Each October, Camden hosts an elite group of innovators and entrepreneurs from around the world who gather to discuss the impact that technology has on society and how it can be leveraged to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

The focus of this brain trust, which counts people from Google and the World Bank among its members, always has been firmly directed beyond Maine’s horizon – but that’s about to change.

This week, for the first time in its 18-year history, the conference known as PopTech will turn some of its attention toward Maine.

Among the more than 600 attendees who will pack into the Camden Opera House on Thursday will be a group of 10 Maine entrepreneurs and community organizers whose goal will be to harness the energy and expertise of PopTech and direct it toward solving some of Maine’s most pressing social and economic challenges, such as expanding rural broadband access, strengthening STEM education and generally improving Maine’s innovation and entrepreneurship community.

“Our ultimate goal is to be germinators, to build relationships between people that are in the working group and people at PopTech to get people interested in doing projects here in Maine,” said Jess Knox, statewide innovation hub coordinator of Blackstone Accelerates Growth, which is helping subsidize the cost of the conference for the Maine participants. “We know the strength of good collaboration is based on strong relationships.”

A look at the list of who will descend on Camden for the three-day conference reveals delegates from Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Nike, Microsoft and General Electric, which are flying in employees with titles that generally include “design,” “creative” and “innovation.” Representatives of global nonprofits like the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the African Innovation Foundation also will attend.

PopTech speakers include Regina Dugan, vice president of engineering at Google and the former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense. Joi Ito, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, also is scheduled to attend.

“What I care about is moving the ball along and to continue to be intentional about building Maine’s startup and innovation community,” Knox said. “A part of that is building the density of talent, and that’s what we are planning to do.”

Some Mainers attend the conference each year, but they’re always in the minority and go as individuals. The cost to attend – all-access PopTech tickets go for $2,000, although the event’s sessions are streamed live for free on the Internet – limits the list to those with deep pockets or generous employers. The Maine PopTech working group, which has 15 members overall, is the first formal effort to fold Maine thinkers into the mix.

“It’s really about being an ambassador for Maine and a cheerleader for Maine and talking about the aspects of our ecosystem. We feel the people in attendance could apply their expertise to help us all,” said Betsy Peters, entrepreneur-in-residence at the Maine Technology Institute and one of the working group’s conference participants. “It’s about gaining subject matter experts for our collective Rolodexes to accelerate the changes happening in our economy for the better.”

Besides Peters and Knox, the Maine working group includes Tammy Ackerman, executive director of Engine in Biddeford; Adam Burk, CEO of the Treehouse Institute and director of TEDxDirigo; Rita Heimes, counsel at Verrill Dana and former director of the Maine Patent Program; Sarah Hines, co-founder of Shines & Jecker Labs and one of the main organizers behind Maine Startup & Create Week; and Kerem Durdag, CEO of Biovation. The group was selected by Blackstone Accelerates Growth and its partners, MTI, the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development and the University of Maine.

Although PopTech is best known for its annual conference, the nonprofit has grown to encompass advocacy and action, with a fellowship program that taps talented people working on global issues such as extreme economic hardship, HIV/AIDS and “livelihood development,” said Leetha Filderman, PopTech’s president.

PopTech-supported projects have leveraged mobile phone technology to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and violence during the Kenyan elections. Four PopTech alumni fellows are working to stem the Ebola epidemic, including two researchers on the ground in West Africa, Filderman said.

Filderman is looking forward to turning some of PopTech’s attention to Maine, including one idea to eventually create a Maine-based fellowship program modeled on the ones PopTech already maintains.

“I’m excited to be more formally engaged with a pretty progressive group here in Maine that’s looking at issues we’ve been committed to for a number of years, to try to make some impacts right here,” Filderman said. “I think this will become a very fulfilling part of our work over the next year or two.”

U.S. Sen. Angus King has attended a half-dozen PopTechs over the years, beginning in the late 1990s when he was Maine’s governor.

“It’s the technology equivalent of having the Statue of Liberty in your state,” King said Tuesday. His experiences at the conference influenced his policies, including the creation of Maine’s pioneering laptop program.

“PopTech was definitely part of my education in the sense of realization of the importance the digital economy could have for Maine,” he said.

It was King and members of his staff, especially Adam Lachman, the senator’s director of special projects, who talked with Filderman, resulting in the current partnership.

PopTech is subject to restrictive grant funding for its global initiatives, so it would have been hard to start a new effort in Maine on its own, Filderman said. But when the Maine group approached PopTech, the nonprofit quickly jumped on board.

“In Maine, there’s a pretty robust innovation community that’s really quite ripe for collaborative endeavors,” Filderman said. “We don’t have to come in and re-create any wheel, but can come in and share expertise – and that’s what we’re looking at with this group that’s in its infancy right now.”

PopTech and Blackstone Accelerates Growth together subsidized most of the cost for the 10 members of the Maine working group, each of whom picked up the remaining $250 cost for their tickets.

Durdag, the Biovation CEO, has attended PopTech twice on his own and said the discussions target the “big problems defining our age.” The working group’s goal will be to translate those conversations to address Maine’s problems and challenges.

“Can you take that knowledge base and distill it down to focal points in Maine?” Durdag said. “Maine doesn’t need to create the next fresh-water delivery system in Africa, but how do you make a living within the global economy? That is one of the conversations at PopTech.”

Peters doesn’t expect any immediate results to emerge from the conference.

“It’s the ongoing nature of these interactions that will create the real value. We will definitely have success with our first PopTech, but like any relationship it’s the ongoing enduring quality of it that will yield the most results,” she said.

To maintain momentum, the working group has committed to meeting four times in the next year to develop potential projects and solidify the relationships it forges.

Marching orders for the Maine working group are purposefully absent, Knox said.

“The only way that change-related projects get launched,” she said, “are when teams of people of diverse backgrounds get together to build relationships and share their goals and vision for the work that they do. That’s what this is about.”