The University of South Florida St. Pete will host the first annual St. Petersburg in the World Conference on World Affairs.
Speakers at the two-day conference will include professors, journalists and former government officials from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Panels will cover topics like a post-Castro Cuba and a post-Chavez Venezuela, the United States' role during a worldwide recession, and the ever-expanding issues surrounding the Middle East.
Doug McElhaney is a former U.S. ambassador and the founder of the non-profit "St. Petersburg in the World". He says apathy is not an option in an age of growing globalization and interdependence.
"We need to be engaged and we need to know what is going on in the rest of the world because it's going to affect our prosperity and more and more our security," McElhaney says.
Mayor Bill Foster will start the event at 9.am. Thursday in Harbor Hall at the USF St. Petersburg campus.
