Unique Gatherings

Top Thinkers & Leaders

Provocative Discussions

David has spent 20+ years creating unique and provocative gatherings, mostly focusing on life science and technology—combining critical issues, insights from fascinating speakers, arts offerings, and brilliant conversation

“We want to wow people—to leave a powerful, lasting impression about how the story of future is being forged and invented right now, and who the leaders are that are making it happen.”

– David Ewing Duncan

Events should inform and inspire—and engage, provoke, entertain, and make people think as they listen to talks by top thinkers, doers, and thought leaders, and participate in mind-blowing conversations with a focus on innovation, engaging with crucial issues, and the future.

David’s events include arts offerings with music, dance, poetry, visual arts, film, and more—plus special dinners and conversations with fascinating people around meals created by award-winning chefs.

David has also has advised, created, and curated meetings for nonprofit and universities, corporate summits and meetings, and much more. Ask him about a custom event for you.

David co-created the BioAgenda Summit held in Palm Springs, California and over 30 Arc Fusion Meetings held in a dozen cities in North America and Europe. For two year he was Creative Director of Cure, Helping to Produce, Create, and Oversee over 100 events.

Scroll down for videos and images from Arc Fusion, BioAgenda, Cure, and more

"I don't know what will happen tonight, where we'll go, and I think that's part of its attraction, it's that it's an open ended gathering, bringing a lot of minds together. It's a good question that we're asking ourselves.”

~ Kevin Kelly

Arc Fusion

Arc = a story arc

Fusion = the fusion of health, IT, and biomedicine—and everything else

Three men sitting and speaking on stage at a panel discussion. Behind them, a large screen displays text: "Juan Enriquez, Eric Schadt" and partially visible names. The audience is seated in front of them.

>>> Eric Schadt, David Ewing Duncan, and Juan Enriquez discuss the evening’s topic:“Should we Build a Better Human?” (Click for Video)

Arc Fusion, San Francisco

Arc Fusion is a boutique, invitation-only event for leaders in life sciences, technology, business, academia, policy and the arts.

Each gathering features a critical topic like: The Future of Humans and Technology, AI and Health, and Can We Build a Better Human?

Evenings include Arc Fusion Talks from top leaders; arts offerings; and “Jeffersonian Dinners” where attendees—all of whom get a chance to speak—sit at tables of ten to discussion the theme, with the conversation guided by a table talk leader.

BioAgenda

Founded in 2003, BioAgenda was a major retreat-style, 3-day summit held annually at the fabulous La Quinta resort in Palm Springs, California. With over 400 attendees and top speakers from the White House to corporate boardrooms to top labs, BioAgenda each year set the “agenda” for the coming year and combined great talks and panels with arts offerings, the BioAgenda film festival, and the BioAgenda Institute, a nonprofit that originated white papers and studies on some of the issues and breakthroughs discussed at the summit and in smaller meetings held in several cities on a variety of topics.

Francis Collins, former NIH Director delivers a keynote at BioAgenda, 2006.
Palm Springs, California

Cure

For two years David was the Creative Director of Cure, a health and life sciences campus in New York City housed in a 12-storey, state-of-the-art building near Union Square. Cure is owned by Deerfield Management and is home to 40 early-stage companies and wet and dry labs, plus premiere event space where David produced and helped overse over 100 events—from weekly interviews with life science leaders called Tuesday Talks to CureX events that were evening programs on programs ranging from rare diseases and longevity to women’s health to mental health and the brain.