13 Best Moments From Bill's Bash

Getty Images (3) Power players from Barack Obama to Carlos Slim hit New York for Clinton’s annual brainstorming session this week. The Daily Beast’s Benjamin Sarlin on the biggest names and best ideas.

Four days. Dozens of panel discussions. Big names, and bigger ideas. The fifth-annual Clinton Global Initiative is like one long brainstorming session, convened by the 42nd president and featuring NGOs and philanthropic organizations doing extraordinary things. The Initiative claims to have raised $46 billion in charitable commitments to date—and that was before this year's gathering. And by bringing together wealthy donors with policy wonks, world leaders, and nonprofits, the CGI estimates that they have managed to improve the lives of more than 200 million people throughout the world. The Daily Beast wandered the halls to bring you the highlights.

TUESDAY

President Obama delivered an uncharacteristically low-key speech to kick things off. "We need a new spirit of global partnership and that is exactly the spirit that guides this organization,” he said. “I hope it is the spirit that guides my administration."

Matt Damon announced his organization, Water.org, would commit to helping out 50,000 people in Haiti with clean water and sanitation. He popped up again on the final day of the conference by video, narrating a short film for the Clnton Global Initiative on world hunger.

WEDNESDAY

The day began with an all-star gathering of Diane Sawyer and CEOs including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein and ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson, who looked at ways to reduce gender inequality around the world. “Less than one cent of every development dollar goes to women and girls,” Zainab Salbi, who heads nonprofit Women for Women International, said. “The political decision to say we must invest much more in girls and women is not really there yet.” It was a safer topic for Blankfein than financial regulation, which was also discussed at CGI. He has put his money where his mouth is with Goldman's 10,000 Women initiative, which helps young women get degrees in business and management.  

Al Gore told a panel that he would take what he could get in the way of climate-change treaties at the upcoming Copenhagen summit. "It's very important that we get a deal in Copenhagen," Gore said. "It's not necessarily crucial that the deal be perfect in every respect and include absolutely everything."

Ted Turner compared his relationship with the United Nations, which he's supported with more than $1 billion in donations to his foundation, to his tumultuous love life. “In 10 years we never had a serious argument,” he said of his time with the U.N. “Wish I could say that about my wife. My ex-wives, I should say.”

The most surreal moment of the day: At a barely attended press conference, American soccer stars Landon Donovan and Brian McBride, along with Mexican soccer legend Jorge Campos, introduced a new videogame sponsored by Visa that teaches users financial literacy through soccer. “This is something I'm passionate about,” Donovan said, adding that as an athlete the subject was particularly relevant. “In our profession we hear a lot of horror stories,” he said, singling out boxer Mike Tyson and former NBA star Latrell Sprewell as two cautionary tales.