Short Takes: Jason Fried

As a leader of the Grunion expedition, John Abele recently rediscovered the WWII submarine his father disappeared on in 1942. Abele is also the retired founder and chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation, a 16,000 employee, $6 billion global company that is a leader in the field of “Less Invasive Medicine.” 

Mickey Ackerman is a professor and former head of the Industrial Design Department at the Rhode Island School of Design.

A contemporary/abstract artist and rising star in the Native art world, Marla is a member of Laguna Pueblo and finds comfort in making her art and connecting with family, tradition, and the inspiration her community provides

Scott is President of strategy and consulting firm Innosight. He's worked with Fortune 500 and start-up companies in industries such as media (print and broadcast), consumer products, investment banking, transportation and logistics, healthcare, medical devices, software, petrochemicals, and communications equipment. Scott has also written three books on innovation: Seeing What’s Next with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Guide to Growth with Mark Johnson, Joe Sinfield, and Elizabeth Altman, and the soon-to-be-published The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times. He has written many articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Sloan Management Review, Advertising Age, Marketing Management and Chief Executive and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Online.

Randy Antik is currently CEO of Swat Team Partners. Swat Team Partners
provides growth strategy consulting to marketing leaders for major
corporations at the CEO/CMO level in technology, retail, marketing
services, and health care. Clients/projects include: EDS, RadioShack,
AMD, Agere, Neiman Marcus, Intel, AT&T, JC Penney, Limitedbrands,
and more.

Paola Antonelli is one of the world's foremost design experts and was recently rated  one of the top one hundred most powerful people in the world of art by Art Review. She is a Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. Antonelli received her MA in Architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 1990, and worked at the design magazines Domus and Abitare before coming to MoMA in 1994. Antonelli is known for her eclecticism, and has curated well-received shows such as Design and the Elastic Mnd (2008), an exhibition on science, design, and innovation and Workspheres (2001), devoted to the workplace of the near future. Antonelli has taught design history and theory at UCLA and Harvard and is the author of Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design, and co-author of 2008 book Design and the Elastic Mind.

Linda Avey is the co-founder of 23andMe, a genetic coding company. The name refers to the 23 chromosome pairs that contain a human’s genetic information. 23andMe provides clients with a personal genetic profile which can help a person discover details about his or her genealogy, as well as make decisions about medical care that take into account their unique genetic makeup. She is fascinated by the possibilities of personalized medicine; a model of medical care that uses a patient’s genotype in determining treatment and foresees advances in genome scanning technologies reshaping the relationship between research and patient care.  It was imagining this new paradigm that helped shape the idea for 23andMe.

Robert Ballard is best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic. Ballard is director of the University of Rhode Island's Institute for Archaeological Oceanography.

Dave Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, Inc., one of the advertising industry's most recognized word-of-mouth marketing and media firms. A co-founder and board member of The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Balter currently serves as Chair of the Association's International Committee. In 2005 Balter co-authored Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

Blue Shirt Nation was launched in 2006 for Best Buy associates. It is a corporate sponsored social network site that is voluntary, open-source, operates outside of the corporate firewall and is moderated by its users. Currently there are 20,000 members of Blue Shirt Nation and it’s become a place for associates to help each other solve retail store operation issues.

Chris Benedict doesn't just do "green" architecture. She recently completed a
38-unit new construction project that uses 85% less energy than
standard designs...and she did it without subsidy or special grants.
She is living proof that innovation in architecture and creating green,
people-friendly designs doesn't have to break the bank.

Gov 2.0 innovator Ben Berkowitz co-founded advocacy website SeeClickFix.com that allows citizens to report public works issues such as potholes, graffiti, and wayward trash directly from their mobile phones, the SeeClickFix Website or other sites using its embeddable widget. In his volunteer life he currently serves as President of the Upper State Street Association, a neighborhood and business group which he founded in 2007, in New Haven, CT. He has been a leader in the drive towards local government transparency as well a pusher of greater citizen participation in hyper-local news.

Berry is a principal at Flagship Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage life science and cleantech ventures. Last year, he was awarded MIT Technology Review’s coveted Innovator of the Year award for his work in developing renewable petroleum from microbes. 

Alph Bingham is a pioneer in the field of open innovation and advocate of collaborative approaches to research and development. He is co-founder and former CEO of InnoCentive, Inc..

The founder and Chairman of Boston-based Icosystem Corporation, Bonabeau is one of the world's leading experts in complexity. His book Swarm Intelligence has been a scientific bestseller for eight years and provided the inspiration for another bestseller, Michael Chrichton's Prey. His articles in Harvard Business Review have all been exploring the limits of human decision making in a complex, decentralized and unpredictable world. Eric's commercial experience includes years of research and development in US and European telecommunications and software companies. He sits on the advisory board of a number of Fortune 500 corporations.

Rick Borovoy is co-founder of nTAG Interactive and inventor of the world's first interactive badge specifically designed for face-to-face social networking and event data management. As the Chief Technology Officer, Rick defines nTAG's technology strategy and leads product development. Rick is considered a pioneer in social applications of ubiquitous computing, and has presented and published his work in a broad variety of global forums.

Deborah Brooks is co-founder of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF). Debi spearheads principal-gifts fundraising and advises on strategic and programmatic direction. In addition, she serves as the senior spokesperson for new and existing external audiences. She served as MJFF's president and chief executive officer from October 2000 to February 2007. 

John Seely Brown is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Center at University of Southern California. Brown was the chief scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 and also the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Bill Buxton is a designer and a researcher concerned with human aspects of technology. He is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and has a 30-year involvement in research, design and commentary around human aspects of technology, and digital tools for the creative endeavor, including music, film and industrial design. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a researcher at Xerox PARC, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. – where 2003 he was co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement. His book, Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood— by both designers and the people with whom they need to work in order to achieve success with these new types of products and systems.

Charlie Cannon is an architect by training who uses design thinking as "urban acupuncture" to catalyze community improvement. For the past six years he has developed and refined tools of collaboration in the Rhode Island School of Design's Innovation Studio Program. The Program aims to develop ecologically sound infrastructures such as eco-industrial parks, power plants and municipal waste systems through interdisciplinary teamwork.

Robin Chase is the founder and CEO of GoLoco. GoLoco is a service that helps people quickly arrange to share rides between friends, neighbors, and colleagues. GoLoco also helps share trip costs online. Prior to GoLoco, Chase co-founded and was CEO of Zipcar, the world's largest car-sharing company.

BIF research advisor Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His research and teaching interests center on managing innovation and creating new growth markets. His latest book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change The Way The World Learns has been named one of the "10 Best Innovation and Design Books in 2008" by BusinessWeek, and the best Human Capital book of the year in the Strategy + Business Best Books of 2008.

By restoring trust in city government, Mayor David Cicilline has transformed Providence, Rhode Island's City Hall into a more transparent, efficient, and innovative 21st-century organization.

Kathy Cloninger is the Chief Executive Officer of Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), the premier leadership development organization for girls. She is a recognized expert on, and advocate for girls' and women's issues, leading the organization to fulfill a more comprehensive mission: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

Betsy Cohen is Vice President of Nestlé Purina's Extended Enterprise
Group and Corporate Futurist. Betsy is responsible for the sales and
marketing of unique pet foods with leading retailers. She also leads
business-to-business interactive activities using technology and
logistics to lower costs with retailers, including Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID).

Under Secretary Jay Cohen, vice Rear Admiral, USN Retired, serves as the Under Secretary, Science & Technology Directorate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Having led the US Office of Naval Research office for an unprecedented 5+ years, Admiral Cohen is now responsible for structuring research and development activities for the DHS.

Carol Coletta, President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, is helping city leaders such as mayors, corporate CEOs, university presidents and foundation officials, to improve urban competitiveness.

Jacob's social enterprise allows people to complete micro-tasks for organizations, causes or people they're passionate about, using a iPhone or web browser, in a few minutes of spare time.

Curt Columbus joined Trinity Repertory Company as artistic director in January 2006. He was the associate artistic director of Steppenwolf Theater Company from 2000-2005. His adaptation of Dostoevsky’s "Crime and Punishment" was awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award for best new adaptation and is published by Dramatists’ Play Service.

Matt Cottam is a co-founder of Tellart and serves as the company's CEO and creative director as well as being a part-time faculty at RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design.) At Tellart, Cottam uses information architecture and design methods to discover challenges, find opportunities for design, and build design strategies and processes. Cottam's current research and course topics at RISD involve design for Search and Rescue and Disaster Medicine.

Joseph Coughlin is founder and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab - the first multi-disciplinary research program sponsored by government and business to understand the behavior of the 45+ population as decision-makers, consumers, patients, caregivers, advisors and technology users.

The grandson of legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, Fabien is dedicated to carrying on his legacy, helping to preserve the beauty and health of our vital marine habitats

Mark Cuban is an active investor in leading and cutting-edge
technologies and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Prior to his purchase
of the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading
provider of multimedia and streaming on the Internet.

Russ Daniels is vice president and chief technology officer of Cloud Services Strategy at HP. In this role, he sets the overarching business and technology strategies for HP’s approach to the cloud. Daniels has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, specializing in software architecture, enterprise management, and software development methodologies. He has filled a wide range of staff and line management roles and run his own Internet Services business. Prior to HP, Daniels spent 15 years at Apple, where he held a variety of technical and management positions, culminating in his role as a senior software architect. In 2006, InfoWorld declared Daniels one of the industry’s top 25 chief technology officers.
 

At the forefront of the emerging narrative medicine discipline, Sayantani DasGupta is teaching students a new form of practice that connects literature with medicine in order to treat the whole person, not just the illness. She is an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics and a core faculty member of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Narrative Medicine is both a clinical discipline committed to placing stories at the center of the health care relationship and a lively interdisciplinary field at the interces of arts, humanities, science and social sciences. Through narrative training, the Program in Narrative Medicine helps doctors, nurses, social workers, and therapists to improve the effectiveness of care by developing the capacity for attention, reflection, representation, and affiliation with patients and colleagues. Dr. DasGupta's research and outreach missions are conceptualizing, evaluating, and spear-heading these ideas and practices nationally and internationally.

Author of several books, including "Squirrel, Inc: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling," and "The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations," Steve Denning works with clinets like GE, IBM, the World Bank, UNDP, the NorwegianMinistry of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Federal Treasury, on strategies to enhance knowledge management and organizational storytelling.

John Donoghue co-founded Cyberkinetics in 2001. He is the Henry Merritt
Wriston Professor and director of the Brain Science Program at Brown
University. Donoghue has performed over 20 years of research on brain
computer interfaces and his laboratory is internationally recognized as
a leader in this field.

Dale heads up Maker Media, which serves tech-savvy DIY enthusiasts. Maker Media produces Make Magazine, Maker Faire, and Make Television.

Dr. Alan Duncan completed his internship and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and now practices as a general internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, with research interests that are directed toward a better understanding of the physician-patient relationship, medical decision-making, and the seamless application of information technology into clinical care.

Peter Durand is Creative Director of Alphachimp Studio Inc., a graphic
facilitation firm located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is considered
by many to be one of the top graphic facilitators in the world,
receiving requests to participate in projects focused on community
problem-solving, product design and strategic planning. As an
illustrator, painter, traveler and graphic facilitator, Peter has been
an entrepreneur all his life, and has worked on over a hundred
corporate projects in North America, Europe, Africa and Australia. His
varied career combines group facilitation, information graphics, visual
learning and web documentation.

Marc Ecko’s passion for impacting youth culture is today represented in everything from publishing to multimedia, and from fashion to philanthropy. Since founding *ecko unltd at the age of 20, the company has grown to include 12 separate *ecko unltd. apparel and accessories lines, Complex magazine, and his video game and multimedia division, Marc Ecko Entertainment.

Among her many responsibilities at Intuit, Inc., a $1.9 billion provider of business and financial management solutions, Jana Eggers is general manager of Intuit's Innovation Lab, where her team takes projects considered too risky by the business unit and fine-tunes and develops them in what she calls a “completely customer-focused” process.

Mastermind and Chief Rioter Sarah E. Endline has lived, traveled and worked in more than 50 countries. After years of contemplation, she founded sweetriot, a small mission-based company in NYC, which strives to build tasty little morsels in a different way for a different generation. Through Sarah's travels, she stumbled upon cacao and knew she had to share it with others. The Rioter team began testing it with their friends and learning that many did not know the true story of cacao. Sarah has been an active member of many non-profit boards including those for NFTE, Harvard, UMichigan, and AIESEC, but her true passion in life is leading the "sweetriot" that is building a sweet movement to fix the world.

Paul English is the co-founder & CTO of Kayak.com a travel search
engine. Recently, English has gained recognition as the founder of
gethuman, a consumer movement, with the goal to change the face of
customer support in the United States. Gethuman provides company
contact information so consumers can talk to actual employees instead
of automated machines when they call a helpline.

Nationally recognized as a leader in public safety innovation, Providence's Chief of Police, Dean Esserman, has revamped the city’s crimefighting force and sucessfully replaced  the department’s traditional methods with a new community policing concept.

Entrepreneur who launched Tabula Digita, a developer of educational video games that look and feel like 3-D PlayStation games and teach core K-12 subjects including math, literacy, science and history.

Richard Florida is author of the national and international best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class. His ideas have been featured in major ad campaigns and such as BMW and are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete.

A science photographer at MIT, Felice Frankel uses photography to communicate
complex ideas. Her work has appeared on the covers and inside pages of
Nature, Science, Wired, Newsweek, Scientific American, and Discover
Magazine.

Passionate advocate of simple, clear, and elegant web-based user interface design, 37signals CEO and popular blogger Jason Fried has co-authored a new book called ReWork which outlines his philosophies on how to build a business.

Max Geiger is the simulations expert and host of Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior, a job that combined his background in game development with his passion for history. A graduate of the Interactive Media Division within the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, his calling is to use the tools of game design and systems thinking to improve and illuminate the world around him. Outside of his work in television, Max remains active in the world of game development and social media as a producer and designer within an as-yet-unannounced startup (trust him, it’s very cool) and a small games studio.

Peter Gloor has a unique combination of academic and industry
experience. In the academic sphere, he is a Visiting Scholar at the
Center for Coordination Science at MIT's Sloan School of Management
where he leads a project exploring Collaborative Innovation Networks.
He is also a Research Fellow at Darmouth's Tuck Center for Digital
Strategies. Peter has written 5 books and over thirty scholarly papers.
His latest book "Swarm Creativity - Competitive Advantage through
Collaborative Innovation Networks" appeared January 2006 from Oxford
University Press. Peter is president and chief science officer of
iQuest Analytics, Inc., a software developer that concentrates on
discovery applications that employ temporal visualization of
unstructured data to paint a graphic picture in real time of the
relationships of people, ideas and organizations.

John Hagel III has nearly 30 years' experience as a management consultant, author, speaker, and entrepreneur, and has helped companies improve their performance by effectively applying information technology to reshape business strategies. His latest book, The Power of Pull, examines how can we effectively address our most pressing challenges in a rapidly changing and increasingly interdependent world.

Kris Halvorsen is chief innovation officer at Intuit, Inc. A renowned scientist and research and development leader, Halvorsen has more than 25 years in the information technology industry. His background, starting as a scientist and professor, spans positions in academics - where he spent time as a professor and research scientist - to several years leading research at Xerox PARC and HP Labs. Halvorsen, a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, also pursued post-graduate work at MIT and executive education at the Harvard Business School.

Andrew Hargadon is an associate professor and director of Technology Management Programs at the UC-Davis Graduate School of Management.

Directing HP Labs Central Nervous System for the Earth project, Peter Hartwell is building a planetwide sensing network using billions of tiny, cheap, tough and exquisitely sensitive detectors. Hartwell envisions sensing nodes about the size of a pushpin stuck to bridges and buildings to warn of structural strains or weather conditions. They might be scattered along roadsides to monitor traffic, weather and road conditions. Embedded in everyday electronics, CeNSE nodes might track hospital equipment, sniff out pesticides and pathogens in food, or even “recognize” the person using them and adapt.

CeNSE was selected one of 20 "World Changing Ideas" in the December 2009 issue of Scientific American. Peter has extensive experience in commercializing silicon MEMS products, working on advanced sensors and actuators, and specializes in MEMS testing techniques. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1992 with a B.S.E in Materials Science and from Cornell University in 1999 with a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering. He did brief post doctoral work at HP Labs before joining the staff in 2000. His work at HP has been documented in numerous technical papers, patents, and articles in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, IEEE Spectrum, and EETimes.

Dan Heath is the co-author of the best-selling book Made to Stick: Why
Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. A consultant at Duke Corporate
Education, Heath designs and teaches executive education programs for
clients such as Microsoft, Dow, and Home Depot. Heath also co-founded a
company called Thinkwell, a company producing innovative new-media
textbooks that incorporate new approaches to learning.

What do you do when you're looking for a new business venture, you're
nostalgic, and you love baseball and good old fashioned beer? The
answer was simple for Mark  Hellendrung: re-launch Narragansett Beer.
Hellendrung, former president of Nantucket Nectars and head of sales
for a Vermont brewery, decided to seek a new opportunity when Nantucket
Nectars moved to New York. Thinking of ways to capitalize on his
beverage distribution expertise and his passion for beer, he remembered
Narragansett and the strong attachment he and many New Englanders had
for the brew.

William Herp is the president and CEO of Linear Air, a company offering private
air travel to executives and families with superior and personalized
service. Linear Air offers flexibility and convenience not offered from
big name airlines. Herp is also an Instrument Rated Commercial Pilot.

Hugh Herr is an Assistant Professor, Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and
Assistant Professor, MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and
Technology, as well as the director of the Biomechatronics Group at The
MIT Media Lab. Herr’s research program seeks to advance technologies
that promise to accelerate the merging of body and machine, including
device architectures that resemble the body's musculoskeletal design,
actuator technologies that behave like muscle, and control
methodologies that exploit principles of biological movement.

Diane Hessan is president and chief executive officer of Communispace, where she helps global organizations build, manage and facilitate private, online communities.

Jeffrey Hollender is a well-respected leader in the socially and environmentally responsible communities. An entrepreneur at heart, his first business ventures were rooted in adult education. He began the not-for-profit organizations Skills Exchange of Toronto and Network for Learning, New York City. 

Former documentary filmmaker and news producer who is now innovating in the most challenging and cutting-edge areas of the digital arena and creating a new source of content creation and revenue along the way.

With a desire to spend 10% of his time studying the structured elements of what makes all of us happy, Tony Hsieh is on a new mission to deliver happiness wherever he goes.

Jack Hughes is founder and chairman of TopCoder. TopCoder is the recognized
leader in identifying, evaluating and mobilizing effective software
development resources. Through its proprietary programming competitions
and rating system, TopCoder recognizes and promotes the abilities of
the best programmers around the world. Hughes also co-founded Tallán
Inc. a provider of web-enabled business solutions.

Larry Huston is founder of innovation consulting firm 4 INNO and a leading practitioner of connected innovation. He was the corporate vice president of innovation for Procter & Gamble responsible for P&G's global Connect + Develop™ business model.

Jeff Jarvis blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com. His book, What Would Google Do? was published in January, 2009 to wide-acclaim. The idea: try to reverse-engineer the success of the fastest growing company in the history of the world, the one company that truly understands how to succeed in the internet age, and then take those lessons and apply them to a number of industries, companies, and institutions, from carmakers to restaurants to universities to government. Jarvis is also associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism.

Jean-Pierre Jeannet is the F. W. Olin Distinguished professor of global business and director of the Glavin Center, Babson College.

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. Jeremijenko’s projects—which explore socio-technical change—have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the MASSMoCA, the Whitney, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, she was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine. Jeremijenko is the director of the environmental health clinic at NYU, assistant professor in Art, and affiliated with the Computer Science Dept. Jeremijenko directs the xDesign Environmental Health Clinic. The Environmental Health Clinic develops and prescribes locally optimized and often playful strategies to effect remediation of environmental systems, producing measurable and mediagenic evidence and coordinating diverse projects to effective material change.

Frans Johansson is speaker, entrepreneur and bestselling author of The Medici Effect, which was named one of the top-10 best business books of 2004 by Amazon.com and has so far been translated into 13 languages. Organizations worldwide have engaged him to speak on issues of innovation and managing diversity before a wide range of audiences, from C-level executives to human resource practitioners to investment directors. He has written articles on health-care, on information-technology, on the science of sport fishing and how to save our oceans.

Best-selling author of several thoughtful and surprising books linking science, technology and society. His new book, "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," will be published in October. Steven is also a longtime innovator in the digital space whose latest endeavor is outside.in, a radical new form of hyper-local news that maps web conversations onto real neighborhoods.

Dean Kamen holds more than 150 U.S. and foreign patents related to medical devices, climate control systems, and helicopter design. He's an inventor whose rebellion against convention has consistently yielded smart solutions. As a high school student, he developed an audiovisual control system that was used in New York's Hayden Planetarium. While in college, his brother—then a medical student—told him how difficult it was to administer intravenous drugs to cancer patients and diabetics. Dean thought about it and invented the portable infusion pump, enabling these patients to receive their medication without being confined to a hospital bed.

John Kao is a leading authority on the subjects of innovation, organizational transformation and digital media, has been dubbed "Mr. Creativity" and a "serial innovator" by The Economist.

Saul Kaplan is the founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory. He also is the chair of the non-profit’s Board of Directors. Kaplan started BIF in 2005 with a mission to enable collaborative innovation. The non-profit is creating a real world laboratory for innovators to explore and test new business models and system level solutions in areas of high social importance including health care, education, energy independence, public safety, and quality of life.

Larry Keeley is president and co-founder of Doblin, Inc., an innovation strategy firm known for pioneering comprehensive innovation systems that materially improve innovation success rates.

As Vice President for Regional Innovation at the Council on Competitiveness, Randall Kempner has directed economic development and innovation initiatives nationally and in countries throughout the world.

Since 2006, Rita has been documenting the evolution of IBM's Virtual Universe Community. Her revealing work sheds new light on the critical importance that our digital culture should not be perceived as separate from the real world.

Director of Innovation Policy at IBM, Kathleen Kingscott is putting innovation at the forefront of the national agenda.

Klein is a passionate hacker of all things. His list includes social systems, computer networks, institutions, consumer hardware and animal behavior. He’s also senior technology principal at Frog Design and a mobile, personal, and future technology specialist. His projects include The Vending Machine for Crows, a machine designed to autonomously train crow populations to find lost change and deposit it in exchange for peanuts. 

Josh believes digital should be fun and thinks all media experiences could be better and more productive. Through ScrollMotion Josh develops original mobile applications. The company is currently the largest publisher to Apple's App Store.

David Kusek is a musician who has been inventing the future of music for the past twenty-five years. At the age of nineteen, he co-invented electronic drums at Synare, which helped ignite the disco era. He is also a co-developer of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard that opened up electronic music to literally millions of people. Today, Kusek is vice president of Berklee Media. 

Cat Lainé is helping people in developing countries get environmentally sound and affordable access to energy, sanitation and clean water. AIDG create small businesses that manufacture, install and repair green technologies for people living between $2-4 a day. These technologies help communities and families meet their basic needs for energy, sanitation and clean water. 

Stephen Lane co-founded Item Group and over two decades has built up a dynamic
and entrepreneurial design and development firm. Steve focuses on
defining and executing new initiatives, both corporate and long-range
planning, capitalization and strategic partnerships. Lane thrives as an
active leader in the design, entrepreneurial and venture communities,
and is an adjunct faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design
(RISD) in the department of industrial design.

As CEO of Rite-Solutions, Jim Lavoie is creatively inspiring employees as a source of innovation for the companies software development efforts. Jim has over 20 years of experience, having worked with Analysis & Technology, Inc. as an Executive Vice President in charge of the company's IT division. With his vision, strategic outlook, and understanding of the commercial market, Jim's main responsibility is charting the course for Rite-Solutions. With his charismatic presence, he helps create the culture that separates Rite-Solutions from the typical IT firm.

Jonah Lehrer is the author of the critically acclaimed Proust was a Neuroscientist. His latest book, How We Decide, is the latest entry in the growing field of cognitive science and presents an excellent synthesis of how many leading mind scientists view decision making. He is also Editor-at-Large for Seed Magazine and a contributing editor at Radio Lab and Scientific American Mind. A graduate of Columbia University and a Rhodes scholar, Lehrer has worked in the lab of Nobel Prize–winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel and studied with Hermione Lee at Oxford University. He has co-authored a peer-reviewed paper in genetics and worked as a line cook at Melisse in Los Angeles, Le Cirque 2000 in New York, and as a prep cook at Le Bernardin. As a journalist he has profiled Brian Greene and Elizabeth Gould, spent several days in the kitchen of the Fat Duck, recorded bird songs and ruminated on Stravinsky for National Public Radio.

A pioneer in the field of life/work designing, Richard Leider is devoted to helping individuals, leaders, and teams discover the power of purpose.

As the founder and Chairman of The Inventure Group, a coaching and consulting firm in Minneapolis, MN, Richard has a worldwide practice working with leaders from organizations such as Ameriprise, Caterpillar, Ericsson, Habitat for Humanity, MetLife, Pfizer and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Richard is consistently rated as one of the top executive educators and coaches in the world. He is ranked by Forbes as one of the "Top 5" most respected executive coaches, by Linkage as one of the "Top 50" executive coaches, and by the Conference Board as a "legend in coaching."

As a speaker and seminar leader, he has taught over 100,000 executives from 50 corporations worldwide. He is an adjunct faculty on executive education programs at Duke Corporate Education and the University of Minnesota Carlson School's Executive Development Center. He is a guest lecturer in the Harvard Business School's General Management Program.

Liz Lerman, the Founding Artistic Director of the Liz Lerman Dance
Exchange is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator, and speaker.
Described by the Washington Post as "the source of an epochal
revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art," her dance/theater
works have been seen throughout the United States and abroad. She
founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and has cultivated the
company's unique multi-generational ensemble, with dancers whose ages
span five decades, into a leading force in contemporary dance.

Ellen Levy is vice president of corporate development and strategy at LinkedIn.

Social entrepreneur who co-created a sustainable system for converting used vegetable oil into bio-fuel to heat homes.

Co-founder and director of The Big Picture Company and The Met School, Dennis Littky is one of the most successful school reformers in the country. He’s created a new education model based on the belief that schools must be personalized, educating every student equally, one student at a time.

Space, the kind you live and work in, matters to James Ludwig. He sees profound and intriguing possibilities everywhere he looks and his sophisticated design sensibility is evident in his body of work. His portfolio includes everything from homes to industrial complexes, technology and corporate branding programs. He says each of his projects reflects his social contract to "affect peoples" lives for the better — in some small ways and some big ones — to see the world differently and to make every move meaningful."

World-renowned artist, graphic designer, computer scientist and now RISD president whose career reflects his philosophy of humanizing technology. For more than a decade, he has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation. In September, 2008 he was inaugurated as the Rhode Island School of Design's 16th president. He was also named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine. In 2001 he earned the National Design Award in the US; in 2002, the Mainichi Design Prize in Japan; and in 2005, the Raymond Loewy Foundation Prize in Germany. His book, The Laws of Simplicity, proposes ten laws for simplifying complex systems in business and life.

Roger Mandle is the president of the Rhode Island School of Design. From 1988 to 1993, he served as the deputy director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, Mandle served as the associate director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and as the director of the Toledo Museum of Art. Mandle is currently the U.S. Ambassador for the Arts at Large, and serves on numerous boards and committees both in Rhode Island and nationally. He is the chairman of the board for Health and Education Leadership for Providence (HELP coalition), a member of the Coalition for Community Development in Providence, and is on the Education Advisory Committee for the National Endowment of the Arts.

Roger Martin, the visionary Dean of the Rotman School of Management, is a champion of innovation, cross-disciplinary study and learning-by-doing. One of the most respected business minds in the world today -- and a man changing the face of business education -- Martin is the leading proponent of Integrative Thinking, a bold new approach to solving the business problems emerging in the global economy.

Matt Mason began his career as a pirate radio and club DJ in London, going
on to become founding Editor-in-Chief of the magazine RWD. In 2004, he
was selected as one of the faces of Gordon Brown’s Start Talking Ideas
campaign, and was presented the Prince’s Trust London Business of the
Year Award by HRH Prince Charles. He has written and produced TV
series, comic strips, and records, and his journalism has appeared in
VICE, Complex and other publications in more than 12 countries around
the world. He recently founded the non-profit media company Wedia.

After spending a career helping to build and operate businesses, Greg Matthews is today focused on using social media to create different kinds of interactions with consumers – with the goal of supporting a social revolution in health.  Greg is the Director of Consumer Innovation at Humana and has been tasked to come up with "creative ways to help people be healthy while having fun." During his tenure at Humana, he has had responsibility for the start-up HR operations for joint venture companies like Green Ribbon Health and Sensei, and in Humana’s first European subsidiary in London.  Most recently he led the design and launch of CrumpleItUp.com, where he blogs regularly.

Edward M. Mazze is the recently retired dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island.

Carmen Medina retired this February from a 30+year career at CIA, most recently as the Director for the Center for the Study of Intelligence. During her time as a senior manager of analysts, Carmen was a key senior leader supporting the introduction of social media and new technology in support of analysis. She was the senior leader at CIA who gave the green light to Intellipedia. She's written broadly on the business of analysis and is unusual for senior managers in her recognition of the need to embrace the 2.0 revolution to improve analysis.

A master storyteller, Jana has produced three films that have won Academy Awards and an additional eight that have received Oscar nominations.

Peter and Faith will present their latest photographic collection from their new book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.  Featuring portraits and stories of 80 people from 30 countries and the food they eat in one day, the book is a compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage that expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.

Exploring how batteries are re-shaping the transportation and stationary power sectors.

Nell Merlino is Founder, President and CEO of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources for women to grow their micro businesses into million $ enterprises.  She is author of “Stepping Out of Line: Lessons for Women Who Want It Their Way in Life, in Love, and at Work,” from Broadway Books. Throughout her career, Nell Merlino has been inspiring millions of people to take action. She is the creative force behind Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which moved more than 71 million Americans to participate in a day dedicated to giving girls the opportunity to dream bigger about their future.

Christopher Meyer is the chief executive of Monitor Networks, a division of the Monitor Group.

Stuart Moore, a business strategist who founded Sapient in 1991, has pioneered an approach to business and technology development that turns traditional consulting practices upside down.

Walt Mossberg is the author and creator of the weekly Personal
Technology column in The Wall Street Journal, which has appeared every
Thursday since 1991. He is also the co-creator and co-producer of the
technology industry's most prestigious annual conference, D: All Things
Digital, hosted by the Journal each spring.

Denise Nemchev is President of Stanley Bostitch, a Division of the Stanley Works. The Stanley Works is a worldwide supplier of tools, hardware and security solutions for professional, industrial, and consumer use. Stanley Bostitch is a $600M division of SWK headquartered out of East Greenwich, Rhode Island employing nearly 3,000 people world-wide. Stanley Bostitch is a full-line marketer and manufacturer of professional fastening tools and fasteners serving the global industrial, construction, home improvement, and office products users.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded the Acumen Fund a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Since 2001, the fund has made over $25 million in investments in 18 businesses across Asia and Africa, proving that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. 

Former BusinessWeek editor and now a professor of innovation and design at The New School focused on showing students how design tools, methodologies and approaches can change the world.

After more than two decades in radio, Oedipus, now VP for Alternative Programming for Infinity Broadcasting, has had a front seat to the industry's turbulent evolution.

Neri Oxman is a designer and researcher whose work establishes a new approach to design at the interface of computer science, material engineering and ecology. Her research promotes the aesthetics of material formation and behavior as a scientific contribution to ecological activism. She is the founder of an interdisciplinary design initiative, MATERIALECOLOGY and is currently pursuing her PhD at MIT as a Presidential Fellow. In June, 2009, she appeared on the cover of Fast Company magazine featured as one of the 100 most creative people in business.

“I love experimenting with technology, figuring out new applications for its use, taking what the technology builders develop and turning it into something relevant and useful,” Bob Panoff says. As Principal of RPM, a Massachusetts-based IT consulting firm, those abilities serve Panoff’s clients well. He’s an expert at assessing complex and uncertain market conditions and developing strategies to capitalize on market change.

Dr. Terry Pierce is the Special Advisor for Disruptive Innovations for Under Secretary Jay Cohen, Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate DHS S&T. Dr. Pierce is also the Director of the United States Air Force Academy’s Center of Innovation, where he teaches and champions disruptive and sustaining Cadet innovations. During his twenty-eight year naval career, Pierce commanded the USS Whidbey Island LSD-41, was Chief of Staff for Amphibious Forces 7th Fleet, Okinawa, Japan, and was speechwriter for Admiral Mike Boorda – Chief on Naval Operations. He's currently writing a book titled Innovation Warriors: Attackers, Defenders, and Disruptors.

Lewis Gordon Pugh was the first person to complete a long distance swim in every ocean of the world and over a period of 20 years he pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other swimmer in history. During this period Lewis witnessed the oceans change rapidly due to pollution, over fishing and climate change. He campaigns for the protection of the marine environment and a low carbon society. 

Jeneanne Rae is co-founder of Peer Insight and a nationally-recognized innovation management and design strategist.

Named to Popular Science's Brilliant 10 list of young geniuses shaking up science today, John Rinn is a "genomic origamist" turning genetic trash into treasure by proving that "junk" RNA is a potential linchpin of human health. The avid skateboarder turned pathologist is an associate member of the Broad Institute and assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. John’s graduate research was one of the first to discover an abundance of RNA molecules emanating from non-coding, often referred to as ‘junk regions’ of the human genome. He continued to pursue these mysterious RNA molecules for his postdoctoral work leading to the discovery of a novel type of non-coding RNA, termed HOTAIR, encoded on one chromosome that silences a large region on a different chromosome. This work also revealed a genetic code of large non-coding RNAs and HOX genes that determine the localization of an adult human skin cell in the body, similar to the way a GPS system locates a person’s position on earth (latitude, longitude and altitude), in this case by triangulation of three genetic axes.

Andy Robin is an award-winning film and television writer, director, and producer. After graduating from Harvard College in 1990, Robin began his career at Saturday Night Live, where he co-wrote the popular "Copy Machine" sketches with Rob Schneider and helped launch the careers of Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Tim Meadows. When Jerry Seinfeld hosted SNL in 1992, his producers invited Robin to write for their then-cult sitcom Seinfeld. Robin moved to Los Angeles and began a seven-year stint on the blockbuster show.

In 2001, while pursuing a dual degree from Brown University in American Civilization and Visual Art (which he received in 2003), Clay Rockefeller teamed up with three other Providence, RI artists to purchase the Monohasset Mill. As nearby mill buildings were turned into a shopping center, Rockefeller and his partners pursued an alternative model for artist live/work space with a community-centered, affordable and sustainable approach. Currently, the project is entering its third phase, with 19 units already sold. Rockefeller is also a co-founder of the Steelyard, a non-profit organization that provides arts and technical training programs designed to increase opportunities for cultural and artistic expression, career-oriented training, and small business incubation in a revitalized steel yard.

The greatest innovators never rest on what they know – instead, they're driven by what they don't know. David Rockwell is more than just an extraordinary architect – he's a rich composer of dramatic, high-impact spectacles that allow people to connect with the world around them in new and exciting ways.

John “Jay” Rogers is President, CEO and Co-Founder of Local Motors, a next-generation car company that is changing the way cars are designed, built, and owned. Born into a long line of automotive enthusiasts, Jay's grandfather owned the legendary Indian motorcycle company and was the first Cummins Engine Distributor on the East Coast.  Jay left 9 years of infantry leadership in the Marine Corps to make a difference in the world through the car industry. Local Motors has the world's largest community of car designers and engineers who embrace open collaboration to develop innovative cars for under-served, passionate enthusiast communities.  Local Motors cars are built in regional micro-factories, which are a groundbreaking fusion of advanced, small-volume manufacturing and unprecedented ownership experiences.

Ivy Ross is executive vice president for product design and development with Gap Inc.’s Old Navy chain of casual-clothing stores. Before this, Ms. Ross held positions at Mattel, Calvin Klein, Coach, and Swatch, among others. She is also a renowned sculptor. Her own metal work is currently in the permanent collections of museums including The Smithsonian Institute, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Cooper-Hewitt museum in New York. She has received the National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and the Women in Design International award.

Carne Ross is a former senior British diplomat who served on the British delegation to the UN Security Council as the UK's "expert on Iraq, including weapons inspections and sanctions. He resigned after giving then-secret testimony to an official inquiry into the use of intelligence on Iraq's WMD. The rupture of his career over Iraq made him realize that much of his time as a foreign service diplomat gave little thought to the people he was trying to affect. He now runs the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat, which works on diplomatic issues affecting marginalized countries and groups around the world. His book, Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, provides a compelling account of what's wrong with contemporary diplomacy and offers a new vision of how it might be put right.

Deb Roy has been building robots since the age of six. At first they were just cosmetic, primitive beings constructed from a young boy's imagination. Later, they would become complicated, entrusted with robot 'brains' that listen and recognize how words relate to one another and to the external world.

Mary Pat Ryan is the Executive Vice President, Subscriber Sales and Operations for Sirius Satellite Radio. Ryan has extensive experience in major domestic and international entertainment brands, with an emphasis on entertainment subscription businesses which rely on new technologies and complex distribution systems for growth. She has previously held management positions at IMAX, Ltd., Lifetime Entertainment Services, U.S. Satellite Broadcasting, and Draft Worldwide. Ryan also served as EVP, Marketing, at SIRIUS from 2002 to 2005, leading SIRIUS from an unknown brand with limited national penetration to a major national entertainment brand recognized by a majority of the U.S. population, and helping it achieve a rapidly increasing subscriber base.

Michael Samuelson is the President & CEO of The Health & Wellness Institute, a health management solutions company focused on improving quality of life at three levels—individual, community and worksite. An advocate for the integration of prevention into every consumer touch point, Samuelson travels the US to help facilitate a dialogue on the difficult challenges and potential solutions for the healthcare industry. An educator at heart and by trade, Samuelson is also one of few men to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Told he'd never regain full use of his arm following a radical mastectomy, Samuelson asked his doctor if he could climb a mountain and was told that while it was possible, the chances for success were slim. Samuelson responded by trekking across a glacier and climbing 18,000 feet to the base camp of Mt. Everest and the Kumba Ice Falls. He is also the author of Voices From the Edge: Life Lessons From the Cancer Community.

Juan Fernando Santos is the creative director for Studiocom, where his responsibilities include leadership for the design team, user experience concept creation and strategic consulting for highly engaging interactive experiences. Prior to joining Studiocom, Santos was the chief creative and technical officer for iKioskos Communications Corporation, a leading provider of Internet enabled public access kiosks in Latin America, and founding partner/creative director for Azurian, one of the largest new media design and consulting companies in Latin America. Santos holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of Visual Arts as well as studies in industrial engineering from Universidad de los Andes of Bogotá, Colombia.

A pioneer in surgical robotics and telemedicine, Richard Satava glimpses a not so distant future in which robotics and other advances have radically transformed medicine as we know it.

As a new wave angel investor, Kim takes the best parts of capitalism and marries them to the best parts of philanthropy to create a "pay it forward" fund where each successful business invests in future businesses.

Leonard A. Schlesinger became the 12th president of Babson College on July 1, 2008. He came to Babson from Limited Brands, where he served in executive positions since 1999, most recently as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer.  Earlier in his career, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Au Bon Pain. His academic career includes twenty years at Harvard Business School. President Schlesinger is well-known for his pioneering research and publications on the “service profit chain.”  He is the author or co-author of nine books, including The Value Profit Chain, The Service Profit Chain and The Real Heroes of Business…and Not a CEO among Them, and has written over 40 articles for academic audiences as well as for The New York Times, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review.

Robert Schwartz is the General Manager of Global Design at GE Healthcare and is responsible for overseeing the company's Global Design function encompassing human factors, industrial design, ergonomics, and user interface and design research. Bob joined GEHC from Procter & Gamble, where he was a global design leader working to transform the design function there to a strategically relevant capability, which is now comprised of 300 global designers and design managers.

Euan Semple is a well-known writer, thinker, public speaker and independent advisor on social computing for business. As the former head of Knowledge Management for the BBC, Semple pioneered the use of weblogs, wikis and on-line forums, enabling the staff to work more effectively. Semple's unique experience enables him to provide inspiration on this wired-up world of work and strategies for how businesses can prepare themselves for challenges and opportunities that come with new technologies.

With 30 years of experience consulting to customer-centric executives in technology-aggressive businesses across many industries, Patricia Seybold is a visionary thought leader with the unique ability to spot the impact that technology enablement and customer behavior will have on business trends very early. She is also an internationally acclaimed best-selling author. Her latest book, Outside Innovation, was published by HarperCollins in October 2006. This book describes the “new” approach to the process of business innovation, customer co-design. It offers insights into how to make it easy for customers to do business with you and how to measure and monitor what matters most to a company’s fundamental source of value: its customers.

A renowned visionary committed to renewable energy, Jigar Shah launched SunEdison in 2003 based upon a business plan he developed in 1999 for a university class. That plan became the basis of the SunEdison business model: Simplify solar as a service.

Bill Shannon is the Chief Wisdom Officer and Senior Vice President of DaVita, Inc., an organization that provides dialysis services for those diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, a condition also known as chronic kidney disease. DaVita was recently named by Fortune magazine as #1 rated in the field of Health Care Medical Facilities for innovation, long-term investment and quality of products and services. Shannon captures wisdom and passes it along to others based on the company's mission and values, thereby enhancing the DaVita culture and personal and professional lives of its citizens. Known as "Coach," Shannon also leads a team who owns and operates DaVita University, which includes The DaVita Academy.

Clay Shirky is a professor of New Media at New York University's graduate interactive telecommunications program, where his courses address how our networks shape culture. 

Michael Singer has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His works are part of public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He had several one-person shows, most notably at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City.

When Don Stanford became Chief Technology Officer of a Rhode Island-based startup called GTECH Corp. in 1979, it had just seven employees and sales of less than $1 million. By the time Stanford retired in 2002, GTECH had sales of more than $1 billion and an unassailable 70 percent market share.

As CEO of Struever Brothers and Eccles & Rouse, Bill Struever played a key role in Baltimore's revitalization. Today he is considered a leading expert in urban revitalization, adaptive reuse of economically obsolete industrial buildings, and Brownfields development.

Jane Fulton Suri currently co-leads IDEO's Consumer Experience practice with particular emphasis on the application of human and cultural insights to design strategy for the company's global clients. As Director of Human Factors Design and Research, she pioneered IDEO's human-centered design process by integrating human and social science approaches as a key element in the company’s international design offering. She established a community of practitioners in psychology, ergonomics, anthropology and design research across IDEO's locations worldwide to contribute human-centered design insights using methods such as contextual observation, trend analysis, scenario development and experience prototyping.

A masterful storyteller and one of the world's leading authorities on business strategy, Don will be taking time from his cross-country cycling adventure in Italy to join us by video. 

A provocative and inspiring voice on the future of business, best-selling author Bill Taylor's latest book is Practically Radical and offers lessons that will guide us as we recover and rebuild from a once-in-a-lifetime economic disaster. 

Stefan Thomke is an authority on the management of technology and product innovation and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the most high profile and dynamic leaders in education today. Having served as a university president for over 30 years, he has greatly influenced and shaped the field of American higher education. Trachtenberg served as the 15th president of The George Washington University for nearly two decades, after arriving in 1988 from the University of Hartford, where he had been president for 11 years. He currently presides as President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service at the University and is an adviser to Korn/Ferry International, where he is helping to find the next generation of university leadership. In his most recent book, Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education, Trachtenberg reflects on his years of experience in transforming America's educational landscape and assesses the current state of higher education.

Helmut Traitler is Vice President of Innovation Partnerships at Nestlé focused on exploring and developing the company's open innovation model. His initiatives have led to the build up of a network of more than a million researchers worldwide, including science universities, venture capital, strategic suppliers and government laboratories, that supports the 4,500 people in Nestlé Food and Beverages R&D. 

Alexander Tsiaras, founder and CEO of Anatomical Travelogue, Inc., has more than twenty years of experience in the worlds of medicine, research, and art, and has won world recognition as a photojournalist, artist, and writer. His work has been featured on numerous television programs and in Life, Time, the New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, and JAMA, among others. He is the author of The InVision Guide to a Healthy Heart, From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, and The Architecture and Design of Many and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed. Mr. Tsiaras lives in New York City.

William Tsiaras is an opthamologist who has been associated for a number of years with Brown University School of Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, and the Veterans Administration Hospital. He founded University Opthalmology, a nonprofit academic foundation. The author or coauthor of many papers and book chapters in scientific publications, he was selected for Best Doctors in America in 1999-2000 and 2001-20002. He is also the recipient of the American Academy of Opthalmology 2002 Achievement Award. He was a presenter at the first TEDMED in 1995.

Applying his luxury hospitality experience to the world of healthcare,  this President and CEO of the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital is reinventing patient-care delivery.

With degrees in economics and urban planning, the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator for the New England region, Robert Varney started out helping local New England communities handle environmental issues ranging from coastline protection and open-space preservation to sewage systems and solid-waste plants. Eventually he headed regional planning commissions in New Hampshire and Vermont, becoming director of New Hampshire’s Office of State Planning.

Eric von Hippel is a professor and head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author and columnist, Webber co-founded Fast Company, the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history and winner of two national magazine awards, one for excellence and one for design. He is also the co-author of three business-related books, including most recently, Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self. His columns and articles have appeared in numerous national publications, including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and The Washington Post.

Harry West is vice president for strategy and innovation at Continuum, where he uses the study of human behavior to create better products.

A musician's musician, Pandora.com Chief Strategy Officer & Founder Tim Westergren is obsessed with helping talented emerging artists connect with the music fans most likely to appreciate their music. Tim is an award-winning composer, an accomplished musician and a record producer with 10 years of experience in the music industry. He has recorded with independent labels, managed artists, scored feature films, produced albums, and performed extensively. Prior to co-founding Pandora, Tim owned and operated Nightfly Studios, a commercial digital recording studio.

As a producer and director of research and development for Nick Jr.’s break-out preschool series Blue’s Clues, Alice was part of the creative team responsible for all content and creative decisions related to every aspect of the series and co-authored the curriculum on which Blue’s Clues and Blue’s Room were based. She has been nominated for Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Preschool Children’s Series as well as Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series. Currently, Alice is Co-Creator and Head of Research and Education for Super Why! airing on PBS Kids. She is also the co-creator of Think It Ink It Publishing a new venture that is designed to promote creative writing for children from the ages of 4-12 years old.

John Winsor is a leading strategic marketing and product innovation thinker especially known for his work in collaboration, co-creation and crowdsourcing. His latest venture, Victors and Spoils, is an innovative advertising agency based on crowdsourcing principles.

Pregnancy is a leading cause of death amongst women of childbearing age in the developing world. As founder of Maternova, Meg is fulfilling a glaring need for rapid, efficient knowledge sharing across diverse groups working on maternal heatlh.

Melissa Withers is the Executive Director of the Business Innovation Factory. In addition to her work overseeing day-to-day operations at BIF, Melissa plays an active role in projects conducted in the BIF experience labs.

Melissa previously served as Director, Communications and Market Development for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. In addition to overseeing the corporation's market development and communications activities, Melissa led the development of the state's innovation programming and was responsible for the launch of programs such as the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council and RI-Nexus initiative.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger is vice president of Technical Strategy and Innovation at IBM, responsible for identifying emerging technologies and marketplace developments that are critical to the future of the IT industry. He has led a number of company wide initiatives like Linux, Grid Computing and, in October 2002, IBM's On Demand Business initiative. He is visiting professor of Engineering Systems at MIT and adjunct professor in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Imperial College Business School.

John Wolpert is best known for his work at IBM's Extreme Blue business & technology incubator. He is building Team upStart, which helps large companies develop top entrepreneurial talent.

What needs to be said? He's just Richard.

Jocelyn Wyatt leads IDEO’s Social Impact domain where she is focused on building social enterprises and advising businesses in the developing world, using the market to create social change. A former Acumen Fund fellow, her path toward social impact began when she was 12 and spent a weekend shoveling manure at a Heifer International farm in New Hampshire, cleaning out the pens of livestock that would be sent to Africa. At IDEO, she has brought a business perspective to a variety of social impact projects with clients including Rockefeller Foundation, Kickstart,  and Gates Foundation. Jocelyn also teaches social enterprise at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Considered one of the most influential consultants in the world, Keith Yamashita is the man companies call when they are stuck in a rut and want to figure out to get back on track. A strategist, innovator, and writer, Keith was recently named The Charles and Ray Eames Brand Fellow at IBM. He has been featured in Fortune magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company magazine in recognition for his work for HP, Nike, PBS, and others. At SYP he has worked on turn-around efforts, leadership development programs, innovation initiatives, and culture-change efforts. Last year, he served as an ambassador for the Japan Society and was part of a team of delegates sent to Japan to study innovation. In that capacity, he interviewed more than 70 Japanese CEOs, leaders, and cultural leaders. Yamashita is a published author—having published in the Harvard Business Review, two books (Unstuck, 15 Things Charles and Ray Eames Teach Us), and several articles.

David Yaun is vice president, corporate communications of IBM, directing the company's worldwide communications programs related to innovation and technology leadership.

Robert J. Zimmer is the president of the University of Chicago.

Ethan Zuckerman is an activist, academic and engineer and xenophile whose work focuses on technology in the developing world. In 2004, he co-founded Global Voices, an award-winning international citizen media network and was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. Zuckerman became a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in January, 2003 focusing on the impact of technology on the developing world. In 2002 he was given the Technology in Service of Humanity Award by MIT's Technology Review magazine and named to the TR100, TR's list of innovators under the age of 35. Zuckerman also writes prolifically on his My Heart's in Accra blog where he muses on Africa, international development and hacking the media.