What a REVOLUTIONARY Evening!

Last night we kicked off our exciting season with Revolutionary Thinkers featuring Will Allen, founder of Growing Power, Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.org, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, renowned Harvard sociologist and educator, and Juan Enriquez, futurist and scientist. Award-winning TV and radio journalist Alison Stewart moderated.

Here are some behind the scenes photos!

Doris and Richard Sugarman welcome Moderator Alison Stewart to Hartford. Alison was very very interested in learning about Hartford and seeing how the current economic climate has affected our town.

Alison, Sara and Juan chat about their hometowns while signing autographs at the panelist meeting. Here, the panelists meet for the first time and get acquainted before the evening begins.

Want to know what Juan's favorite book is, or what is always in his refrigerator?
He answers those questions and more on our new panelist questionnaire.
Check back next week to see what all of our panelists shared!

Jessica Jackley warms up the crowd at the pre-Forum dinner.

Will Allen and Richard Sugarman greet the pre-Forum dinner guests. Richard and Will were old college pals at The University of Miami!

The panelists visit The Bushnell and meet our stage director Arnold Berman (at left).

Richard and Sara admire the many signatures that adorn the walls backstage at The Bushnell.

Alison and Richard sort through questions from the audience in preparation for the second half.

As you can imagine, it's easy to be intimidated by these big thinkers with even bigger accomplishments - but there was no need. They were all extremely friendly and kind, and seemed to be in awe of each other, just as we were all in awe of them. Revolutionary Thinkers proved to be just what we hoped...an inspirational, educational, and motivational evening full of ideas, reflections, and insights.

Come back soon for behind the scenes videos and more!