Doing Business in the Arctic

Time:

Thu, May 23, 2019

9:00 AM – 1:30 PM EDT

Location:

Embassy of Iceland

2900 K Street Northwest

Washington, DC 20007

Conference Chair is Jon Sigurdsson, Chairman, Icelandic American Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO, Össur

To register please click here: Eventbrite

Agenda:

08:15-09:00  Light Breakfast

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09:00-09:05 Welcome Note: Ambassador Geir H. Haarde

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09:05-09:20  Iceland´s Chairmanship of the Arctic Council

Gudlaugur Thor Thordarsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Iceland

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09:20-10:20  Economic Drivers in the Arctic

Moderator: Halla Hrund Logadottir, Co-Founder, Arctic Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Panel:

Joe Balash, Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Department of the Interior

Gylfi Sigfússon, Managing Director, Eimskip USA

Nagruk Harcharek, Director, UIC Lands

Inuuteq Holm Olsen, Minister Plenipotentiary and Head of Representation for Greenland, Danish Embassy, Washington DC

Lori Davey, Vice President of Enterprise Markets, GCI

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10:20-10:50  Networking Break

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10:50-11:10  Arctic Investment Protocol: In Conversation With Scott Minerd

Speaker

Scott Minerd, Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer, Guggenheim 

Interviewer

Mike Sfraga, Director, Wilson Center's Polar Institute

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11:15-12:15 Investing in the Arctic

12:15-12:30  Closing

Jon Sigurdsson, Chairman, Icelandic American Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO, Össur

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12:30-1:30pm Lunch and Networking

Included in the $25 conference fee is breakfast and lunch buffet

Corporate Sponsors:

Eimskip, Össur, Icelandair, Siggi's Skyr, Century Aluminum, Lateral Investment Management

Organizer of Doing Business in the Arctic

The Icelandic American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) is a membership organization founded in New York in 1986. The chamber promotes the development of business and trade between the United States and Iceland through membership networking events, business conferences and other occasions in which leaders of the business and government participate. IACC´s day-to-day operations are managed by the Icelandic trade office at the Consulate General of Iceland in New York. 

The Embassy of Iceland in Washington D.C. represents Iceland vis-a-vis the United States, as well as Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay. The Embassy's mission is to promote political, economic and cultural relations with these countries.

The Arctic Economic Council (AEC) is an independent organization that facilitates Arctic business-to-business activities and responsible economic development through the sharing of best practices, technological solutions, standards, and other information. 

(The AEC support market accessibility and provide advice and a business perspective to the work of the Arctic Council. The members represent a wide range of businesses operating in the Arctic—from mining and shipping companies to reindeer herding and indigenous economic development corporations. The AEC is open to Arctic and sub-Arctic entities corporations, partnerships and indigenous groups that have an economic interest in the Arctic.)

The Wilson Center’s Polar Institute is the comprehensive, non-partisan Arctic and Antarctic policy forum in the United States, tracking, analyzing, and making sense of these complex and interconnected dynamics.

Leveraging the depth and breadth of knowledge of its regional and topical experts, the Institute pursues crosscutting research, offers actionable policy ideas, and develops public awareness. Fostering multilateral dialogue and convening leaders from government, academia, private industry, indigenous peoples, and civil society. The Polar Institute aims to holistically address the many critical questions facing, and related to, the polar regions.

On exhibit at the Embassy of Iceland in Washington D.C. from May 22nd to September 5th, 2019

GLACIER - Ragnar Axelsson

Glacier is an ode to Iceland's glaciers by renowned documentary photographer, Ragnar Axelsson. Having grown up near the glaciers and flown his plane over them countless times since, Axelsson has a deep affinity for the ice that has shaped the country's land and psyche, as well as his own lifelong fascination. With near-abstract black-and-white aerial images, and short reflective texts, Glacier is a breathtaking view of glacial forms, textures, and patterns as seen from a lyrical flight that starts above the clouds and ends at the sea.

The photographs, taken in the past ten years, are at once elemental and ethereal, dynamic and timeless, unfamiliar and intimate. A few minuscule human figures give an initial reference to the enormity of the glaciers, but the images soon lose all sense of scale, requiring a constant reassessment of our relationship to what we are seeing, and what in reality we are bearing witness to. Surface details of the ever-moving ice, brought into sharp relief by volcanic ash, show powerful natural forces at play, but unseen and unstoppable forces are also at work. Nothing can be done to prevent Iceland's glaciers from melting away. Within the next two centuries, they will be gone forever.