Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Magic Johnson to Attend Milken Conference in Beverly Hills

The three-day Milken Institute Global Conference kicked off Monday in Beverly Hills.

MIchael Milken's Santa Monica-based Milken Institute is organizing the conference, which has grown from humble beginnings to be a truly international and influential event.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Magic Johnson and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are among those slated to participate.

On Wednesday, Blair, who represents the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union in the Middle East, joins Kgame and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday for a panel on investing in African. Michael Milken, the junk bond king turned philanthropist and thinker, will moderate.

On Monday, Blair and Kagame were also slated to be part of an invitation-only roundtable Monday on international investing, that, according to City News Service, would include the topics of regulation and transparency. 

Villaraigosa, in Washington, D.C. late last week and Sunday for a series
of meetings and events, will join News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch,
Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Sen. Michael
Bennet, D-Colo to discuss "Immigration Strategy for the Borderless Economy."

Johnson, who was diagnosed in 1991 with the virus that causes AIDS, will
join AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho in discussing advances in the efforts
against AIDS.

The conference runs through Wednesday. See the full schedule here.

-City News Service contributed to this report.