With TED, Aspen Ideas Festival and Davos having gone mainstream, there is one new scholarly gathering that we’re keeping our eye on: invitation-only Google Camp, held for the first time last August in Sicily. The crowd—the idea was to throw big thinkers together in a fun environment—included Elon Musk, Lloyd C. Blankfein, Diane von Furstenberg, Uber founder Travis Kalanick and Dr. Dre. Said one attendee, “The highlight was the meals where you might wind up talking about futuristic ideas, like space mining or solar-powered planes, with the people working on them now.”

Pieter Van Eenoge