Annual HOPE Global Forum focuses on the future, AI and fighting poverty

It’s hard to overstate what happens every year during the HOPE Global Forum, and the 10th annual meeting did not disappoint.

John Hope Bryant, the founder of Operation HOPE and the Global HOPE Forum, has turned it into a multifaceted event that looks at the latest developments in society, business, technology, mental health, AI, financial literacy, affordable housing, government, sports and other topics.

While Atlanta and Georgia leaders play a major role throughout the forum, it has turned into an international event. Nearly 6,000 people, representing 40 plus countries, attended the 2024 forum, which is also live-streamed around the world.

Bryant is a big thinker and doer. He set an “audacious” goal to raise $100 million in commitments to increasing financial literacy, home ownership and entrepreneurship during the forum. By the end of the three days, more than $98 million had been raised, and pledges were still coming in.

The annual forums also make news. 

A year ago, Bryant and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced they were launching the AI Ethics Council, an effort aimed at preventing inequities and ethical lapses as the new technology takes hold.

This year, Bryant announced the creation of the AILP3 (AI Literacy Pipeline to Prosperity Project) with Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business and multiple other partners.

The new initiative aims to provide underserved populations with the tools to participate in an economy impacted by artificial intelligence. The Atlanta-based initiative, working with members of the AI Ethics Council, will develop and support programs for Georgia’s youth, from kindergarten through college.

“The master project, the model, is Atlanta,” Bryant said.

Richard Phillips, GSU’s business dean, called it a “big vision,” adding: “We will need all the partners we can get.”

George French, president of Clark Atlanta University and an inaugural member of the AI Ethics Council, said being affiliated with Operation HOPE is the “epitome” of partnerships.

“It’s going to be a national model, without a doubt,” French said. “This is an opportunity to lift up our entire community. It is an opportunity to combine the efforts of financial institutions with academic institutions.”

The programs will include K-12 to college immersion programming and curriculum to create more opportunities for students of all backgrounds to innovate in an economy that’s being disrupted by AI in the following ways:

• Programs to enhance skills for students and families impacted by AI-related job loss
• Financial literacy programming through Operation HOPE
• AI-focused scholarships
• AI apprenticeships

Once fully launched in Atlanta and Georgia, the initiative is designed to serve as a best-in-class template to replicate AILP3 on a national scale.

AI was a running theme throughout the 2024 forum with most panelists bullish about the technology. Angel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech said:

“We are trying to embrace it and leverage it,” said Georgia Tech President Angel Cabrera on the Future of AI panel. “I’m completely gung-ho. This is the biggest, most exciting opportunity we have seen in our lifetime.”

Cabrera urged all attendees to get ChatGPT accounts, saying he is using the technology to learn Italian. “We are in the midst of a new renaissance with technology,” he said.

Sara Friar, the chief financial officer of Open AI, said the technology could free people from mundane tasks and help them work on difficult initiatives, such as curing cancer, developing drugs, and addressing complex medical problems.

“That’s the path we are on, not 50 years from now. It’s happening today,” Friar said. “Every kid can literally have a tutor in their pocket. It’s not five years from now. This is happening now.”

Robert Silvers, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over policy, told forum attendees that the United States is about four months ahead of China.

“We can’t do anything that is a self-inflicted wound of slamming on the brakes,” Silvers said, adding that whoever wins the race will control the technology.

Here are some other highlights from the forum:

Affordable housing, the missing middle and homeownership were repeating themes.

Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, CEO-elect of DeKalb County, said she wanted “to bring HOPE” to her county.

“We need home ownership. If you own no home, you have no wealth,” she said. “What we are seeing increasingly is a wealth equity divide.”

Noerena Limón, CEO of the California-based Casita Coalition, focused on the missing middle – anything between a single-family home and a high-rise, such as townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, etc. She said about 75 percent of land in cities is zoned for single-family homes. But some cities are trying to address that.

“Today in Portland [Oregon], 73 percent of new homes are missing middle housing,” she said. “It can help solve the supply crisis and affordability. And think about the power of home ownership. Black homeowners have 62 percent more wealth than Black renters.”

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, in another session, raised the same issue. “There’s a housing piece we don’t discuss enough, and that’s duplexes and triplexes.” 

Woodfin also said students needed to learn how to manage money and finances as part of their education. “It’s not enough to teach math, science and English,” he said. “You have to teach financial literacy.”
The forum also was full of life lessons and advice.

Eric So, co-founder and managing director of Trinity Venture Partners, is a serial entrepreneur who came from Dubai to speak at the forum.

“I would go anywhere to be with John Hope Bryant,” he said. Then he added people needed to take stock in themselves. “Take an honest inventory of your assets and goals,” So said. “Failure is the leading cause of success. Don’t be afraid of failure.”

Bryant, who was welcomed by attendees like a rock star, also shared some of his gems.

“We are not humans having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience,” he said.

One of the “Big Think” speakers was Dr. Frank Luntz, who said the nation is full of “angry people” right now. “We have to quit treating each other with anger,” he said. “We have to treat each other with kindness.”
He also advised employers to treat their workers with respect, one of the keys to business success.

Luntz did share a funny story of him visiting the White House in December 2020 while Donald J. Trump was president. “I asked Donald Trump what his middle initial – ‘J’ – stood for. He said: ‘Genius.’” Luntz said.

The conference is able to attract top-named speakers. Consider the Future of Sports panel, which had the commissioners of four major sports organizations: Steve Phelps, president of NASCAR; Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association; Robert Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball; and Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League.

The commissioners talked about how their individual sports are becoming more international.

“We played five games globally this year,” NFL’s Goodell said. “It will be eight next year. We hope to be 16 after that. That’s a challenge and opportunity. We have a real opportunity to be global in a few years.”
NBA’s Silver remembered Atlanta Hawks legend Dikembe Mutombo, who died earlier this year. 

“When Dikembe Mutombo was playing [in the 1980s], there were four players born in Africa,” Silver said. “Now there are 50-plus. We have a dozen players from France. We are seeing the game being played all over the world.”

NASCAR’s Phelps also made a surprising comment: “By 2035, we are committed to being carbon neutral.”

On another panel called the Future of Opportunity, Atlanta Hawks owner Tony Ressler acknowledged he is able to encourage fellow business leaders to have greater impact in the community. Ressler said it’s good business to have a diverse customer base.

Fellow panelist Van Jones, a CNN host, said it is unfortunate that “DEI is under attack.”

Jones also reminded attendees that in 2020, 20 million whites marched in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“It was a massive breakthrough,” Jones said. “It was the biggest white movement for racial justice, and yet [there was backlash] four years later.”

Jones also was part of a panel on the Future of Mental Health. “You almost always end up dating the same person,” he said. “We attract people on the same frequency.”

Bryant had made a similar point two days earlier.

“Whatever goes around comes around,” Bryant said. “A lot of people are in messed up relationships, but it’s toxic. The only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were.”