Parag Khanna: global futurist, best-selling author, and Dinner by Starlight Guest of Honour

We are so thrilled that Dr. Parag Khanna will be a part of the Indian Summer Fest 2019 as our Dinner by Starlight Guest of Honour! The futurist and author has some incredible achievements.

One of the “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century”

In 2008, Dr. Parag Khanna was named one of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century by the magazine Esquire thanks to all his amazing achievements.

Best-selling author

Parag Khanna has published six books that have been translated into more than twenty languages.

In his latest book, The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century, Khanna argues that the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, in the 21st century, the world is being Asianized, which inspired us to define Dinner by Starlight theme as “The Future is Asian.”

Amazing TED Talker

Parag Khanna is an experienced and successful TED Talker. He spoke at TED in 2016, TED Global 2009, was a guest host of TED Global 2012, and lead speaker at TEDxGateway in 2018. His TED Talks have been viewed several million times. You can find two of them at TED Talks official website.

Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap

FutureMap is a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm. They use advanced statistical methods and machine learning to identify salient factors across the political, economic, social, environmental and technological domains, giving clients insight into potential risks and opportunities across markets.

Leading global strategy advisor

Dr. Parag Khanna has been an adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 program, has served on the WEF’s Global Future Council on Mobility, Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics, and is an advisory board of its Future of Urban Development Initiative.

From 2013-2018 he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. From 2006-2015 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. During 2007 he served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior geopolitical advisor to the United States Special Operations Forces. From 2002-5, he was the Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution; from 2000-2002 he worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and from 1999-2000, he was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

International media personality

He is currently a CNN Global Contributor. Besides that, his 2008 cover story for the New York Times Magazine titled “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony,” is one of the most globally debated and influential essays since the end of the Cold War. His articles have appeared in major international publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, TIME, Foreign Affairs, Axios, Forbes, The Atlantic, Quartz, Foreign Policy, Harper’s, BusinessWeek, The Guardian, The National Interest, McKinsey Quarterly, The American Interest, Stratfor, Esquire, Slate.com, and Die Zeit.

Parag Khanna is a contributing editor to WorldPost and serves on the editorial board of Global Policy and as a consultant to the National Geographic series Origins.

He also appears frequently in media around the world such as CNN, BBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera, and other broadcasters. In 2010 he became the first video-blogger for ForeignPolicy.com and from 2010-12 co-authored the Hybrid Reality blog on BigThink. From 2008-9, Parag was the host of “InnerView” on MTV.

World traveler

Parag Khanna was born in India, and lived in different countries, like the United Arab Emirates, New York, and Germany. In addition to that, Parag also had many international adventures, like driving from the Baltic Sea through the Balkans and across Turkey and the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea, across the rugged terrain of Tibet and Xinjiang provinces in western China, and ten thousand kilometers from London to Ulaanbaatar in the Mongolia Charity Rally. He has climbed numerous 20,000-foot plus peaks and trekked in the Alps, the Himalayas, and Tien Shan mountain ranges.

Books and bio

If you want to buy his books and read his official bio, you can check his official website.

If like us, you felt inspired about Parag Khanna’s story, you should come to Dinner by Starlight on May 25. We can’t wait to hear more interesting things about him!

Dinner By Starlight: The Future is Asian 

Saturday, May 25, 2019
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Fairmont Waterfront
Tickets: $350*/seat | $2800*/table of eight
(*tax receipt available for maximum allowable amount)
BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE