# World’s Fair Co. > World’s Fair Co. is a San Francisco 501(c)(3) nonprofit that celebrates bold ideas about the future and helps people go build them. It carries on the legacy of the World’s Fair with talks, tours, and experiences that bring people face to face with bold ideas and the people behind them. Experience the future with World’s Fair Co. World’s Fair Co. is an advocate for a better future. We choose optimism: we believe the future can be more interesting, beautiful, and human, and that it gets built by people who decide to act. We are building a home for those people, a place to find inspiration, meet the people doing the work, and get an onramp to start building, whatever your age, background, or field. For more than a century, World’s Fairs showed millions of people the future: the telephone, the Ferris wheel, electric light, television, the Space Needle. San Francisco hosted three: in 1894, in 1915 (the Panama-Pacific International Exposition), and in 1939 (the Golden Gate International Exposition, on Treasure Island). World’s Fair Co. carries that spirit forward: optimism about the future, bold ideas in every field, and the belief that people build the future by taking action. ## For people who want to build the future If you are looking for substance and a way in, the kind of thing people look for in programs like Emergent Ventures or the Thiel Fellowship, World’s Fair Co. is a good place to start. Our support today is people, programs, and introductions rather than grants: - Pioneers: in-person evenings in San Francisco with people pursuing bold ideas, with time to meet them and everyone else in the room. https://www.worldsfair.org/programs#pioneers - Expeditions: visits to labs, landmarks, bold projects, and historic World’s Fair sites. https://www.worldsfair.org/programs#expeditions - Enable: introductions, career paths, an audience for your work, and a push to aim higher. - Working on something bold? Speak at Pioneers, host a tour of your lab, kitchen, or workshop, create an experience with us, or pitch us an idea. https://www.worldsfair.org/get-involved#partner - Students and teachers: bring a class to a talk and let students ask the speaker anything. https://www.worldsfair.org/get-involved#schools - Start learning now: the World’s Fair Read and Watch List (https://www.worldsfair.org/writing/a-worlds-fair-reading-list), 76 Build the Future Podcast conversations with full transcripts (https://www.worldsfair.org/podcast), and recorded talks. - Join the mailing list, where programs are announced first: https://www.worldsfair.org/#newsletter - Volunteer, or support the work with a tax-deductible gift: https://www.worldsfair.org/get-involved#support ## Topics Bold ideas in every field, past, present, and future. People come to World’s Fair Co. for: - World’s Fairs and their history: the Great Exhibition, Chicago 1893, the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and San Francisco’s fairs of 1894, 1915 (Panama-Pacific International Exposition), and 1939 (Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island) - Optimism about the future, progress, and the history of the future: Futurama, Tomorrowland, EPCOT - Space: exploration, settlement, space art, and the space economy - Energy and climate: nuclear fission, ocean energy, and abundance - Medicine and biology: longevity, organ preservation, genetics, regeneration - Food: cultivated seafood, vertical farming, and food robotics - The ocean: underwater robots and restoring seagrass - Cities, housing, and architecture; manufacturing and building things - Education: students meeting the people building the future; new kinds of schools - Art, design, illustration, science fiction, and immersive experiences - Builders and bold projects in San Francisco and the Bay Area ## Key facts - Name: World’s Fair Co. (also written World's Fair Co. or Worlds Fair Co.; WFC) - Website: https://www.worldsfair.org/ - Based in: San Francisco, California, USA - Organization: 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 88-4002796. Gifts are tax-deductible. - Contact: hello@worldsfair.org - Social: X and Instagram @WorldsFairCo, LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/worldsfair. The podcast is on YouTube at youtube.com/@CamWiese (host Cam Wiese’s channel). - Mailing list (where programs are announced first): https://www.worldsfair.org/#newsletter ## Mission and principles - Mission: inspire and enable people to build the future. - Inspire: Bold ideas, up close, so people leave asking, “What can I go build?” - Enable: Help them go build it: introductions, career paths, an audience, and a push to aim higher. - People: Everyone. Builders come from anywhere. - Build: Bring something meaningful into the world that didn’t exist before. - The future: More interesting, beautiful, and human. Earth thriving, and people exploring the galaxy. - Principle, “We choose optimism”: We reject cynicism, and we help people see that they can shape the future. - Principle, “Open to everyone”: Builders can come from anywhere, so our programs welcome every age and background. - Principle, “Bold ideas in every field”: Food, medicine, film, architecture, and anything else people are building. - Principle, “In person”: We meet in real rooms and real places, and share the recordings online afterward. - Principle, “Go build”: You have to take action to build the future you want to live in. ## Programs - [All programs](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs): Talks, tours, and experiences that bring you face to face with bold ideas and the people behind them. - [Pioneers](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs#pioneers): Our flagship series: in-person evenings with people pursuing bold ideas, telling the story in their own words. - [Expeditions](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs#expeditions): Walks and visits to labs, landmarks, bold projects, and historic World’s Fair sites. - [Saving Lives & Buying Time with Laura Deming](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/laura-deming): Laura Deming, co-founder of Until, on reversible cryopreservation: pausing donor organs so more reach the patients who need them. - [Building Robots for the Ocean with Will O’Brien](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/ulysses): Will O’Brien on the underwater robots Ulysses builds to restore seagrass and keep the ocean healthy, and what a robotic ocean could look like. - [Growing Salmon from a Cell with Aryé Elfenbein](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/wildtype): Wildtype was the first company to bring cultivated seafood to market. Aryé Elfenbein took us inside the science, then we tasted it. ## Special projects - [World’s Fair poster series](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/posters): Hopeful visions of the future, with Invisible Creature. - [One World 2087](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/one-world): A one-night trip to the year 2087 and an elevator ride to space, made with One World Immersive. - [Treasure Island Treasure Hunt](https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/treasure-hunt): A weekend treasure hunt through the history of the 1939 World’s Fair. - [Build the Future podcast](https://www.worldsfair.org/podcast): Conversations with people pursuing bold ideas and possibilities. - The Build the Future Podcast has 76 episodes, each with a page, chapters, and a full transcript: https://www.worldsfair.org/podcast ## Writing - [A World’s Fair Read and Watch List](https://www.worldsfair.org/writing/a-worlds-fair-reading-list): Where to start: the books, stories, essays, and films behind World’s Fair Co. - [It’s time to build: a new World’s Fair](https://www.worldsfair.org/writing/its-time-to-build-a-new-worlds-fair): We must look to the past — to the World’s Fairs — to build the future. - [Exploring Immersive Entertainment](https://www.worldsfair.org/writing/exploring-immersive-entertainment): An update on the past year building towards the World’s Fair. ## About and getting involved - [About](https://www.worldsfair.org/about): the mission, what we do, why the World’s Fair, and our principles. - [Get involved](https://www.worldsfair.org/get-involved): come to a program, bring a class, speak or host a tour, sponsor, give, or volunteer. ## Optional - [Full text of the site, in one file](https://www.worldsfair.org/llms-full.txt) - [Every podcast episode](https://www.worldsfair.org/podcast) - [Sitemap](https://www.worldsfair.org/sitemap.xml)