Speakers flock to Gulf Coast

A world-renowned speakers conference with a focus on creativity will make its U.S. debut in Sarasota later this year.

The conference is PINC — People, Ideas, Nature and Creativity. Modeled after the TED Talks concept, it's been held in the Netherlands for 15 years. The Sarasota version is scheduled for Nov. 6 at Florida Studio Theater. The daylong conference, according to a release, will include presentations from 16 international speakers “who have little shared experience other than extreme passion for what they do.”

Topics on the agenda range from oceanography to orthopaedic surgery and from business innovation to vertical farming. Confirmed speakers include David Gallo, director of the Wood Hole Institute, an oceanography center, who has worked on the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370; transplant surgeon Dr. John Barker; publishing entrepreneur Joost Elffers, who created the line of Tangram puzzles; and British doctor and Antarctic explorer Alexander Kumar.

Sarasota entrepreneur Anand Pallegar, founder of Web design and marketing firm atLarge, helped bring PINC to town. Ringling College of Art and Design is a presenting partner.

The idea behind PINC stems from Dutch couple Peter van Lindonk and Nelleke van Lindonk. The van Lindonks, in publishing, would often buy three magazines for long flights that highlighted topics they knew little about. That's how, in the mid-1990s, they read about TED Talks, a nonprofit organization that hosts conferences with short presentations, usually up to 18 minutes. They liked the concept so much they brought it to the Netherlands.

Past PINC speakers include John Wood, who wrote “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World;” Matt Flannery, co-founder of microloan organization Kiva; Julie Taymor, creator of “The Lion King” on Broadway; NASA astronaut Story Musgrave; Jeff Pisciotta, head of the Nike Research Lab; and Ken Brecher, former executive director and co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival.