You don't have to be in New York City tonight to join some of the world's brightest minds over dinner as they figure out how to make the globe a better place to live.  In fact, you don't even have to sit on the sidelines while they come up with all the great ideas.  Thanks to The Feast, anyone who wants to gets to speak up and contribute something to the conversation.

The "Worldwide Feast for Good" takes place in homes and restaurants all over the planet tonight, culminating a week-long event taking place in Manhattan featuring everyone from the deputy chief technologist from NASA and the founding director of Partners in Health to the creative director of Cirque du Soleil.  The 2012 Feast Conference brings together some of the most innovative thinkers, creators and doers around for the purpose of solving some of the most pressing problems in existence -- poverty and disease, for example -- through intelligent and creative use of data and design.

For those of us who can't make it to the head table but still want to take part in the discussion on a grander scale, The Feast offers six specific challenges through its website, as well as a host of ignition points for each.  For example, one challenge involves designing a tool utilizing existing data to help improve the lives of a young, low-income mom with two kids or the life of an elderly person (bonus points for both).  To help you complete the challenge, The Feast offers nine resources, including government data sets, visualization blogs, a TED Talk, and more, just to whet the appetite.

Hungry?  Yep, us too.  So, let's feast on something amazing tonight.  Bon appetit!