FORT COLLINS — Leading clean-energy and renewable energy experts from the U.S. and abroad will gather next week for the first annual Net Zero Cities Symposium.

The symposium, a conference dedicated to exchanging resources and ideas to develop net-zero energy, carbon and waste communities worldwide, is scheduled for Oct. 16-17 at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Collins.

Organized and sponsored by the Northern Colorado Business Report, the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins, CSU Ventures, the Bohemian Foundation and One Tribe Creative, the event will focus on helping participants develop a community-based approach to carbon-emission reduction in its two major sources: energy and transportation.

There will be both a presentation and classroom format to the event, which will include hands-on opportunities for attendees to contribute.

The first day's agenda will focus on policy, cultural engagement and value, technologies and innovations. The second day will focus on real-world applications, education and mentorship.

Each segment will include an array of international, national and regional speakers, including Prasad Ram, the founder and CEO of Gooru and former head of Google R&D India. Ram left Google to pursue Gooru as a nonprofit education technology startup that would develop into a search engine for learning. Its mission: to honor the human right to education.

Other headliners include Bret Lessman, the enterprise organizational development manager for United Launch Alliance; Tom Gendron, the CEO of Fort Collins-based Woodward Inc.; Antonio Roberto de Godoi, a research collaborator with the Laboratory of Animal Nutrition of the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture; and former Gov. Bill Ritter, now director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at CSU.

For more information or to register, go to www.netzerocities.net.