Daniel Ben-Horin

Founder and Co-CEO

TechSoup Global

Mr. Ben-Horin created TechSoup Global (as “CompuMentor”) in 1987 by tapping volunteer resources on the WELL, one of the first online communities. Over the past two decades, he guided the TechSoup Global evolution from a small, local nonprofit to a globally respected entity with 196 employees and a budget of US$27 million. TechSoup Global now provides technology information to individuals and organizations in more than 190 countries, has provided consulting services in more than 50 countries and, through its global network of capacity-building NGOs, manages product donations to more than 80,000 organizations in 36 countries.

In his book Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken writes that the “…hybridization of business, philanthropy technology and nonprofit activity is exemplified in the work of Daniel Ben-Horin…”

Currently, as Co-CEO, Ben-Horin focuses on creating new opportunities for corporate, foundation, and nonprofit partners around the globe to optimize their social benefit impact by utilizing TechSoup Global’s channel, resources, and relationships. He speaks and writes frequently on issues related to the underserved’s access to technology.

In April 2009, Ben-Horin received the 2009 “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN). Presenting the award, Vince Stehle, Program Officer for the Nonprofit Sector at the Surdna Foundation, said, “[This award is] given each year to a person who has pushed the nptech community forward. This push might be in the form of innovation, or thought leadership. In the case of Daniel Ben-Horin, the 2009 recipient and co-CEO of TechSoup Global, it’s both. Everyone who works in our field owes him a debt of gratitude for revolutionizing how we get and share software and information.”

In July of 2009, Ashoka named Ben-Horin as one of its Senior Fellows. He also serves on the board of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. On four occasions, he has been named by the Nonprofit Times to its annual list of the 50 most influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit sector.

W. Brian Arthur

External Professor

Santa Fe Institute

W. Brian Arthur is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and a visiting researcher at Xerox PARC. He is best known for his “theory of increasing returns”, what happens when companies gain market share, and is one of the pioneers of the Science of Complexity. In 1988 he directed SFI’s first research program, and has served on the Institute’s Board of Trustees and Science Board.

For 13 years, Mr. Arthur taught Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University. He holds degrees in Operations Research, Economics, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. Among his honors are the International Schumpeter Prize in Economics in 1990, the inaugural Lagrange Prize in Complexity Science in 2008, and two honorary doctorates. He published his book, The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves, in 2009.

The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, trans-disciplinary institution dedicated to research across the physical, computational, biological and social sciences. The “formal birthplace of the study of complex systems,” SFI encourages speculation and a broad, quantitative, understanding of emergent behavior and multi-scale phenomena.

Stewart Brand

President, The Long Now Foundation

Participant, Global Business Network

Stewart Brand is president of The Long Now Foundation and a participant member of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link). His books include The Clock of the Long Now, How Buildings Learn, and The Media Lab. His latest book is titled Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. Mr. Brand graduated in Biology from Stanford and served as an Infantry officer in the U.S. Army.

David Christian

Professor of History; Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia and Research Fellow; Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, South Korea

David Christian teaches courses on Big History – surveying the past on the largest possible scales, including those of biology and astronomy. He has taught at Macquarie University in Sydney for over 25 years and is a Research Fellow at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, South Korea. Over the next few years he will be working with the support of Bill Gates to create an online course in Big History for High School students.

Professor Christian earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University in 1974.

Mariette DiChristina

Mariette DiChristina oversees Scientific American, ScientificAmerican.com, Scientific American Mind and all newsstand special editions. She is the eighth person and first female to assume the top post in Scientific American’s 165-year history. A science journalist for more than 20 years, she first came to Scientific American in 2001 as its executive editor. She was named an AAAS Fellow in 2011. She was also the president (in 2009 and 2010) of the 2,500-member National Association of Science Writers. She is a former adjunct professor in the graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program at New York University. DiChristina is a frequent lecturer and has appeared at the New York Academy of Sciences, California Academy of Sciences, 92nd Street Y in New York, Yale University and New York University among many others.

Previously, she spent nearly 14 years at Popular Science in positions culminating as executive editor. Her work in writing and overseeing articles about space topics helped garner that magazine the Space Foundation’s 2001 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award. In spring 2005 she was Science Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her chapter on science editing appears in the second edition of A Field Guide for Science Writers. She is former chair of Science Writers in New York (2001 to 2004) and a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Society of Environmental Journalists. DiChristina was honored by New York’s Italian Heritage and Culture Committee in October 2009 for her contributions as an Italian American to science journalism and education in New York City. In January 2010, she was honored by the National Organization of Italian American Women as one as one of its “Three Wise Women” of 2009.

David Gelernter

Professor of Computer Science

Yale University

As Professor of Computer Science at Yale, David Gelernter has worked on interfaces, information management and artificial intelligence. His book, Mirror Worlds, published in 1991, was said to have predicted the World Wide Web, and his earlier work on tuple spaces directly influenced Sun Microsystems’ development of Java. Dr. Gelernter’s work on the “Lifestreams” system, a term he coined in the 1990s, anticipated today’s stream-based tools on major social-networking sites and much other ongoing work on “lifestreaming”. The name has since become generic.

Nobuyuki Idei

Founder and CEO, Representative Director

Quantum Leaps Corporation

Nobuyuki Idei is Founder & CEO of Quantum Leaps Corporation, a business consultancy company he established in September 2006. In addition, he serves as Director of Accenture, Baidu and Freebit, and as Chairman of the Advisory Board of Sony Corporation. Between 1995 and 2007, he held several management positions at Sony, including President and Representative Director, President and CEO, Chairman and Group CEO, and Chief Corporate Officer of the company.

Idei received his BS in Economics and Politics from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1960.

Bill Joy

Senior Partner

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Bill Joy joined KPCB in 2005 as a Partner in KPCB’s Greentech Practice. He helped develop KPCB’s strategy for addressing the twin problems of climate change and sustainability. Joy was previously a founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems.

Before co-founding Sun, Joy designed and wrote Berkeley UNIX, the first open source operating system with built-in TCP/IP. In 1995 he installed the world’s first citywide WiFi network in Colorado. His many contributions were recognized in a FORTUNE cover story that called him the “Edison of the Internet.”

Jacqueline Leo

Editor in Chief

The Fiscal Times

Jacqueline Leo is Editor in Chief of The Fiscal Times. Ms. Leo has worked in a variety of media, including various editorial and marketing positions at iAmplify.com, Better Homes and Gardens magazine, The New York Times, and Good Morning America. From 2001 through November 2007, Ms. Leo was Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of Reader’s Digest. Her new book, SEVEN The Number for Happiness, Love and Success, was published in December 2009.

Ms. Leo is a former President of the American Society of Magazine Editors and served on the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences for ten years. Most recently, she was named to Media Industry Newsletter’s Editorial Hall of Fame in November 2009.

The Fiscal Times is a digital news, opinion and media service devoted to comprehensive quality reporting on vital fiscal, budgetary, health care and international economic issues. The editorial staff operates from offices in New York and the National Press Building in Washington, D.C.

Heidi Mason

Managing Partner

Bell Mason Group

Heidi Mason is the co-founder and Managing Partner of the Bell Mason Group (BMG). She co-founded BMG in the mid-80s with computing pioneer Gordon Bell with the goal of understanding and modeling a framework for successful venturing and innovation commercialization. She leads the firm in its continued expansion of specialized services and methodologies for the corporate environment.
Ms. Mason co-wrote The Venture Imperative: A New Model for Corporate Innovation, considered the definitive text on corporate venturing.

Heidi has pioneered initiatives to build partnerships between corporations and the venture community creating ‘Building Bridges: A Summit for Key Corporate and Venture Leaders’, co-sponsored by Stanford University and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).
For more than 25 years, the Bell Mason Group (BMG) has helped Global 1000 companies build effective and measurable innovation and venturing programs. The proven Bell Mason Framework provides a strategic model both for accelerating innovation and reducing risk; and incorporates a portfolio of best practice guidelines, tools and advisory services. BMG serves global 1000 clients including Alcatel-Lucent, Chevron, Coca-Cola, HP, and Philips.

Peter Osnos

Founder and Editor at Large, Public Affairs Books

Senior Media Fellow, The Century Foundation

Peter Osnos is the Founder and Editor-at-Large of PublicAffairs books. Previously, he was Publisher of Random House’s Times Books Division from 1991 to 1996 and before that was a Vice President and Associate Publisher of the Random House imprint. Authors he has worked with include President Bill Clinton, former President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagan, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, Boris Yeltsin, Paul Volcker, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Donald Trump, Clark Clifford, Sam Donaldson, Morley Safer, Peggy Noonan, Molly Ivins, Stanley Karnow, Jim Lehrer, William Novak, Vassily Aksyonov, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and The Economist.

Before entering book publishing, Osnos spent nearly twenty years at The Washington Post, where he was variously Indochina Bureau Chief, Moscow Correspondent, Foreign Editor, National Editor, and London Bureau Chief. He has been a commentator and host for National Public Radio and a contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He served as Chair of the Trade Division of the Association of American Publishers, Chair of Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia Committee and was a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch. He is currently the Vice-Chairman of The Columbia Journalism Review and Executive Director of The Caravan Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and based at TCF. A graduate of Brandeis University and the Columbia University School of Journalism, he lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with his wife, Susan Osnos, who is a consultant for nonprofit organizations.

Lisa Randall

Professor of Theoretical Physics

Harvard University

Professor Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University. Her research connects abstract theoretical ideas, such as string theory, to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of matter. Her research on how extra dimensions can influence observable properties of our universe revolutionized the field and has made her the most highly cited theoretical physicist. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University and held professorships at MIT and Princeton University before returning to Harvard in 2001.

Rodney Pearlman

Principal

RPM Pharma

Rodney Pearlman is a Principal with RPM Pharma. He was recently President and CEO of Nuon Therapeutics, a private company focused on developing drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and gout. Prior to joining Nuon, Dr. Pearlman was co-founder, president and CEO of Saegis Pharmaceuticals, developing drugs to benefit schizophrenia and Alzheimer patients. Prior to co-founding Saegis, held senior positions at Valentis and Genentech.

Dr. Pearlman received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Kansas in delivery of drugs to the brain.

Dorothy Zinberg

Lecturer in Public Policy and a Faculty Associate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and The Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Harvard University

Dorothy Shore Zinberg is a Lecturer in Public Policy, Faculty Associate at the BCSIA, a faculty associate at The Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, and a faculty member with the Program for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University. She is author and editor of numerous books and articles, including Uncertain Power: The Struggle for a National Energy Policy and The Changing University: How the Need for Scientists and Technology Is Transforming Universities Internationally. Over the past decade, she wrote a monthly column on science and technology issues for the Times Higher Education supplement in London. Her current research includes an examination of the social-political aspects of educating foreign scientists and the impact of information technology on higher education.

Zinberg has been a visiting scholar at the Institute of Policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at the National Institute for Science and Technology Policy in Tokyo as well as a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London. She is a Research Fellow at University College London and serves on the Board of Directors of Talking Science Internet Radio. Recently, Zinberg served on NATOs Science and Technology Policy Committee.

Brook Byers

Partner

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

A venture capitalist for over 35 years, Brook Byers has been closely involved with more than fifty new technology based ventures, over half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first Life Sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and earned his MBA from Stanford University.

Rik Kirkland

Director of Publishing and Principal

McKinsey & Company

Rik Kirkland is Director of Publishing and a Principal at McKinsey & Company. In this role he has global responsibility for McKinsey’s external print and digital content creation.

Before joining McKinsey, Mr. Kirkland spent nearly three decades at Time Inc, where he served several Editorial positions at FORTUNE magazine and helped develop two TV specials for PBS. He has been a guest on CNN and CNBC and moderates discussions with top CEOs and political figures at events such as the World Economic Forum and the Microsoft CEO Summit.

Ariane Cornell

Executive Director

Space Generation Advisory Council in Support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications

Ariane Cornell is a French-American who was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her interest in aerospace started at a young age: she earned her pilot’s license at the age of 17 and spent many of her early internships at NASA Ames Research Center. She attended Stanford University where she earned her Bachelor of Science with Honors in Science, Technology, and Society with a focus in Management Science and Engineering. Her undergraduate honors thesis was entitled, “Sino-American Relations in Space: Cooperation, Competition, or Coopetition?”

Following her studies, she worked in management consulting, first with Accenture based in San Francisco and then with Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC. With Accenture, she has lived and worked on IT projects in the Philippines, South Africa, Brazil, and the US. With Booz Allen Hamilton as a senior consultant in the Aerospace and Defense commercial consulting group, she helped develop strategies and solve operational issues for executives of the world’s top aerospace and defense companies.

Since April 2009, Ariane Cornell has been the Executive Director of the Space Generation Advisory Council in support of the United Nations (UN) Programme on Space Applications (SGAC). SGAC is based in Vienna, Austria and represents university students and young professionals in the global space sector to the UN, space agencies, industry and academia. The organisation has a network of 4000 members in more than 90 countries and has Permanent Observer status in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS).

Ariane supports the aerospace community in other capacities and organisations. She is a member of Women in Aerospace’s American and European branches. Further, Ariane is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and serves on its International Activities Committee and the Young Professional Committee. Ariane also publishes and writes as a guest blogger for “Space News”.

Pierre Larroque

Managing Director, Proprietary Investments

Jadwa Investment

Mr. Larroque has 30 years of investment and strategy advisory experience in the international mining, refineries/petrochemicals and natural resources industries, in particular for private equity and joint venture investments and for debt raising for emerging markets projects. Throughout his carreer he has advised several African, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries on the privatization of large mining and natural resources companies and on the design and implementation of promotion policies for natural resources foreign direct investments.

Since June 2007, Mr. Larroque has been associated with Jadwa Investment, a Saudi, Riyadh based, investment bank, first as Senior Advisor and subsequently as Managing Director, Investment Banking – Head of Corporate Finance and Project Finance. In that respect, he has directed teams which advised on several domestic Saudi M&A and financing transactions. In particular, he advised on, and structured, the purchase by Jadwa and a group of private Saudi investors of the 30% stake which ExxonMobil held in a Saudi Aramco base oils refinery. He currently serves on the joint Aramco-Jadwa Technical and Financial Steering Committees directing and controlling the US$2 billion expansion of that refinery.

Previous positions include Managing Director in Corporate Finance, in charge of SBC Warburg’s worldwide mining and refinery / petrochemicals project finance advisory activities; Managing Director at UBS Asset Management, Head of a private equity fund to invest in natural resources projects and companies around the world; Senior investment officer in the IFC (World Bank Group), responsible for natural resources equity and debt financings in Brazil.

Mr. Larroque has an MBA from Stanford University and an Engineering degree from École Polytechnique in Paris. He has served on the Boards of several private and public natural resources companies.