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from press release: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/PressReleases/050407_actingintime.htm FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 26, 2007 Kennedy School to Launch New Initiative on Acting in Time Initiative to examine critical long-term challenges, will serve as framework for 2007 Spring Conference CAMBRIDGE, MA ? Harvard?s Kennedy School of Government is launching a new School-wide initiative intended to inspire discussion, research and ideas to overcome the incapacity of governments and others to act in time to prevent catastrophic events. The Acting in Time Initiative is designed to harness the expertise and insight of the Kennedy School and Harvard University with the goal of understanding the reasons that particular problems are not being addressed and to help foster ways to help move solutions forward. The Initiative will provide the framework for discussion during the 2007 Kennedy School Spring Conference, ?The Looming Crisis; Can We Act in Time?? in Cambridge May 4-5. The conference will bring together Harvard faculty members and other scholars, practitioners, nonprofit leaders, and journalists to explore critical long-term challenges ? from climate change to natural disasters to nuclear proliferation ? where action might make an enormous difference, but where governments, nations, and communities seem unable or unwilling to act. "A staggering number of consequential public problems are rapidly approaching crisis stage, taxing the capacities of governments, communities and nations, which seem at once unable to meet the challenges head-on," said Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood. "We will examine the forces that are causing this systematic and widespread paralysis that precludes our venerable institutions from acting in time to implement effective and responsible solutions." Former President William Jefferson Clinton will serve as the lunchtime keynote speaker at the conference. His address will begin at 1 p.m. May 4 in the third floor ballroom of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. President Festus Mogae of Botswana will deliver the keynote speech on May 5. His address, ?The Challenge and Opportunity of Africa,? will begin at 9:30 a.m. in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge. Conference sessions will be held both at the Kennedy School and the Charles Hotel. Sessions will include: The Coming Long-Term Care Storm; The Global Malaria Response; Nuclear Threats; American Health Care, Preparing for Landscape-Scale Disasters in the United States; and the Challenge and Opportunity of Africa. Conference participants will include: Graham T. Allison, director, Kennedy School ?s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; former assistant secretary of defense for policy and plans; Bill Blakemore, correspondent, ABC News; Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis; director, Henry J. Kaiser National Program on the Public, Health and Social Policy; Ashton Carter, Ford Foundation professor of science and international affairs; former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy; William Clark, Harvey Brooks professor of international science, public policy, and human development; Denis Cortese, president and CEO, The Mayo Clinic; David Gergen, director, Center for Public Leadership; former advisor to four U.S. presidents; John Holdren, Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy; director, Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy; Juliette Kayyem, undersecretary of homeland security, Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety; former legal advisor to Attorney General Janet Reno; Herman ?Dutch? Leonard, professor of public management; Samantha Power, Anna Lindh professor of practice of global leadership and public policy; Thomas Schelling, Lucius N. Littauer professor of political economy, Emeritus; James Skillen, President, The Center for Public Justice; Shirley Williams, public service professor of electoral politics, Emerita; member, House of Lords, United Kingdom. The Acting in Time Initiative is supporting a series of research projects examining the challenges facing governments, communities and nations as they seek to effectively confront significant oncoming public problems. Each research project is being led, or co-led, by a member of the Kennedy School faculty, often in collaboration with others both within the School and throughout the University. Selected findings from the research will be presented at the conference. "It is important to look beyond the crisis of the moment to the fundamental ability of governments and leaders to take action when they need to do so. To quote the first President Roosevelt, it is not enough to be wise if you are not 'wise in time,'" said Christopher Stone, Daniel and Florence Guggenheim professor of the practice of criminal justice and faculty chair of the Initiative. "When we look across the wide array of challenges facing governments today?from migration to pandemics, from earthquakes to terrorism?we recognize that the solutions themselves are rarely what's missing. What's missing is the ability of governments to act on what we know and to act in time to make a difference. That's the leadership skill set we will be trying to define through this initiative." Journalists interested in attending the conference should contact the Kennedy School Communications Office at (617) 495-1115 to reserve space. More information on the Acting in Time Initiative may be accessed on the website: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/dean/acting_in_time/index.htm More information on the conference may be accessed on the conference website: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/conference/loomingcrises/