Over 2,000 professionals and students from across the United States and more than 55 other countries will convene at Yale from April 21 to 22, for the ninth annual Global Health & Innovation Conference, presented by Unite For Sight, a non-profit organization founded by then-Yale student Jennifer Staple-Clark, who is now its chief executive officer.

The event, which takes place both in campus venues and in the historic Shubert Theater in New Haven, is the world's largest global health conference, as well as the largest social entrepreneurship conference.

This year's conference includes keynote addresses by:

  • Sasha Dichter, chief innovation officer, Acumen Fund
  • Seth Goldman, president and "TeaEO" of Honest Tea
  • Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
  • Sonia Sachs, director of Health, Millennium Village Project.

The event also includes presentations by Yale faculty members, including Betsy Bradley, professor and director of the Yale Global Health Initiative and Global Health Leadership Institute; Marcia Inhorn, professor of anthropology and international affairs; James Tsai, the Robert R. Young Professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale; and Aron Rose, associate clinical professor at Yale School of Medicine.

In addition, the conference will feature more than 200 other speakers, including social innovation sessions by CEOs and leaders of Riders for Health, Partners in Health, Sesame Workshop, IDEO, Save The Children, and many others. More than 100 cutting-edge ideas that are in early development will be presented during social enterprise pitch sessions.

About Unite For Sight:

Unite For Sight is a 501(c)3 non-profit global health delivery organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Unite For Sight supports eye clinics worldwide by investing human and financial resources in their social ventures to eliminate patient barriers to eye care. To date, Unite For Sight has provided eye care to more than 1.4 million patients worldwide, including more than 53,000 sight-restoring surgeries. In addition to being a leader in providing cost-effective care to the world's poorest people, Unite For Sight's Global Impact Corps and Global Health University develop and nurture the current and next generation of global health leaders.

Source: Yale University