Baratunde Thurston & Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated storyteller, producer, and thought leader weaving stories of interdependence across our relationships with nature, humans, and technology. As the host of PBS's America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston and the creator of the acclaimed How To Citizen podcast, Baratunde has redefined citizenship as a practice of active participation, responsibility, and community building. His newest show, Life with Machines, explores how we can live well with technology, not just endure it.

As a keynote speaker, Baratunde is transformative, blending humor, intellect, and actionable insights that resonate deeply with audiences across industries. With a focus on the power of "citizen as a verb," he invites audiences to explore how they can contribute meaningfully to their workplaces, communities, and society. Baratunde unpacks complex societal issues with empathy and a call to action. From the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and the rising importance of environmental stewardship to the significance of racial equity and inclusive leadership, his talks inspire audiences to think critically, act responsibly, and lead purposefully. By offering practical tools and frameworks, Baratunde equips audiences to build a future where technology enhances humanity, diversity drives progress, and democracy becomes an active, collective pursuit.

A New York Times best-selling author of How To Be Black and a TED speaker praised by journalist Brian Williams as "one of the greatest of all time," Baratunde connects dots between culture, climate, politics, and technology in ways that empower and enlighten. A board member of Civics Unplugged, he continues to inspire through his work and commitment to a more connected, compassionate world.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP and Fellow at Google, where he is the CTO of Technology & Society and founder of Paradigms of Intelligence (Pi). Pi is an organization working on basic research in AI and related fields, especially the foundations of neural computing, active inference, sociality, evolution, and artificial life.

In 2008, Blaise was awarded MIT’s TR35 prize. During his tenure at Google, Blaise has innovated on-device machine learning for Android and Pixel; invented Federated Learning, an approach to decentralized model training that avoids sharing private data; and founded the Artists + Machine Intelligence program.

A frequent public speaker, he has given multiple TED talks and keynoted NeurIPS. He has also authored numerous papers, essays, op-eds, and chapters, as well as two previous books, Who Are We Now? and Ubi Sunt. His most recent book, What Is Life? is part 1 of the larger book What Is Intelligence?, forthcoming from Antikythera and MIT Press in September 2025.