Erik Hersman: BRCK Breakthrough
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Erik Hersman is an innovator and technologist focused on advancing the use of technology as an empowerment tool in the developing world.
Anab Jain: Designing the Future
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Anab Jain is a designer, filmmaker, founder and director of the London-and-India-based design studio Superflux, which runs in partnership with Jon Ardern. The studio consistently produces inventive and critical work exploring the limits of emerging technologies and their implications on society and culture.
Scott Barry Kaufman: Creative Brains
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Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive psychologist specializing in the development of intelligence and creativity.
He applies a variety of perspectives to come to a richer understanding and appreciation of all kinds of minds and ways of achieving greatness.
Kaufman is an adjunct assistant professor of psychology at New York University, where he teaches courses on cognitive psychology and human intelligence.
He is also author of “Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined,” co-founder of The Creativity Post, and he writes the popular blog “Beautiful Minds” at Scientific American Mind.
Eric Klinenberg: Living Single
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Eric Klinenberg is a professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.
He's also editor of the journal Public Culture and research director for the federal government's Rebuild by Design Competition, as well as an acclaimed writer.
With eye-opening statistics, original data, and vivid portraits of people who live alone, renowned sociologist Eric Klinenberg upends conventional wisdom to deliver the definitive take on how the rise of going solo is transforming the American experience.
more: www.ericklinenberg.com
Ellen Langer: Mindfulness Over Matter
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Ellen Langer is an artist and Harvard psychology professor who received her doctorate from Yale.
She has authored 11 books and over 200 research articles on the illusion of control, perceived control, successful aging and decision-making.
Each of these is examined through the lens of her theory of mindfulness.
Her research has demonstrated that by actively noticing new things — the essence of mindfulness — health, well being, and competence follow.
Zachary Lieberman: Creative Teaching
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Zach Lieberman talks about teaching creativity in the information age at his School for Poetic Computation.
“We are not sitting in front of a screen. We are trying to create a space for reimagining what is possible.”
For most of us, synesthesia—the attachment of colors to sounds and other such cross-sensory cognition—is more concept than lived experience. But “nerd artist researcher hacker” Zachary Lieberman could change that.
His work uses technology in a playful way to break down the fragile boundary between the visible and the invisible.
Augmenting the body’s ability to communicate has always been at the core of Lieberman’s work. Working with collaborator Golan Levin, he created installations—"Remark” and “Hidden Worlds”—that presented interpretations of what the voice might look like if we could see our own speech.
more: www.thesystemis.com
Adam Magyar: Photos of Time
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Adam Magyar is a photographer. He uses high-tech digital tools and cameras adapted from industrial applications to examine the human existence through a machine eye. His images look into and challenge our identities as individuals in the urban crowd. He lives in Berlin.
Helen Marriage: Art Interventions
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Helen Marriage is a co-director of Artichoke, a creative company, which she founded with Nicky Webb in 2005. In seven years the company has become renowned for its large-scale city-wide events. Artichoke works with artists to invade public spaces and create extraordinary and ambitious moments that live in the memory forever.Through its ephemeral transformation of familiar landscapes, Artichoke aims to leave an indelible mark on the cities and societies where it works.
Shantell Martin's Art Evolution
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The work of Shantell Martin is a meditation of lines; a language of characters, creatures and messages that invite her viewers to share a role in her creative process. Part autobiographical, and part dreamlike whimsy, Martin has created her own world that bridges fine art, commercial and the everyday.
Rodney Mullen: Getting Back Up
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Rodney Mullen is widely considered to be the most influential skateboarder in skateboarding history. Mullen is a professional skateboarder, company owner, inventor, and public speaker who practices freestyle and street skateboarding.
Jim Olson: Tumor Paint
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Jim Olson is a physician scientist who cares for children with brain tumors and discovers/develops new cancer therapies. His lab's work led to five national clinical trials, of which he leads a Phase III trial. He authored the most widely used pharmacology review book. Olson is the founder of Presage Biosciences and Blaze Bioscience: The Tumor Paint Company.
LISTEN: NPR Radio "Doctors Test Tumor Paint in People" by Joe Palca (April 8, 2015)
Rajesh Panjabi and Josh Nesbit: Making an Impact
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After surviving Liberia’s civil conflict, Raj Panjabi co-founded Last Mile Health to tackle the triple threat facing health care in post-war countries: a battered public sector, workforce shortages and rampant poverty. Pioneering a community-based health system, Last Mile Health serves as a scalable, public sector model for achieving equity in health, now on the front lines of the ebola crisis.
Having pioneered the use of mobile phones for healthcare in a remote region of Malawi, Josh Nesbit co-founded Medic Mobile to bring these innovations to the rest of the world. The model features a central clinic laptop running FrontlineSMS software, enabling community health workers to use mobile phones to coordinate patient care.
David Robertson: Creative Constraint
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David Robertson uses LEGO’s tumultuous business history to describe the delicate balance between creativity and constraints.
“By putting focus and direction around innovation, that is how you turn sparks of brilliance into profitable innovation.”
David Robertson is a professor of practice at the Wharton School in Philadelphia. He teaches innovation and product development in Wharton’s undergraduate, master’s, and executive education programs.
From 2002 through 2010, Robertson was the LEGO Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Switzerland’s Institute for Management Development (IMD). www.robertsoninnovation.com
Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson: First in Flight
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Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson led the team that designed and built the Snowbird Human-Powered Ornithopter.
On Aug. 2, 2010, the Snowbird became the world’s first human-powered flapping-wing aircraft to sustain flight, the realization of an ancient aeronautical dream.
In 2012, Reichert and Robertson established AeroVelo Inc., a company dedicated to increasing the public’s awareness of sustainable solutions to society’s most pressing technological challenges.
Dan Schulman: Data Bank
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Dan Schulman is group president, Enterprise Growth, for American Express, where he is responsible for the company’s global strategy to expand alternative mobile and online payment services, form new partnerships and build revenue streams beyond the traditional card and travel businesses.
Prior to joining American Express in 2010, Schulman was CEO of Virgin Mobile and Priceline. Dan is trying to expand the brand to serve non-affluent customers who he says are paying too much for existing financial services.
More: HBR article
Lisa Servon: Better Banking
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Lisa Servon is professor and former dean at Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy.
She teaches and conducts research in the areas of urban poverty, community development, economic development and issues of gender and race.
NY Times: Are Banks Too Expensive to Use?
Kevin Slavin: Debunking Luck
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Pioneering gamer Kevin Slavin takes the PopTech audience on a colorful tour of the history of luck in America, games of chance, gambling and mathematical formulas.
“That’s amazing, the idea that anything that seems to be built out of chance or instinct or luck can yield to a computational assault.”
As an entrepreneur, Slavin has successfully integrated digital media, game development, technology and design.
He is a pioneer in rethinking game design and development around new technologies (like GPS) and new platforms (like Facebook).
