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Fast Company is the official media partner of Summit Detroit.For the past 17 years, Summit, an organization hosting conferences and immersive experiences around the world, has brought together entrepreneurs and creatives in lush settings that double as vacation destinationsthink Tulum, Mexico; Palm Desert, Calif.; Powder Mountain, Utah; and even out on the open sea. This year marks the end of Summit’s larger-scale events as the company pivots toward more intimate gatherings. So it’s little surprise that more than a few eyebrows were raised when Summit announced Detroit as its last big hurrah this June 5-8. [Illustration: Summit] We came together and decided to convene our community in a place that embodies the Summit spirit, that is filled with surprise and delight, and has abundant, beautiful spaces for us to activate and bring to life, says Jody Levy, CEO and global director of Summit. We have had an outpouring of excitement from people across the world that we are gathering in Detroit. Those who know know! Founded in 2008, Summit is the brainchild of Elliott Bisnow, Brett Leve, Jeff Rosenthal, and Jeremy Schwartz, who coalesced around the idea of finding the connections between their personal interests and entrepreneurial endeavors. They set out to develop a community of like-minded people by hosting a series of events leaning into the intersection of work and play. At a Summit event, it’s not uncommon to hear a talk on the future of human longevity before heading to a poolside DJ set or a wearable balloon art dance party. That feeling of the unexpected also translates to Summits chosen location this year. “I’ve been watching [Detroit] really hit the stride of what everybody always wanted and saw for the city,” Levy says. “There’s so much happening here that’s being exported to the rest of the world that my partners and I [at Summit] decided to come to a place that’s a little unexpected, that’s got a little bit of that like grungy grit that we all as entrepreneurs have.” Summit Detroit will have much of what Summit has become known for: high-level speakers including Ev Williams, cofounder of Mozi and Twitter and the founder of Medium; futurist Pablos Holman; author and psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb; tracks focused on the future of transportation, next-gen entrepreneurship, and mental health; and live music sets. The event will also take advantage of being in downtown Detroit with design tours and a lineup of Detroits culinary arts. But what Levy is most excited for is the track on creative expression and storytelling. Featuring speakers including famed choreographer Bill T. Jones, artist and activist Shepard Fairey, and head of design at Google Ivy Ross, the track will explore how to apply design thinking to your pursuits, the importance of transient moments to the human experience, and more. [Photo: Amanda Demme] As creative doers who are always pushing what comes next, there are many people globally feeling lonely and isolated, Levy says. It tells me that the Summit community and the creative community at large need to come up with new ways to support each other. With the rapid pace of technology, AI, and information, it is increasingly important for us all to be reminded of the space where our passion and purpose coalesce. That is the place that the Summit community has in common, and it is imperative to how we grow and evolve our companies and products. Summit is an invite-only community composed mainly of referrals from existing members, some of whom have been part of the group since its inception. Its not meant to be some secret societyits more about preserving the integrity of the companys mission: bringing the best thinkers, creators, inventors, investors together to learn and support each other. Or, as Levy describes it: a mutual aid society for our time. When there’s somebody that we know through Summit, there is a nod of credibility, she says. They’re probably a high-octane doer that has a certain way of operating that you trust because they’ve been invited into the Summit community. Levy believes that Summit can have an especially meaningful impact at moments such as now, when the world is unstable and in transition. “When we, the Summit community, come together, we are able to explore all kinds of topics in a neutral space that allows our community to bump up against the outer edges of our belief systems, Levy says. People end up growing and learning from each other. Summit has always been highly effective in giving people new vantage points and opportunities for collaboration to make our endeavors more successful.
Category:
E-Commerce
A heated debate has recently erupted between two groups of supporters of President Donald Trump. The dispute concerns the H-1B visa system, the program that allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers in specialty occupationsmostly in the tech industry. On the one hand, there are people like Trumps former strategist Steve Bannon, who has called the H-1B program a total and complete scam. On the other, there are tech tycoons like Elon Musk who think skilled foreign workers are crucial to the U.S. tech sector. The H-1B visa program is subject to an annual limit of new visas it can issue, which sits at 65,000 per fiscal year. There is also an additional annual quota of 20,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled international students who have a proven ability to succeed academically in the U.S. The H-1B program is the primary vehicle for international graduate students at U.S. universities to stay and work in the United States after graduation. At Rice University, where I work, much of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research is carried out by international graduate students. The same goes for most American research-intensive universities. As a computer science professorand an immigrantwho studies the interaction between computing and society, I believe the debate over H-1B overlooks some important questions: Why does the U.S. rely so heavily on foreign workers for the tech industry, and why is it not able to develop a homegrown tech workforce? The U.S. as a global talent magnet The U.S. has been a magnet for global scientific talent since before World War II. Many of the scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb were European refugees. After World War II, U.S. policies such as the Fulbright Program expanded opportunities for international educational exchange. Attracting international students to the U.S. has had positive results. Among Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, medicine or physics since 2000, 40% have been immigrants. Tech industry giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google were all founded by first- or second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, immigrants have founded more than half of the nations billion-dollar startups since 2018. Stemming the inflow of students Restricting foreign graduate students path to U.S. employment, as some prominent Trump supporters have called for, could significantly reduce the number of international graduate students in U.S. universities. About 80% of graduate students in American computer science and engineering programs (roughly 18,000 students in 2023) are international students. The loss of international doctoral students would significantly diminish the research capability of graduate programs in science and engineering. After all, doctoral students, supervised by principal investigators, carry out the bulk of research in science and engineering in U.S. universities. It must be emphasized that international students make a significant contribution to U.S. research output. For example, scientists born outside the U.S. played key roles in the development of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. So making the U.S. less attractive to international graduate students in science and engineering would hurt U.S. research competitiveness. Computing PhD graduates are in high demand. The economy needs them, so the lack of an adequate domestic pipeline seems puzzling. Where have U.S. students gone? So, why is there such a reliance on foreign students for U.S. science and engineering? And why hasnt America created an adequate pipeline of U.S.-born students for its technical workforce? After discussions with many colleagues, I have found that there are simply not enough qualified domestic doctoral applicants to fill the needs of their doctoral programs. In 2023, for example, U.S. computer science doctoral programs admitted about 3,400 new students, 63% of whom were foreign. It seems as if the doctoral career track is simply not attractive enough to many U.S. undergrad computer science students. But why? The top annual salary in Silicon Valley for new computer science graduates can reach $115,000. Bachelors degree holders in computing from Rice University have told me that until recentlybefore economic uncertainty shook the industrythey were getting starting annual salaries as high as $150,000 in Silicon Valley. Doctoral students in research universities, in contrast, do not receive a salary. Instead, they get a stipend. These vary slightly from school to school, but they typically pay less than $40,000 annually. The opportunity cost of pursuing a doctorate is, thus, up to $100,000 per year. And obtaining a doctorate typically takes six years. So, pursuing a doctorate is not an economically viable decision for many Americans. The reality is that a doctoral degree opens new career options to its holder, but most bachelors degree holders do not see beyond the econmics. Yet academic computing research is crucial to the success of Silicon Valley. A 2016 analysis of the information technology sectors with a large economic impact shows that academic research plays an instrumental role in their development. Why so little? The U.S. is locked in a cold war with China focused mostly on technological dominance. So maintaining its R&D edge is in the national interest. Yet the U.S. has declined to make the requisite investment in research. For example, the National Science Foundations annual budget for computer and information science and engineering is around $1 billion. In contrast, annual R&D expenses for Alphabet, Googles parent company, have been close to $50 billion for the past decade. Universities are paying doctoral students so little because they cannot afford to pay more. But instead of acknowledging the existence of this problem and trying to address it, the U.S. has found a way to meet its academic research needs by recruiting and admitting international students. The steady stream of highly qualified international applicants has allowed the U.S. to ignore the inadequacy of the domestic doctoral pipeline. The current debate about the H-1B visa system provides the U.S. with an opportunity for introspection. Yet the news from Washington, D.C., about massive budget cuts coming to the National Science Foundation seems to suggest the federal government is about to take an acute problem and turn it into a crisis. Moshe Y. Vardi is a professor of computer science at Rice University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Shoppers at Uniqlo in New York City can now purchase a matcha and a cold brew alongside their new pair of work trousers. As of March 14, Uniqlos Midtown store is the first North American location of the Japanese-owned fashion brand to open a Uniqlo Coffee. The cafe, owned by Uniqlo, serves a standard beverage menu including coffee, espresso beverages, cold brew, and matcha, as well as hot chocolate and orange juice. Its located inside the store itself, with the same sleek, monochromatic branding as the retail sections. Uniqlo is one of several other everyday luxury retailerslike Muji, Aritzia, and Ralph Laurenthat have likewise opened their own branded coffee shops. Its the modern-day, status-signaling version of a Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble; turning the store itself into a kind of third place for shoppers to gather in an attempt to earn the coveted reputation of a lifestyle brand rather than merely a clothing store. View this post on Instagram A post shared by UNIQLO USA (@uniqlousa) Why every retailer has a coffee shop now Uniqlo Coffee may be new in the U.S., but its already a staple at Uniqlo locations in Asia, including in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Malaysia. These locations tend to have extended menus that also offer small snack foods with local touches. At the Manila global flagship store, for example, shoppers can find melon buns, hojicha gelato, strawberry mint tea, and a cookie butter cheesecake on top of the standard coffee offerings. Brands within Uniqlos niche of elevated basics have already found success in North America with starting their own coffee shops. Artizias A-OK Cafe, which serves coffee, tea, and pastries, has expanded to 11 locations in Canada and recently opened two new stores in Chicago and New York City. Ralph Laurens Ralphs Coffee can be found in multiple New York locations as well as both Europe and Asia, where it sells sweet treats alongside merch like a Ralphs-branded tumbler or a ball cap. And the Japanese retailer Muji recently opened a full-on food hall inside NYCs Chelsea Market, where a robot barista named Jarvis will bring you a black sesame latte on wheels. The coffee shop trend is just another expression of many trendy retailers desire to become known as a lifestyle brand, or a brand that transcends its actual products to encompass a whole vibe or aestheticthink Erewhon releasing a $335 sweatsuit, or Sweetgreen starting its own merch-based loyalty program. An added bonus to the physical coffee shop concept is that it plays into Gen Zs desire to gather in third places post-pandemic, a trend that formerly DTC-only brands like Chamberlain Coffee have also embraced by debuting an actual in-person shop. Market calculation aside, its a well-known fact that shopping is simply more enjoyable with an ice-cold beverage in hand (and it might even keep you browsing those aisles a bit longer.) The A-OK Cafe website spells it out pretty clearly: Don’t let snack-free shopping happen to you.
Category:
E-Commerce
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