A conversation with 44th President Barack Obama will open Global Summit XVII in Erie on September 16. Jefferson Educational Society President Ferki Ferati is very excited to have a former president kick off the 2025 Summit on the eve of America's 250th birthday. "To have a president here to mark that moment is a coup for us to get the celebration started and it will go all the way through the next Global Summit." 

Bringing in President Obama is something Jefferson Educational Society officials have been working on for a long time.  The former president is expected to talk about his two terms in office.

Jefferson Global Summits have been bringing in big names and filling Erie event spaces for years now.  Liz Cheney packed the Bayfront Convention Center last year.

Barack Obama will be the second president here for a Global Summit, following George W. Bush in 2021. Anticipated turnout puts the event in Erie Insurance arena. "When you're expecting 7-8 thousand people, that's beyond our capability so we have partnered with the folks at Erie events to dish out the tickets for lack of a better word, so we're really pumped about this," Ferati said.

The Jefferson Educational Society president is pumped about the rest of the lineup too.  Vice President Mike Pence will be here too, joined by recently retired president of Grove City College, Paul J. McNulty.  In 2006 the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed McNulty as Deputy Attorney General, the second in command at the U.S. Department of Justice.  Pence has been teaching at Grove City College since last year. The two will discuss faith in public life.

Also on the speaker lineup, astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, ESPN NBA Insider and St. Bonaventure basketball manager Adrian Wojnarowski, Fox News' analyst Juan Williams and more.

Ferati said his goal is to make Erie a learning capital and promote civil dialogue on many current issues, no matter what the views of the audience. "That is how humanity has evolved from you know the Stone Age to today, is people sitting down and talking together, and talking things out," he added.

Talking things out in this year's Global Summit will run from September through December.  Click here to learn more about the full lineup or watch the Insider public affairs program July 19-20.