Progress Conference 2024
Toward Abundant Futures
A two-day event to connect people & ideas in the progress movement
Meet great people • Catalyze new projects • Share ideas • Be energized & inspired
In partnership with:
Sponsored by:
2025 Plans
Progress Conference 2025 will happen in mid-October in Berkeley, CA
More details to be announced in Q1 2025.
Sign up for the Roots of Progress Substack to stay in the loop.
Progress Conference 2024
The Experience
The first annual progress conference was a resounding success.
Well over 200 people came together in Berkeley, CA to discuss ideas, at what many said was the best conference they ever attended.
Testimonials
Gallery
As many said, the best part of the event was how the venue enabled people to just meet and talk: that’s where the magic happened! You can get a glimpse of that in the photos from the conference.
Recordings
Most of the key speaker sessions were recorded by our sponsor Freethink Media.
Here are a few highlights:
The speakers
Top thinkers and doers in the progress community
Authors, founders, journalists, technologists,
academics, nonprofit leaders
Our speakers all are inspired to create an ambitious, technologically advanced future—yet they may disagree (sometimes vehemently) about how we get there. They come from a wide range of backgrounds, from academics to company founders to investors, from journalists to YouTubers. They’ll provide thoughtful perspectives about all kinds of ways we can make progress happen—from meta-science to policy reform, from space to AI to biotech to defense and nuclear energy and more.
Keynote Speakers
Patrick Collison
Tyler Cowen
Jason Crawford
Steven Pinker
More Speakers
Jason Carman
Emily Chamlee-Wright
Saloni Dattani
Julia DeWahl
Eli Dourado
Celine Halioua
Cate Hall
Casey Handmer
Chad Jones
Lynne Kiesling
Bret Kugelmass
Niko McCarty
Johan Norberg
Dwarkesh Patel
Conference fireside chat moderator
Scott Phoenix
Virginia Postrel
Kanjun Qiu
Hannu Rajaniemi
Ben Reinhardt
Alec Stapp
Chandler Tuttle
Marian Tupy
Talks will align roughly to four tracks, which together cover the core of the progress movement:
- The big idea of human progress: history, philosophy, economics, and future visions
- Policy for progress: changes to laws and regulatory environments that remove barriers to progress or actively support it, at the federal, state & city level
- Technology for progress: making progress happen through technology and new ventures, from atoms to bits
- Storytelling and media for a culture of progress: shifting the public narrative from fatalism and defeatism to agency and ambition, through writing, podcasting, fiction, TV and movies
The attendees
200+ thinkers, builders, policy makers, storytellers, and students
Spend two days hanging out with others in our community and help shape the progress movement into a cultural force.
Whether you identify as a supply-side or abundance progressive, e/acc or EA, whether you come at progress from a classical liberal background or study meta-science, advocate for broad YIMBY or American Dynamism—you are invited to meet each other, share ideas in unconference sessions, and leave energized.
As an event invitee, you’ll join people from a wide range of backgrounds:
- Key academics and public intellectuals in the progress movement
- Leaders of progress-related organizations, from science to policy
- Founders and engineers working on solving the world’s biggest problems and building an ambitious future, from space to nanotech, from AI to deep tech
- Cultural leaders, from science fiction authors to YouTubers to Hollywood producers and script writers
- The Roots of Progress fellows and other up-and-coming progress intellectuals
- Supporters of the progress movement (including the conference sponsors)
Attendance is by invitation only. We want to maintain a high bar on participant relevance & engagement to ensure a great experience for everyone.
We received over 300 applications for about 25 open invitation spots; the open application period closed on July 15th. If you applied to attend, we'll be in touch by August 15th.
The venue
An inviting Berkeley campus perfect for mingling and engaging in deep conversations
This gathering is all about connecting interesting people so ideas can flow and new projects can be cooked up. Our venue, the Lighthaven Campus in Berkeley, is perfect for this. It’s a cluster of old homes with a wide range of lounge areas that invite conversation, several living-room and larger areas to hold sessions of up to 60 people, and a garden with many places to sit and chat or walk around. Plenary sessions will happen in the garden auditorium, or be held in a large session space & livestreamed to smaller spaces.
VIP & Speaker reception venue
The Institute, Salesforce Tower
Our invitation-only pre-event reception on Thursday evenings, for speakers and VIPs, takes place in the skies above San Francisco, on one of the top floors of the Salesforce Tower. This venue offers a small-group presentation room and a cafe where we will mingle over appetizers and desert and explore progress ideas over dinner.
The program
Two days of intellectual exploration, inspiration & interaction
We aim to make this event a highlight of your year.
Attend talks on topics from tech to policy to culture, build relationships with new people as you hang out on cozy sofas or enjoy the sun in the garden, sign up to run an unconference session and find others who share your interests and passions, or pitch your ideas to those who could help make your dreams a reality.