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INNOVENTURE Announces Keynote Speaker Ben Dunlap, One of World's "50 Remarkable People" to Discuss Vision and Creativity

Submitted by: John Warner on Mar 16, 2009 at 11:32 pm Tagged with: Entrepreneurship, Innovation Source: Swamp Fox

Wofford President, Rhodes Scholar, and one of the world's "50 Most Remarkable People" to Explore Importance of Vision and Creativity in Time of Change

GREENVILLE, SC—InnoVenture Southeast 2009 announced today the conference’s keynote speaker on March 24, 2009, will be Dr. Ben Dunlap, President of Wofford College and a dynamic presenter who will explore the importance of vision and creativity in a time of change.

After graduating summa cum laude from Sewanee: The University of the South in 1959, Dr. Dunlap attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard University as a graduate student in English language and literature, receiving his PhD in 1967. Since that time, he has held academic appointments at Harvard, the University of South Carolina and Wofford College, where for seven years prior to becoming president he served as the Chapman Family Professor in the Humanities, a position he still holds. He has twice served as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Bangkok, Thailand, and Chiang Mai, Thailand, and was a member of the inaugural class of U.S.-Japan Leadership Fellows.

Dunlap’s academic fields include literature, intellectual history, Asian studies, film history and criticism, fiction writing, and the arts, on which he has lectured and spoken widely in this country and abroad. He is a frequent moderator for the Aspen Institute and affiliated programs including the Liberty Fellowship of South Carolina. Dunlap’s many publications include poems, essays, anthologies, guides, and opera libretti. As a writer-producer and on-camera talent for public television, he has been a major contributor to more than 200 programs, for which he has won numerous national and international awards.

In March 2007, Dr. Dunlap was a presenter at the prestigious TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., as one of the world's "50 Remarkable People" asked to share what they are passionate about. Among the presenters were former President Bill Clinton, former NBA star and author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann, and Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. His presentation can be seen online.

“Through the Liberty Fellowship, I have gotten to know Ben as a remarkable, renaissance man,” said John Warner, CEO of Jute Networks and Chairman of InnoVenture Southeast. “In the midst of the greatest economic storm of our lifetimes, it is a privilege to have a global thought leader share at InnoVenture the role of vision and creativity in reinventing the organizations we are a part of today and starting new, high-impact organizations in our community. Those attending InnoVenture will be inspired.”

About InnoVenture Southeast 2009
In its sixth year, InnoVenture Southeast will be held March 24, 2009 at the Carolina First Center in Greenville, SC. InnoVenture is one of the United States’ largest innovation conferences, attended by hundreds of people providing expertise, resources and customers to entrepreneurial companies, researchers, and innovators. 2009 Diamond Anchors include Michelin, Milliken, GE, BlueCross BlueShield of SC, SC Launch!, and Zeus. Additional information can be found at http://www.swampfox.ws.