US-Qatar Business Council, Washington, D.C., and former Ambassador from the United States to Qatar – Introduced by Dr. Jared Cohon, President of Carnegie Mellon University.

MASDAR CITY: THE WORLD’S FIRST CARBON NEUTRAL, ZERO WASTE CITY

Mr. Khaled Awad, Property Development Director, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company-Masdar. Mr. Awad, who oversees development of Masdar City, will discuss the opportunities and challenges in building the first carbon neutral, zero waste city in the world. Includes video presentation and Q&A.

PANEL DISCUSSION:

The seminar will conclude with a panel discussion led by Dennis Yablonsky, Chief Executive Officer, Allegheny Conference on Community Development and former Secretary of Commerce for the State of Pennsylvania. The topic is Pittsburgh’s energy economy and the region’s innovations in green technology.

Panelists include:

• Nick Diluliis, President, CONSOL
• Lauren Flannery, Managing Principal—Forms+Surfaces
• David L. Porges, President and Chief Operating Officer, EQT Corporation
• Sean Rollman, Chief Financial Officer—Plextronics
• Keith Schaefer, President & Chief Executive Officer, BPL Global
• Venkee Sharma, President and Chief Executive Officer—Aquatech International
• Antonio Torres, Vice President—NOVA Chemicals
• Jerry Whitaker, President—Eaton Electric

2009 BUSINESS SYMPOSIUM PRESENTING SPONSOR

Pittsburgh Middle East Institute is pleased to announce that UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) is the presenting sponsor for this year’s business seminar. This year, UPMC unveiled the new, 10-acre, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh campus in Lawrenceville. The facility’s careful stewardship of energy, water, materials, and land resources have made it an international model for green innovation.

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