Meet the man behind the Original Thinkers festival. He says we’re all plenty smart — if we put our minds to it.

Before that, in the late ‘90s, he was producer of longform story segments for the “Today” show, CBS News and CNN. David Holbrooke founded the Original Thinkers festival in 2018 to inspire attendees into tackling society’s most daunting challenges. Original Thinkers festival debuted in Telluride’s Transfer Warehouse in the fall of 2018. Think of Original Thinkers as the alternative to gargantuan film festivals like Mountainfilm or Sundance, where people can feel overwhelmed and exhausted “because they spend, you know, 12 hours a day going from line to line,” Holbrooke said. Poet Art Goodtimes welcomes attendees of the Original Thinker’s 2018 opening dinner with the recitation of a poem.