In an age where fake news and alternative facts have entered into the lexicon, the responsibility of think tanks to disseminate knowledge based on reason and intellectual rigor has never been better. In particular, think tanks have increasingly become fora for open debate, where competing ideas can be considered without partisan rancor.

“We want the ideas to come up against each other and tested in the public sphere," Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, said on Tuesday at Asia Society. "That's the way you get to better ideas and solutions." Heintz added that this is especially important nowadays because "even people in the think tank community are feeling that they need to be planting their flag and not budging from a particular place."

Heintz was joined on stage at Asia Society by Caroline Atkinson, chief policy advisor at Google, and Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. The conversation was moderated by New York Times senior correspondent Susan Chira and followed brief remarks from James McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies program at the Felts Institute. For Tuesday's complete program, please see below.