User:Markus Pössel/WSF Sandbox

The World Science Festival is a Science Festival in New York City. It will take place for the first time from May 28 to June 1, 2008, and is planned as an annual event.

The festival features different kinds of presentations: science events for a general audience, which focus on current scientific knowledge on topics ranging from memory and longevity to quantum mechanics, a cultural program under the auspices of actor and writer Alan Alda, with a focus on art and performances inspired by science, and a youth and family program.

The Festival is organised by the Science Festival Foundation, a non-for-profit company founded for the purpose by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and Emmy-winning television journalist Tracy Day. It is presented in partnership with Columbia University, New York University, CUNY, Rockefeller University and the Cooper Union and cultural institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Financial support comes from individuals, from numerous foundations (including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Sloan Foundation and the Templeton Foundation), and from corporate sponsors including Credit Suisse.

2008 Festival
According to the Festival's website, the roster of the 2008 Festival will include actor and writer Alan Alda, psychologist Nancy Andreasen, robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal, philosopher Patricia Churchland, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, physicists Paul Davies, philosopher Daniel Dennett, physicist and historian Peter Galison, physicist Brian Greene, Rensselaer Polytechnic president Shirley Ann Jackson, inventor Ray Kurzweil, paleontologist Richard Leakey, physicist Leon Lederman, neurologist Oliver Sacks, actress Anna Deavere Smith, and physicist Leonard Susskind.