By Ed Smith

NCSL’s Legislative Summit in Seattle Aug. 2-6 will be filled with informative sessions, inspiring speakers and plenty of networking opportunities.

We recognize, however, that many of our members cannot make the trip to the Emerald City. And we’ve got your back.

We have lots of opportunities for you to participate in Summit activities from your office or home both during the meeting in the weeks afterward. This is your guide to a virtual Legislative Summit.

Web Streaming

As we’ve done in past years, NCSL will offer six sessions streamed live from the Summit. You can watch on our homepage or on the Legislative Summit website homepage. There will be three sessions streamed on Tuesday, Aug. 4, and three sessions on wednesday, Aug. 6.

Sessions will include a U.S. Supreme Court roundup, a discussion of police body cameras, the debate over marijuana and federalism and more. See the full schedule with webcast times on our Web Streaming page.

You’ll also be able to watch an archived version of the sessions, usually within 24 hours of the original webcast. Look for a link to the individual archives on the NCSL homepage.

NCSL Blog

We also cover the Summit in our NCSL Blog. NCSL staff will write blogs about more than a dozen sessions, everything from funding education to Medicaid to how volatile oil prices affect states.

We’ll also blog about key speakers, such as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham.

Videos

More than a dozen Summit speakers will do short video Q and As with NCSL staff, discussing the key points they made in their presentations. Gates, Meacham and Ford futurist Sheryl Connelly are among those who will share their thoughts in these online videos.

Most of the videos will be available the same day they are recorded, and can be accessed through the NCSL homepage. They also will be available following the meeting on the NCSL website and through the NCSL YouTube channel.

NCSL Resources

Our 2015 Summit Resources page offers you one-stop shopping for all these materials. This Web page will have links to videos, streaming sessions, PowerPoint presentations, speaker bios, handouts and other material. Check back often because it is being updated frequently throughout the day. 

We hope you can join us in Seattle, but if you can’t there is still plenty of the Summit available for you.

Ed Smith is NCSL’s director of Digital Communications.

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