Israel Cancer Association to hold annual membership brunch

WEST PALM BEACH – Ann and Richard Sommer and Nancy and Ellis Jay Parker III are co-chairing the 2011 Membership Brunch of Israel Cancer Association USA (ICA USA).

The annual event will be held Sunday, December 11at the Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach. The guest speaker, J. Scott Carpenter, brings many years of experience as a Middle East expert to his topic of “Israel: An Asset at a Time of Revolutionary Change in the Mid-East”.

Carpenter is principal at Google Ideas, Google’s new “think/do” tank, where he focuses on bringing technology to bear on countering violent extremism and consolidating democracy in the Arab world. He is also an adjunct scholar at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

As the Institute’s Keston Family fellow from 2007-2011, Scott was the founding director of Project Fikra, which focuses on empowering Arab democrats in their struggle against authoritarianism and extremism.  From 2004-2007, Scott served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, overseeing the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).

In 2006, he was also named coordinator for the State Department’s Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiatives.

Scott has an M.S. in economics and European studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, is married and has two sons.

The Israel Cancer Association continues to lead the way in groundbreaking cancer research by Israel’s extraordinary scientists. But because ICA receives no government funding, it must rely on private donations to support the fellowships presented to these brilliant scientists. For more information about the 2011 ICA USA Membership Brunch, contact Jill Cooper at Israel Cancer Association USA, (561) 832-9277.