Alums Start Intellectual YouTube

Harvard professors are rubbing virtual shoulders with the world’s premier minds on a Web site launched by two alums.

The site, BigThink.com, bills itself as “a YouTube for ideas” and aims to bring the technology of video-sharing to the service of intellectual discourse. It was funded in part by former University President Lawrence H. Summers.

“The goal is really to recreate the vibrant space of a university or a think tank—where ideas get exchanged all the time—online, where it’s not limited by a certain type of politics or certain realm of content,” said co-founder Peter L. Hopkins ’04.

The idea for BigThink emerged when Hopkins and Business School graduate Victoria R. Brown were both producers on PBS’ “The Charlie Rose Show,” Hopkins said.

The two saw the need for an online forum for exchanging content about a wide range of topics.

They decided to create a site where users from around the world could both hear from scholars and engage in debate with other users on issues ranging from politics to science to faith.

When it comes to topics of international relevance such as global warming or human rights, there needed to be a way for users to exchange ideas across borders, Hopkins said.

He said the online streaming of video offers an opportunity to break free of the limits of the TV spectrum, where “content becomes very base and mean, and hence you get things that tend to cater to the average viewer.”

Hopkins said he initially arranged a meeting with Summers to discuss what it would take to convince the former treasury secretary to participate as an expert on the site.

Summers raised concerns about scholarly discourse being undermined by inappropriate content posted to the site by individual users, according to Hopkins. Summers is traveling and was unavailable for comment.

After Hopkins reassured Summers that the site would be closely monitored by BigThink staff and that any questionable content would be swiftly removed, Summers agreed to participate, Hopkins said.

Then in early 2007, after other investors had pledged support, he expressed interest in contributing financially as well. Summers told The New York Times he invested “a few tens of thousands of dollars.”

Apart from Summers, other renowned figures who have given interviews posted on the site range from news anchor Jim C. Lehrer to fashion designer Zac Posen and from Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to chef Jacques Pépin.

The field of 83 experts—“well-known, well-respected, and influential,” according to Hopkins—counts 11 Harvard professors, including psychology professor Steven Pinker, law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, and Rev. Peter J. Gomes, as well as three presidential hopefuls.

“We have a pretty broad set of interests, anything intelligent people might have a fancy for,” Hopkins said. “In that regard, there’s really no limit.”

—Staff writer Alexandra Perloff-Giles can be reached at aperloff@fas.harvard.edu.