Note to Correspondents

Headquarters to Host Thirty-Fifth UNIS-UN Student Conference, 3-4 March,

 

Under Theme ‘The Web:  Wiring our World’

The thirty-fifth annual UNIS-UN Conference will be held in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations on 3 and 4 March.  Organized by students at the United Nations International School (UNIS), the Conference will host about 700 students, including more than 270 visitors from around the world.  This year’s theme is “The Web:  Wiring our World”.  Distinguished speakers include Internet experts Nicholas Negroponte, Clay Shirky, Judith Donath, Kamran Elahian, Mark Rotenberg, Alexis Ohanian, Bert Herman, and Jon Lawhead. 

Visiting schools attending the UNIS-UN Conference will be representing a wide array of countries such as the United Kingdom, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Singapore, India, China, Ghana, Togo, Morocco, Jamaica, Mexico, Canada and the United States.

“We are the only school in the world that can offer this kind of learning experience, and I am amazed at the high quality and professional standard of the Conferences our students organize,” said George Dymond, UNIS Executive Director.  “The UNIS-UN Committee has done an exceptional job this year in assembling such an eminent panel of speakers.”

Mr. Negroponte is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab, and founder of the One Laptop per Child Association.  He was also an early investor and contributor to Wired magazine.  Mr. Shirky was the original professor of New Media in Hunter College’s Media Studies Department.  He heads a consulting practice focused on the rise of decentralized technologies and is on the faculty of New York University.

Bringing a wealth of experience to their participation in the UNIS-UN Conference are Ms. Donath, former professor at MIT Media Lab and the founder of the Sociable Media Group; Mr. Elahian, co-founder of companies including CAE Systems, Cirrus Logic, NeoMagic, and Centillium Communications and the founder of “Schools Online”; Mr. Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center; Ms. Ohanian, co-founder of reddit.com and Breadpig; Mr. Herman, founder of Hacks/Hackers and CEO and co-founder of Storify; and Mr. Lawhead, a candidate for a doctorate degree in philosophy at Columbia University.

UNIS-UN is a student-run organization founded in 1976 by high-school students and teachers at the United Nations International School as a means of forging stronger connections between the school and the United Nations.  Since the first Conference in 1977, UNIS-UN has been held every year in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations, with now hundreds of visiting schools participating, along with the UNIS high school.  UNIS-UN’s dual aims of education and discussion of current world issues among students from all walks of life is illustrated by past Conferences on topics such as bioethics, the food crisis, and energy.  For more information on UNIS-UN, please visit:  www.unis-un.org.

The upcoming two-day event features credited speakers on the year’s theme, student debates and panels, and a contest in which participating schools create films about the topic of the Conference.  Previous speakers include:  United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; former Secretary-General Kofi Annan; actress and activist Vanessa Redgrave; and former First Lady and current United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Founded in 1947, UNIS is an independent, K-12 college preparatory school that emphasizes academic excellence within a caring community.  UNIS promotes appreciation of the diversity of persons and cultures, provides an optimal environment for learning and teaching, and offers a global curriculum that inspires in its students the spirit and ideals of the United Nations Charter.  More than 120 countries are represented in the student body of 1,570, which comes from United Nations families and other families seeking an international education for their children.  UNIS is located in New York City, with campuses in Manhattan and Queens.  For more information, please visit www.unis.org.

For more information, please contact Sarah Bernstein or Rahul Khanna, Public Relations Committee, UNIS-UN, unisunkiva@gmail.com.

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For information media • not an official record