18th Annual Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment Con­fer­ence fea­tures very com­pelling devel­op­ment thinkers and lead­ers. Click here for more details and speaker bios.

Con­firmed speak­ers include:

Mar­tin Wolf, Chief Eco­nom­ics Com­men­ta­tor of the Finan­cial Times
Abhi­jit Baner­jee, Direc­tor of the Poverty Action Lab and co-author of “Poor Eco­nom­ics”
Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, in a spe­cial video address
Gayle Smith, Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent and Senior Direc­tor at the National Secu­rity Coun­cil for Global Devel­op­ment, Sta­bi­liza­tion, and Human­i­tar­ian Assis­tance
Aruna Roy, award-winning anti-corruption activist and mem­ber of National Advi­sory Coun­cil in India

Along with 50+ rep­re­sen­ta­tives from lead­ing and inno­v­a­tive devel­op­ment insti­tu­tions such as:

The World Bank
Trans­parency Inter­na­tional
Root Cap­i­tal
Vil­lage Corps
USAID
+ many others

Mar­tin Wolf, The Finan­cial Times
Mar­tin Wolf is the chief eco­nom­ics com­men­ta­tor and asso­ciate edi­tor of the Finan­cial Times. A grad­u­ate of Oxford Uni­ver­sity and the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, Wolf worked at the World Bank before mov­ing to a career in jour­nal­ism. After more than twenty years in jour­nal­ism, Wolf has estab­lished him­self solidly as the most influ­en­tial eco­nomic com­men­ta­tor in the world. In recent years he has writ­ten two books, Why Glob­al­iza­tion Works and Fix­ing Global Finance that have addressed the chal­lenges fac­ing the global eco­nomic sys­tem. In 2000. Wolf was awarded the CBE (Com­man­der of the British Empire).

Abhi­jit Baner­jee, The Poverty Action Lab
Abhi­jit Baner­jee is the Direc­tor of the Poverty Action Lab and co-author of Poor Eco­nom­ics, which won the Gold­man Sachs Busi­ness Book of the Year is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­cutta and Har­vard Uni­ver­sity. He is cur­rently the Ford Foun­da­tion Inter­na­tional Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics at the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy. In 2003 he founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Send­hil Mul­lainathan and remains one of the direc­tors of the lab. In 2009 J-PAL won the BBVA Foun­da­tion “Fron­tier of Knowl­edge” award in the devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion category.

Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations
Ban Ki-Moon is the Secretary-General of the United Nations and for­mer For­eign Min­is­ter of South Korea. A grad­u­ate of Seoul National Uni­ver­sity and the Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment, Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, Ban Ki-Moon has been a staunch advo­cate of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, female empow­er­ment, and arms con­trol dur­ing his tenure at the UN. Mr. Ban first took office on 1 Jan­u­ary 2007 and on 21 June 2011, he was unan­i­mously re-elected by the Gen­eral Assem­bly and will con­tinue to serve until 31 Decem­ber 2016.

Gayle Smith, National Secu­rity Coun­cil
Gayle Smith is Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent and Senior Direc­tor at the National Secu­rity Coun­cil for Global Devel­op­ment, Sta­bi­liza­tion, and Human­i­tar­ian Assis­tance. She was pre­vi­ously a Senior Fel­low at the Cen­ter for Amer­i­can Progress, Co-Chair of the ENOUGH Project, and Co-Founder of the Mod­ern­iz­ing For­eign Assis­tance Net­work. Dur­ing the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion, Ms. Smith served as Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent and Senior Direc­tor for African Affairs at the NSC, and as Senior Advi­sor to the Admin­is­tra­tor and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment. Ms. Smith was based in Africa for over 20 years as a jour­nal­ist cov­er­ing mil­i­tary, eco­nomic, and polit­i­cal affairs for the BBC, Asso­ci­ated Press, Reuters, Boston Globe, Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, Toronto Globe & Mail, Lon­don Observer, and Finan­cial Times. She has also con­sulted for a wide range of NGOs, foun­da­tions, and gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing UNICEF, the World Bank, Dutch Inter­church Aid, Nor­we­gian Church Relief, and the Cana­dian Coun­cil for Inter­na­tional Cooperation.

Aruna Roy, Social and Polit­i­cal Activist
Aruna Roy has worked for decades in rural India. The Maz­door Kisan Shakti San­gathan (MKSS), part of the non-party process in Rajasthan, was born through a col­lec­tive effort in 1990 of Aruna Roy along with Shankar Singh and Nikhil Dey. The MKSS began the strug­gle for the Right to Infor­ma­tion, and later the Right to Work which cul­mi­nated in the RTI and NREGA laws being passed by par­lia­ment in 2005. As mem­ber of the National Advi­sory Coun­cil, she advises Gov­ern­ment of India on social pol­icy. Aruna Roy received the Magsaysay Award 2000 amongst oth­ers, and was one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influ­en­tial peo­ple in 2011.