PopTech Audio: PopCasts

David Agus: Disease data

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

David Agus envisions a new era of preventative medicine based on hard data about what really ails us, and that employs research, genetics and health care designed to stave off disease before it starts. “I want doctors to be more like weather forecasters and not biologists.”

Anil Dash: Holding to account

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

ThinkUp co-founder and tech blogger Anil Dash questions what happens to our civic discourse when our online conversations occur under the terms of service of a small group of privately-owned tech companies whose sense of civic-mindedness is questionable at best? Are we part of the problem by not being part of the solution?

Helen Fisher: What we want

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher walks us through the biology of love. From the importance of one-night stands to the solidity of marriage, Fisher shreds the common wisdom of what love is and isn’t in the 21st century.

Paola Antonelli: Walk the walk

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

MoMA curator Paola Antonelli takes on the “good girls” of design by complicating commonly accepted notions of what design is and does in the modern world. With exhibitions on video games, violence, and the beautiful lethality of everyday objects, Antonelli shows us the primary job of the curator is to provoke, not comfort.

Jim Olson: Tumor paint

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Jim Olson invented a potentially revolutionary “tumor paint” that locates and lights up tumor cells to show surgeons exactly what to excise. “In a few years, surgeons will have a hard time going back to surgery as they did it in the past.”

Erin McKean: Slow rebellion

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Founder of Reverb Technologies, Erin McKean catches the PopTech audience up on the evolution of her unique online dictionary, Wordnik, since she first introduced it at PopTech 2008. She unveils the next phase of the Wordnik mission in this lively talk.

David Rakoff on cultural excess

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:07:20 +0000

Come along as the brilliantly acerbic David Rakoff takes the PopTech audience on a hilarious journey through our nation’s quest for culinary perfection and other cultural excesses.

OK Go's synchronized sounds

Wed, 25 May 2011 17:42:03 +0000

OK Go’s eccentricities and music videos are undeniably captivating. But there’s no denying that they are incredible musicians too. OK Go took to the PopTech stage with acoustic performances of “White Knuckles,” “Return,” (performed with bells) “This Too Shall Pass” and “Here It Goes Again.”

John Legend: Wake Up

Wed, 25 May 2011 17:50:34 +0000

Accompanied only by his piano, Grammy award-winning recording artist and philanthropist John Legend performs the soulful “Wake Up” and “Shine” from his album, Wake Up!, including a song that appears on the soundtrack to the documentary Waiting for Superman.

Gideon Obarzanek and Reuben Margolin: A meeting of the minds

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:13:48 +0000

Collaborators Reuben Margolin, a kinetic sculptor and Gideon Obarzanek, a choreographer, met at the 2009 PopTech conference. They instantly bonded over the shared themes in their respective mediums and began creating a piece together called “Connected.” Their collaborative effort, a couple of years in the making, is now touring worldwide.

Logan Richardson: Jazz musings

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:19:19 +0000

Logan Richardson’s alto saxophone compositions have been hailed by the Jazz Times as “incisive, multi-dimensional and remarkably flexible, wrapping and twisting phrases into unexpected origami shapes.” At PopTech 2009, Richardson’s improvisations muse on musical favorites like "God Bless America”.

Young Guru borrows a beat

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:45:15 +0000

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. Watch him borrow a beat from Al Green to show the fine line between art and piracy.

Young Guru: Piracy and invention

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:47:58 +0000

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. “When we study hip-hop we are actually studying the history of piracy. If we go back and study all piracy, we see that most things that were created in the world are a remix of something else.”

Kelly Benoit-Bird: Marine acoustics

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:59:43 +0000

Kelly Benoit-Bird, an oceanographer at Oregon State University, applies acoustics to the study of ecosystems in the open ocean. “When we look more deeply at the ocean, we are given new insights on how we interact with that ocean, and what we can do to effectively protect it.”

Víðir Reynisson: Iceland's disaster response

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:39:15 +0000

Víðir Reynisson, head of the National Commission of Icelandic Police, coordinates the country’s response to natural disasters, including the infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and oversees the country’s search and rescue teams. Iceland has developed a nimble crisis management model. “With all disasters, with all crises, comes opportunity.”

Malcolm Gladwell: Human potential

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:54:23 +0000

Pop sociologist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has honed in on a profound new question: what separates extraordinary and average people? Discussing findings from his much-anticipated book “Outliers,” Gladwell details how we’re squandering human potential everywhere from the football field to the classroom – and what we can do to change it.

Moran Cerf: Hacking the brain

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Moran Cerf is a neuroscientist who has shown how to project patients’ thoughts onto a screen in front of their eyes by implanting electrodes deep inside their brains and reading the activity of cells. Oh, and he used to rob banks. “There are at least two people inside our mind.”

Laurie Leitch and Loree Sutton: Tapping social resilience

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:21:31 +0000

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, MD and clinical trainer Laurie Leitch, Ph.D., founded Threshold GlobalWorks to explore a neurobiological approach to social resilience. “We are all wired with it, in case you did not know that,” says Leitch. “We are born neurologically wired for resilience because our system is survival-based.”

Kári Stefánsson: Decoding genetics

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:34:26 +0000

Dr. Kári Stefánsson is recognized as a leading figure in human genetics who studies the fuzzy relationship between genetic mutations and environmental factors. “Where is the line of distinction between nature and nurture? Where is the line of distinction between genes and environment? It really doesn’t exist.”

Paul Polak: Alleviating poverty

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:09:59 +0000

From his extensive experiences working with the poor of the developing world, Paul Polak has learned a lot about effective market-based approaches to alleviating poverty. He argues that in order to be successful, solutions must be simple, inexpensive, easy to reproduce, and most important, respond to the expressed needs of the people they are meant to benefit.

Didier Sornette: Predicting risk

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:41:39 +0000

Didier Sornette is a professor of entrepreneurial risks in Zurich. He explores data patterns to help predict crises and extreme events in complex systems, like global financial crises.

Yossi Sheffi: The resilient enterprise

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:07:05 +0000

Yossi Sheffi explores the various flavors of redundancy, simplicity, flexibility and communications strategies businesses employ to make themselves resilient. “These are the most dangerous things; the things that have severe consequence and low probability…These are the events one worries about when one has to run a large organization.”

David Eagleman on possibilianism

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:33:23 +0000

Neuroscientist and best-selling author David Eagleman introduces the concept of Possibilianism, a new philosophy that simultaneously embraces a scientific toolbox while exploring new, unconsidered uncertainties about the world around us.

Margrét Pála: Educating children differently

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:18:29 +0000

Margrét Pála is a preschool management specialist in Iceland who advocates sex-segregated classes, natural play material instead of conventional toys, and a long-forgotten belief in discipline to develop optimism, courage, and resiliency in young children. “Feel the cold! I even take them into the snow — and then the lava. Scream a little bit! But continue! And enjoy it!”

Silja Ómarsdóttir: Iceland’s constitution co-author

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:44:56 +0000

Silja Ómarsdóttir was one of 25 people tapped to rewrite Iceland’s constitution after the country’s financial meltdown in 2008. She details how the citizens of Iceland reacted to the bank collapse and the eventual response from the government, which included updating the country’s constitution. Ómarsdóttir explains the constitution creation process and what it meant to overhaul the constitution, with considerable public input, in four months.

Erik Hersman: Mapping crises

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:07:39 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Erik Hersman is an innovator and technologist advancing the use of technology as an empowerment tool in the developing world. He is a co-founder of Ushahidi – a free, open source, Web / mobile-based platform capable of crowd-sourcing, sharing and mapping crisis information in near real time.

George Bonanno: Measuring human resilience

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:48:37 +0000

George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology, mines massive data sets for surprising revelations about how human beings cope with loss, trauma and other forms of extreme adversity. “There isn’t one thing that predicts resilience. It’s not two things. It is not necessarily in us.”

Alysson Muotri: Uncovering autism links

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:28:41 +0000

Alysson Muotri is working at the forefront of research on Autism Spectrum Disorder. By studying stem cells from adult patients with Rett syndrome, his work is uncovering new insights into the environmental and genetic causes of autism, and the possibility that autistic neurons may be induced to revert back to normal neurons.

David Wax Museum: Mexo-Americana music

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:34:32 +0000

The David Wax Museum fuses traditional Mexican folk with American roots and indie rock to create an utterly unique Mexo-Americana aesthetic.

Eiríkur Hrafnsson: Iceland’s start-up scene

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:10:55 +0000

Eiríkur Hrafnsson calls his new company, Green Qloud, the world’s first green cloud computing company, bucking a frightening trend. “ It is not far-fetched to imagine that in 30 or 40 years, 50 percent of our energy will be spent on IT.”

Judith Rodin: Why resilience

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:52:46 +0000

Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, explores how resiliency can empower even the most destitute and vulnerable communities. “When the World Bank was planning to invest $100 million dollars in upgrading the slums in Nairobi, these slum-dweller leaders were represented at the table.”

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg: Synthetic aesthetics

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:07:06 +0000

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, designer, artist and writer, explores the social, ethical and cultural implications of emerging technologies, especially synthetic biology. Her projects open up a creative space to imagine the potential scientific triumphs and disasters on the horizon.

Mohammed Rezwan: Floating schools

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:00:51 +0000

Climate change is exacerbating flooding in waterlogged Bangladesh. Already, hundreds of schools get wiped out during the monsoon season. Mohammed Rezwan builds floating schools, healthcare facilities and libraries. “If 20 percent of the land goes under water, which may happen in the next 10 to 20 years, where will these people go? We don’t have enough space, enough land. People have to live on the water in some way.”

Burnham & Jónsson: Freeing Internet innovation

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Brad Burnham is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. Ari Jónsson is the rector of Reykjavik University, Iceland’s leading university in technology, business and law. They discuss the creation in Iceland of an ideal policy framework for innovation on the Internet.

Alyson Warhurst: Risk mapper

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:13:59 +0000

Alyson Warhurst is CEO and founder of the risk analysis and mapping company Maplecroft, the leading source of extra-financial risk intelligence for the world’s largest multinational corporations, asset managers and governments. “We can really start telling a story in terms of predicting risk in the future…We are actually able to engage in policy change to be able to shape the future growth environment and prevent disaster.”

Vicki Arroyo on climate disasters

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:08:24 +0000

Vicki Arroyo is the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center of Georgetown University Law Center. She studies preparedness and resiliency with respect to climate-related catastrophes. “Traditional models of who is in charge in a disaster do not necessarily operate when you have a real disaster.”

Milton Garcés: Primordial sounds

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:52:56 +0000

What sound does a tsunami make? An earthquake? The whole Earth? Milton Garcés studies infrasound, sound that is lower in frequency than the “normal” limit of human hearing. He shares some of his recordings of storms, earthquakes and tsunamis. Perhaps most astounding of all, he plays the vibration humming at the core of the entire planet.

Energy disruptors: Arun Majumdar on disruptive energy innovation

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:51:34 +0000

Arun Majumdar was a high school student during the global energy crisis of the 1970s and became interested in engineering because of energy. Currently he’s the first director of ARPA-E, the country’s only agency dedicated to technologies promising genuine transformation in the ways we generate, store, and utilize energy. Majumdar explains that disruptive energy innovation must focus on scale, be cost effective, and provide an energy service.

Jake Porway: Data Without Borders

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:58:54 +0000

What happens when ambitious and talented data scientists are connected with social organizations rife with data but lacking resources to do anything with it? Jake Porway’s DataKind (formerly Data Without Borders) helps bring these two groups together, using data in the service of humanity to design transformative visualizations and decision-making tools.

Porter and Mykleby: A grand strategy for the nation

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:14:27 +0000

Naval Captain Wayne Porter and Col. Mark Mykleby of the Marines, military strategists working at the highest level of government, present highlights from their paper, “A National Strategic Narrative.” Their ideas—less military force, more social capital and more sustainable practices in energy and agriculture—have caused a recent stir in policy communities.

Larry Smith's six word project

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Larry Smith wants to know your story. Since 2006, Smith has undertaken the Six-Word Memoir Project inviting his Smith Magazine readers to tell their live stories in just six words. His six-word memoir project can now be found in classrooms, boardrooms, hospitals, churches, speed-dating sessions, and at live six-word “slams” across the world.

Steve Lansing: Bali's water temples

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:38:22 +0000

Steve Lansing, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, discusses the Byzantine system for the distribution of water from a volcanic lake in Bali to over two hundred farming villages. It’s worked since the 12th century, it’s egalitarian and it’s still-sustainable. “It’s one of the few functioning, ancient democratic institutions that we know about. It’s kind of beautiful.”

Jonathan Rothberg: DNA Testing

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:29:06 +0000

After his infant son was rushed to intensive care, Jonathan Rothberg was driven to invent high-speed DNA sequencing. His work ushered in the era of personal genetics and today his technology is used in laboratories and medical centers all over the world. Rothberg’s efforts led the way towards the first sequence of an individual human genome.

Joy Reidenberg: Weird whales

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:38:53 +0000

In her talk, “Why Whales are Weird,” energetic, articulate anatomist Joy Reidenberg presented an amazing array of fact about the beloved mammal (Whales evolved from deer-like creatures! Their spinal movement is more like galloping in the water! They don’t actually spout water! They have mustaches!). She took us through the story of evolution using whales as a model, explaining that evolution is the process to mediate resilience and thus, survival.

amiina: Mixing it up, Iceland style

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:36:35 +0000

Icelandic five-piece band amiina takes the PopTech stage with a glockenspiel, a musical saw, a couple of violins, drums, and a laptop. They got their start as the string section for the legendary Sigur Ros and have gone on to play complex music that’s sweetly innocent.

David Eagleman: Brain over mind?

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:25:00 +0000

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. His areas of research include time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He is a pioneer on the power of the unconscious brain. “Are we free to choose how we act? Is the mind equal to the brain?”

Aidan Dwyer: Better solar designs

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:58:53 +0000

13-year old Aidan Dwyer designed a more efficient model for solar power by studying Fibonacci sequences. Today, his divides his time between junior high and collaborations with research organizations like the University of Madison’s Resilience Research Center.

Paul Needham: Owning electricity

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:31:03 +0000

Paul Needham’s organization, Simpa Networks, makes solar energy available to the poor. By using a pay-as-you-go pricing structure modeled after mobile phone cards, Simpa gives its customers ownership of the electricity. Once the initial cost of the equipment is paid off, the device belongs to the customer and their electricity is free.

Tim Harford: Preventing financial meltdowns

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:23:27 +0000

Economic commentator and author Tim Harford presented a creative, challenging perspective on financial systems, drawing upon examples from oil rig explosions to nuclear disasters to make his point. He believes that by studying the triggers of major engineering accidents, we can draw lessons on how to help prevent crises in the financial world.

Pieter Hoff's Groasis waterboxx

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:39:21 +0000

Dutch bulb grower, Pieter Hoff has an idea about how to make deserts bloom: capture the humidity in the air, store it in a box, and use that condensation to water plants. He calls this box the Groasis waterboxx and he thinks it can change how we feed the world and reduce greenhouse gases.

Jessika Trancik: Clean energy

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:43:10 +0000

Jessika Trancik works to discover and scale new energy technologies while also providing foresight as to where they are going next. She integrates technological details with climate change mitigation targets to make tech problems easier to solve and better for the planet.

Stephanie Coontz: Gender gaps

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:47:05 +0000

Stephanie Coontz, an historian of the family, discusses how globalization has brought more women into the paid work force, giving them some ownership over their productive labor. Coontz urges us to redefine our notions of gender equality within this framework of labor, arguing that every worker has a right to a family life.

Shaily Mahendra: Bioremediation

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:02:51 +0000

In a process called bioremediation, Shaily Mahendra uses bacteria and fungi to indicate levels of pollution and ecosystem health. These same microorganisms can also be used to detoxify a wide variety of environmental pollutants, restoring a contaminated environment back to its healthier state.

Stephanie Coontz: On marriage

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:27:37 +0000

What makes an ideal marriage? Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history and family studies and author of “Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage,” says that marrying for love is a radical idea. Ironically, as marriage is becoming a more emotionally satisfying relationship, it is also becoming less stable as an institution.

Olafur Grimsson: Iceland bounces back

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:23:11 +0000

The President of Iceland describes how his country encountered social and democratic upheaval after the economic crisis of 2008. By combining wide-scale systemic inquiry into governance and judicial systems and investing in clean energy and technology, Iceland has been able to bounce back with remarkable economic vitality.

Eben Upton: Raspberry Pi

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:13:53 +0000

Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, shows how he is hooking a new generation of kids on computer programming. “I remember sitting down with my wife for dinner…and we had this sudden, appalling realization that we had promised 600,000 people that we would build them a $25 dollar computer.”

Arvind Subramanian: China’s ascendance

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:10:09 +0000

Arvind Subramanian explains that China’s ascendance is not approaching but already upon us. The country’s growing dominance will be more imminent, broader in scope and greater than previously imagined. He asks us to imagine a world with, not the G20, nor even the G2, but the sole G1: the reality is that China will rule the world. What does this mean for an increasingly vulnerable United States?

Fortune and Biewald: Crowdsourcing TB cell annotation

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:31:50 +0000

Sarah Fortune, TB expert, and Lukas Biewald, CEO of the crowdsourcing start-up, Crowdflower, pair up through PopTech to crowdsource a task best done by the human eye: cataloging TB’s bacterial cells. This collaboration has the potential to democratize the economics of science and basic scientific discovery.

Daniel Kish: Blind vision

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:23:44 +0000

Daniel Kish’s organization, World Access for the Blind, trains the visually impaired to achieve greater freedom and mobility through echolocation, a technique that simulates a bat’s night vision of perceiving the environment through sound.

Asenath Andrews: The school for self reliance

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Asenath Andrews founded the Catherine Ferguson Academy, an alternative public high school in Detroit for teen mothers that also provides early education services for their children. The school blends an innovative curriculum with urban farming and a healthy dose of high expectations. “If I expect that you are going to have a future, then you expect it.”

Nicholas Felton: Tracing our lives

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:23:19 +0000

Graphic designer Nicholas Felton is obsessed with data. He knows how many songs he’s listened to and how much it costs him per mile to fly. Felton visualizes these numerous details in personal “Annual Reports.” At PopTech 2009, Felton examines what a weeklong-snapshot of New York Times’ front pages reveals about America.

Amanda Ripley: Ask the kids

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist who writes about human behavior and public policy. For Time Magazine and the Atlantic, she has chronicled the stories of American kids and teachers alongside groundbreaking new research into education reform. “Kids have strong opinions about school. We forget as adults how much time they sit there contemplating their situation.”

Jay Silver: Art everywhere

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:39:23 +0000

Jay Silver is an inventor who created Makey Makey, a kit that allows users to turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the Internet, like creating a piano out of bananas. He endorses art that is a “hodge-podge of different collections of contributions reflecting everyone’s own internal inspirations, kind of the way nature is, but for humans.”

Thomas Thwaites: How I built a toaster

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:48:34 +0000

In a coup d’etat of DIY, designer Thomas Thwaites set about building a toaster from scratch. He reverse engineered a $7 toaster into 400 separate parts and then set about recreating steel from iron ore rocks, plastic from microwaved potatoes and copper from homemade bromide mush. It’s an examination of the industrial materials and processes in our lives.

Adrien Treuille: Crowdsourcing science

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:22:11 +0000

Can gaming cure disease? By creating games like EteRNA for protein folding and nano-engineering, Adrien Treuille and his colleagues are outsourcing research, each week scoring and then synthesizing top players’ work. By studying players’ strategies, scientists can improve their computer modeling while also creating new ways to fight disease.

Shahidul Alam: Photography's power

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:07:42 +0000

After an acclaimed career as a documentary photographer, Bangladeshi Shahidul Alam dedicated his life to bringing photography to the people. He started a number of projects and initiatives—including Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography; Chobi Mela, the festival of photography in Asia; and Majority World, a global community interest initiative formed to provide a platform for indigenous photographers.

Adrian Anantawan: Accessible music

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Born without a right hand, Adrian Anantawan began the violin at nine and has since established himself as a rising star in classical music. He helped to create the Virtual Chamber Music Initiative at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Centre — a cross-collaborative project that develops adaptive musical instruments for use by young persons with disabilities within a chamber music setting.

Megan Mukuria: Keep girls in school

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:05:16 +0000

What causes African girls to miss up to 1.5 months of school each year? By providing access to sanitary pads, ZanaAfrica, founded by Megan Mukuria, is giving girls the freedom and self-confidence to stay in school, while also connecting the community of young women through an online forum that allows them to share information via social media.

Jer Thorp: Data and oil

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:46:42 +0000

Jer Thorp, who has launched The Office For Creative Research, explores the boundaries between science, data, art, and culture. His work has appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. “I come here today because I am excited about data, but also because I am terrified. I am terrified that we are having progress without culture in the world of data.”

Energy disruptors: Jay Keasling on plant-based fuels

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:30:09 +0000

Jay Keasling, a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology, grew up on a farm in Nebraska where his father raised corn. He decided to apply his past to what he’d been doing for years, engineering microbes to produce chemicals. He’s turned his attention to solving the world’s energy crisis, using plants to engineer clean-burning fuels that will replace oil.

Bryan Doerries' Theater of War

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:15:05 +0000

Bryan Doerries’ Theater of War presents readings of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes to military and civilian communities across the United States and Europe. By bringing these timeless plays to military audiences, Doerries attempts to create dialogue and community while de-stigmatizing the psychological injuries of war.

Adriane Herman: Art of the list

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:51:03 +0000

Adriane Herman collects and displays found lists from all over the world. Heartbreaking, hilarious, mundane and, at times, shocking, these lists present a portrait of our attempts to contain our unruly humanity.

Nithya Ramanathan: Nexleaf Analytics

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:15:38 +0000

Nithya Ramanathan’s organization NexLeaf Analytics couples everyday objects like cell phones with sophisticated analytics to improve projects’ impact. In one example, Nexleaf tracked seabirds’ sounds on a distant island, and by processing the recordings with powerful servers, helped scientists better gauge the seabirds’ risk of extinction.

Rush Bartlett: Safe drug delivery

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:49:51 +0000

Injectable drugs are a huge part of modern life, and with 16 billion injections a year, delivery system innovation is a field ripe for breakthroughs. 2010 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow Rush Bartlett’s company LyoGo has developed a completely self-contained system with the potential to revolutionize the way people are immunized.

Vijay Anand: Combating corruption

Tue, 17 May 2011 18:01:43 +0000

Vijay Anand wants to eliminate corruption. That’s why he co-founded the 5th Pillar, an organization dedicated to providing citizens with the tools to fight corruption. He’s also launched one of India’s most successful anti-corruption campaigns with the Zero Rupee Note, a bill that looks like currency but allows citizens to refuse bribery without fear.

James Fowler: Power of networks

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:20:37 +0000

Can your social network make you fat? Affect your mood? Political scientist James H. Fowler reveals the dynamics of social networks, the invisible webs that connect each of us to the other. With Nicholas A. Christakis, Fowler recently coauthored, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

Dava Newman: A better built space suit

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:17:42 +0000

MIT aeronautics professor and engineer Dava Newman is on a quest to create the best space suit in (intergalactic) town. She introduces some of her favorites designs, including a mobility-enhancing “Bio-Suit” created to protect astronauts from atmospheres and healthcare workers from germs.

Erika Block's Local Orbit

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:07:58 +0000

Erika Block founded Local Orbit to connect local farmers with chefs, institutions and consumers. Her online platform provides marketing, sales, logistics and inventory management for food hubs, farmers, and community groups. The result is a scalable system that makes healthy, locally produced food both affordable and accessible to everyone.

Energy disruptors: Johanna Wellington on clean energy technologies

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:37:21 +0000

Johanna Wellington was inspired to go into a technology career because she loves math like other people enjoy doing crossword puzzles. She started off at GE as an intern, went on to be a Combustion Design Engineer, and held several other positions before joining the Research Center in her current role as Advanced Technology Leader for Sustainable Energy where she is an expert in clean energy technologies.

Justin Gallivan: Custom bacteria

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:53:10 +0000

2010 Science and Public Leadership Fellow Justin Gallivan is amazed by bacteria. You can get them to do almost anything. For instance, e. coli bacteria can be programmed to eat atrazine, a widely used herbicide that contaminates ground water. The key? Being able to program them to solve pressing eco-challenges.

Krista Donaldson's Design Revolution

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:02:14 +0000

Krista Donaldson runs D-Rev: Design Revolution, which creates world class products—market and user driven—designed to meet the needs of the four billion people all over the world living on less than four dollars a day.

David Mikkelsen's Refugees United

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:59:35 +0000

After a remarkable effort to help one Afghan boy reconnect with his family, David and Christopher Troensegaard Mikkelsen were driven to create a low cost, anonymous mobile tool and web platform designed to help refugees reconnect with loved ones. These tools streamline the family tracing process for individuals and for the NGOs helping them.

Tom Darden: Make It Right

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:29:22 +0000

Tom Darden is the Executive Director of the Make It Right Foundation, an organization founded by actor Brad Pitt to build 150 green, high design homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Darden said he wants to take what has been a local conversation about green construction to the national level.

Amy Sun: Unlocking capacities

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:06:51 +0000

Amy Sun’s FabLab gives people access to tools and processes for the modern means of invention. In Afghanistan, participants wanted to “make the Internet;” the outcome was the creation of a city-scale wireless mesh network. FabLab brings together people with the tools, processes and guiding principles to envision and build a future that works.

Rose Goslinga: Farmer microinsurance

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:37:13 +0000

Traditional crop insurance relies on farms visits, a proposition which doesn’t add up for small farms. Kilimo Salama, run by Rose Goslinga, uses creative, low-cost methods, such as weather stations, to remotely determine whether drought conditions justify payout. Able to invest more at lower risk, Kenyan farmers are producing historic crop yields.

Pardis Sabeti: Genome clues

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:58:30 +0000

Using genomes as an archeological record, Pardis Sabeti studies the patterns of natural selection. Why do some people have genetic resistance to disease while others do not? Her work has taken her throughout Africa to research the deadly Lassa fever and help doctors and nurses find a cure.

Michael Blum: Failure and resiliency

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:36:48 +0000

Tulane ecology professor Michael Blum has been at the front lines of the Gulf coast oil spill response and clean-up efforts. In his PopTech talk, he analyzed the operational, organizational and technological failures that led to the accident as well as the community’s resiliency in its rebuilding efforts.

Amy Cuddy: Power poses

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:10:48 +0000

Amy Cuddy revealed that we can actually change feelings we have about our own status through the physical positions we take with our bodies. Her research participants had higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol after only two minutes in a “power pose”. Cuddy asked if such findings can have wider implications for empowerment training.

Asil Abulil, Nour Al-Arda, Asil Shaar, and Jameela Khaled innovate from the edge

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:36:08 +0000

Inspired to help a blind friend navigate the streets of their West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian students Asil Abulil, Nour Al-Arda, and Asil Shaar and their teacher Jameela Khaled, designed a cane that beeps and vibrates, which won an award at Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair.

Stephen Vitiello: Intimate listening

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:37:07 +0000

From composing electronic music to scoring experimental videos to making larger-scale public installations that create immersive soundscapes, sound artist Stephen Vitiello invites his audience to reinterpret sound. He took us on a sonic tour of his work including recordings from a 1999 residency at the World Trade Center and his sound installation at New York City’s High Line, “A Bell for Every Minute.”

David de Rothschild and the Plastiki expedition

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:48:25 +0000

David de Rothschild is on a mission. Alarmed by the devastating impact of plastic pollution in the ocean, the eco-adventurer built the Plastiki, a boat made from 12,000 plastic bottles. In it, he and his crew of nautical nomads sail halfway around the world to alert the public about this ecological crisis and the need to reuse discarded plastics.

Iain Couzin: Collective behavior

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:32:27 +0000

Iain Couzin studies how animals coordinate behavior. He has discovered that locust plagues don’t occur because the insects are cooperating. Rather, it is a forced march: if they stop, they risk being cannibalized. Such insights help communities to track oncoming outbreaks while also challenging scientists’ theories of collective animal behavior.

Kevin Dunbar on unexpected science

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:47:52 +0000

Psychology professor Kevin Dunbar studies how scientists approach the unexpected and learn from mistakes. Over the course of a year, Dunbar’s team studied the habits of four molecular biology labs. They found that those labs most successful at turning mistakes into new theories tended to be more diverse and willing to take risks.

Dominic Muren's Humblefactory

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:04:41 +0000

Dominic Muren’s organization, The Humblefactory, champions “makers,” craftspeople who make up the cottage industries of the world. His online platform helps empower these makers, linking them up with markets through co-manufacturing and product design strategy.

Arbabi and Hosseini: “The Daily Show” of Iran

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:57:31 +0000

Saman Arbabi and Kambiz Hosseini started a satirical television show, Parazit, broadcast on Voice of America. Today, it is an international phenomenon, drawing more than 700,000 followers. They use the power of satire combined with content from citizens on the street to expose injustices happening across Iran.

April Smith and The Great Picture Show

Wed, 25 May 2011 16:28:02 +0000

April Smith and the Great Picture Show serve up an exuberant blend of vintage-inspired music that drips with emotion and grace. The group recently released their first CD, a fan-financed project called Songs for a Sinking Ship.

Michael Murphy: Buildings that heal

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:08:07 +0000

At the hospital, you expect to heal, but some buildings are actually making us sicker. With thoughtful techniques as basic as removing hallways and creating outside waiting areas for sick patients, Michael Murphy works with local communities to design buildings that promote health while also creating new jobs.

Gideon Obarzanek’s digital moves

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:25:22 +0000

Hailed by The Australian as the country’s best modern dance company, choreographer Gideon Obarzanek’s Chunky Move dazzles audiences with its use of site-specific installations and interactive sound and light technologies. Obarzanek’s avant-garde performances explore the tensions between the rational world we live in and richness of our imagination.

Reuben Margolin's kinetic art

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:22:16 +0000

First inspired by the mysterious and mathematical qualities of a caterpillar’s crawl, artist Reuben Margolin creates large-scale kinetic sculptures that use pulleys and motors to create the complex movements and structures we see in nature. Margolin takes to the PopTech stage to share some of his extraordinary mechanical installations.

Ryan Smith: Sewage into plastic

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:56:15 +0000

Ryan Smith is co-founder and chief technical officer of Micromidas, Inc., a biotech company that uses an innovative microbial process to convert raw sewage into high-quality plastics. A non-petroleum plastic made from organic waste that completely degrades in six months to a year? What’s not to love?

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry design

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:16:34 +0000

Champion of the Earth honoree and biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus has transformed the way we think about innovation and design. Benyus challenges us to study nature’s best ideas, then imitate its designs and processes to solve some of our greatest human challenges.

Laura Stachel: Solar saves lives

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:54:25 +0000

Laura Stachel and Hal Aronson founded WE CARE Solar, which designs solar-powered systems to meet essential maternity care needs. These portable, suitcase-sized systems are immediately operational and expandable. Powering lighting and communication equipment, they enable timely and appropriate emergency care for mothers and infants.

Gidon Eshel: The impact of food

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:35:11 +0000

Gidon Eshel is a statistician who grew up working on a dairy farm on an Israeli Kibbutz, a combination that’s led to a deep knowledge of how what we eat affects our planet. His finding: a meat-based diet far exceeds the carbon emissions of a plant-based diet – meaning that most people’s usual way of eating – the Mean American Diet – is truly “MAD.”

Kim Cobb: How climate changes

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:50:32 +0000

Kim Cobb studies the climate variability of the past in order to construct a sense of what we can expect in the future. Having a clearer sense of rainfall, for example, over the next 100 years will be incredibly valuable in informing public policy.

Carlo Ratti: Oil-absorbing robots

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:50:28 +0000

Director of MIT’s SENSEable City Lab Carlo Ratti wondered if there was a way to create a small, inexpensive, scalable, self-organizing system to help remove the oil after the Gulf oil spill. He discusses the inception of Seaswarm, a fleet of low-cost oil-absorbing robots in his PopTech 2010 talk.

Beth Shapiro: What goes extinct?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:46:21 +0000

Evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro explores the influences of climate and humans in determining species extinction. Why did brown bears survive while giant beavers didn’t? Her cutting-edge DNA research is helping us make informed decisions about how to preserve the species that are currently under threat.

Reggie Watts: Humor in music

Wed, 25 May 2011 17:59:59 +0000

Reggie Watts is an entertainer who combines stream-of-consciousness improvisational comedy with music to create a wholly original experience. A PopTech veteran, Watts knows this audience well and he handled them like a pro, getting big laughs with a smart blend of sarcasm and self-deprecation during his performance.

Erin McKean: Dictionaries

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:14:42 +0000

Self-proclaimed word geek Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, is on a mission to debunk common misconceptions and elevate the use—and cool factor—of dictionaries. And what’s this about dictionaries being “the vodka of literature”?

Eli Pariser on the Filter Bubble

Tue, 10 May 2011 21:35:05 +0000

Eli Pariser explores how ideas move in the networked economy. As the board president of MoveOn.org, he pioneered many practices of online organizing. Now, Pariser is focused on the social and political impact of the personalized web, examining the role that filters – both cognitive and software-based – have in shaping what information spreads, which he refers to as the Filter Bubble .

Donald Ingber: Serendipitous science

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:55:30 +0000

Donald Ingber explains how taking an undergraduate sculpture course while learning how to culture cells led to an unexpected breakthrough in understanding cellular construction. He believes an open mind for serendipity correlates to innovations in a diverse range of fields — from the “lung-on-a-chip” to “DNA origami.”

Ned Breslin: Fixing the water crisis

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:49:10 +0000

“Is water still running?” is perhaps the most important question for water initiatives worldwide, concludes Water for People CEO Ned Breslin. He’s tired of seeing broken hand pumps and taps litter Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These signs of failed projects underscore the critical need to overhaul water aid for real impact.

Daryl Collins on $2 a day living

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:47:03 +0000

Daryl Collins asked families in developing countries who live on $2 a day to track their income and expenses in a financial diary. She learned that these families have rich financial lives but are confronted with sporadic cash flow and lack of appropriate financial tools. As a result, this inhibits their ability to manage money and plan for future generations.

Amro Hamdoun: Cell self-defense

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:33:23 +0000

Cell biologist Amro Hamdoun seeks to understand the systems that cells and embryos use to protect themselves against chemical pollution. Why do some “bad” chemicals make it into cells, and how can we predict which ones will as we develop even more chemicals?

Ben Goldacre talks Bad Science

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 18:10:10 +0000

Author of the Guardian’s weekly ”Bad Science” column and Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks, British physician Ben Goldacre dismantles the questionable science behind an assortment of drug trials, court cases, and events of our time.

Salinee Tavaranan: Micro-energy

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:59:28 +0000

Social Innovation Fellow Salinee Tavaranan and the Border Green Energy Team are helping to bring light to some of the world’s darkest places. She and her team work on the border of her homeland, Thailand, and Burma, a country that’s been embroiled in civil war for over sixty years, to bring solar power to clinics and medical facilities that desperately need it.

Patrick Flanagan: Robot drums

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:28:50 +0000

The one-man band, Jazari, consists of machines that play a variety of hand percussion instruments, all under the control Patrick Flanagan, who wields a custom-built controller and a Wii remote to create improvised jam sessions. After performing, Flanagan walked the crowd through the technical process of how his system works.

Brian Elliot: Friend power

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:02:43 +0000

Brian Elliot founded Friendfactor to unlock the power of friendship to accelerate legal freedoms for LGBT people. Friendfactor’s innovative social networking platform shifts the focus of gay rights from ideology towards a far more personal concept: friends making a difference in their gay friends’ lives.

Kathryn Schulz: Being wrong

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:23:33 +0000

Kathryn Schulz is an expert on being wrong. The journalist and author of “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error,” says we make mistakes all the time. The trouble is that often times being wrong feels like being right. What’s more, we’re usually wrong about what it even means to make mistakes—and how it can lead to better ideas.

Chris Marianetti's Found Sound Nation

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:36:07 +0000

Chris Marianetti, a classically trained musician and composer, got started by bringing his recording studio to a Bronx school. Marianetti ended up recording an album with his students and then invited master musicians to contribute. Today, his organization, Found Sound Nation, creates collaborations all over the world, bringing people together through music.

Sarah Fortune: Fighting TB

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:03:26 +0000

Why is tuberculosis so resistant to treatment? Sarah Fortune studies the bacterium that causes tuberculosis as well as how it responds to various eradication efforts, with a view to more effectively fighting this increasingly common global scourge.

Mike Wesch: Lessons from YouTube

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:16:48 +0000

Cultural anthropologist Mike Wesch studies YouTube and how social media is transforming how we communicate. The Kansas State University professor says social media has made us far more connected. His research on YouTube also reveals a media landscape that is fostering new forms of community and collective action.

Ben Lyon: Mobile microcredit

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Ben Lyon founded FrontlineSMS:Credit to allow microfinance institutions to send and receive secure loan payments, track loans and develop a micro-insurance model using the ubiquitous mobile phone.

Adrian Owen: Search for consciousness

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:33:57 +0000

What if you were completely conscious but couldn’t move or speak? Neuroscientist Adrian Owen and his team have been using brain-imaging techniques to determine levels of consciousness in vegetative patients. By giving simple commands and then measuring brain activity, Owen has learned some patients are completely aware despite being entirely unable to communicate or move their limbs.

Lisa Gansky: The future is sharing

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:56:19 +0000

Technology entrepreneur Lisa Gansky believes that the growing ubiquity of networked information and relationships are leading to what she calls a “mesh” economy of shared services and products. This “meshiness” not only rewards sharing over ownership, but it is also fundamentally changing our relationship with things from product to experience.

Patrick Meier & Josh Nesbit: The Haiti 4636 story

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:26:22 +0000

Patrick Meier, director of crisis mapping at Ushahidi, and Josh Nesbit, executive director of Medic Mobile (formerly FrontlineSMS: Medic) describe their organizations’ collaborative response to the Haiti earthquake using text messaging, mobile mapping, and a cadre of dedicated volunteers.

Susan Casey: In awe of waves

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:11:28 +0000

Susan Casey wrote her latest book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, after researching the beautiful, mysterious and terrifying behavior of waves for the past three years. Casey recounted astonishing tales of misfit waves from around the world and what drew her to confront them firsthand.

Nathan Eagle: Global mobile workforce

Tue, 31 May 2011 19:10:32 +0000

Nathan Eagle is harnessing mobile phone data in emerging markets. He’s launched txteagle, a program that enables the under-employed to earn money or phone credits by performing tasks on their cell phones. Through partnerships with over 220 mobile phone operators, txteagle is active in nearly 100 countries.

Jay Keasling: Metabolic engineering

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:50:12 +0000

Through a series of chemical reactions and a re-imagining of intellectual property practices, Jay Keasling and his partners at One World Health expect to have effective, affordable malaria pills in the hands of African children in a few years. Inspired? There’s more. Watch as Keasling describes the boundless possibilities of metabolic engineering and non-profit biotechnology.

Gale McCullough citizen scientist

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:19:11 +0000

Gale McCullough was looking at photos of whales on Flickr and spotted markings of one she recognized from a photo taken three years and 6,000 miles apart. She confirmed the match through marine laboratory Allied Whale’s database, earning the moniker “citizen scientist” for her discovery that these whales travel enormous distances in their lifetimes.

Leila Janah: Jobs fight poverty

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:09:56 +0000

2010 Social Innovation Fellow Leila Janah founded Samasource to bring digitally connected jobs to people living in poverty, providing computer-based microwork via the Internet. Her philosophy: “Handouts are not going to end global poverty, but work — real work — just might.”

Orlagh O'Brien: Illustrating how you feel

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:51:25 +0000

Designer Orlagh O’Brien gave a simple emotion-specific quiz to a group of 250 people. Asking respondents to describe five emotions – anger, joy, fear, sadness, and love – in drawings, colors, and words, O’Brien ended up with a set of media she used to create Emotionally}Vague, an online graphic interpretation of the project’s results.

Chris Chabris: When intuition fails

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:40:41 +0000

Psychologist and neuroscientist Chris Chabris studies how rarely we see the world as it really is. A creator of the famous “gorilla experiment,” Chabris’ work reveals how relying on our intuitions is perilous. Because of copyright issues, we’re unable to show the video in its entirety. Please watch the Invisible Gorilla video prior to this talk.

Imogen Heap: Hide and seek

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:33:15 +0000

Imogen Heap plays a stripped-down version of what she says is her most popular song, “Hide and Seek.” It came together by accident one night when her computer died and she was forced to look at her instruments in a new way.

Thompson & Cotton forgive

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:29:58 +0000

The story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton is one of liberation and forgiveness. In 1984, Thompson testified that Cotton raped her, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. Eleven years later, DNA evidence cleared him of the crime. Thompson and Cotton went on to write a memoir together about their experience.

Graham Hill: Life Edited

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:11:42 +0000

Treehugger founder Graham Hill announced the launch of a new online design competition, Life Edited, and asked all interested parties to weigh in on how he can best design his new 420 square foot New York City apartment. Offering up to $70,000 in prizes, Life Edited is raising the stakes for low-impact designers.

Sinan Aral: Social contagion

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:15:28 +0000

Sinan Aral’s two areas of interest are behavioral contagions and causality. He believes that if we can understand how behavior is spread in a population, there’s the potential to promote good behaviors such as condom use and tolerance and to deter behavior like smoking and violence.

Reihan Salam: New conservatism

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:18:55 +0000

Reihan Salam, a New America Foundation fellow, writes on politics, culture, and technology. At PopTech 2009, Salam argues that America’s growing diversity, divided by massive inequalities, will lead the country to increasing social conservatism. Salam also co-authored Grand New Party: How Conservatives Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

Nick Bilton: Smart content

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:39:39 +0000

Nick Bilton, Lead Technology Reporter for The New York Times “Bits” blog, says that digital media has resulted in a “new form of storytelling.” Bilton, who is also a designer and user interface specialist, is co-founder of NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn, and is currently writing a book called, I Live in the Future: & Here’s How It Works.

Mark O'Connor and Ruby Jane Smith: Fiddles

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:36:57 +0000

Fiddle virtuoso Mark O’Connor and 14-year-old prodigy fiddler Ruby Jane Smith share the 2009 PopTech stage. Together they mesmerize audiences with the duets that play tribute to the spirit of Americana music, at times slow and melancholy, and others rousing and lyrical.

Brian Hare: Peaceful as a bonobo?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:57:40 +0000

What can human society learn from bonobo behavior? Brian Hare studies primates’ and non-primates’ social skills and asks whether areas of their evolution have surpassed our own.

Raj Panjabi: Post-conflict health

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:31:48 +0000

After surviving Liberia’s civil conflict, Raj Panjabi co-founded Last Mile Health (known in Liberia as Tiyatien 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.

Justin Gallivan: Hacking bacteria

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:34:46 +0000

Justin Gallivan is an Emory University chemist who explores the boundaries of biology by engineering bacteria to behave in predictable ways. Gallivan’s research on reprogrammable bacteria has important implications for complex challenges such as the need to track and clean up environmental pollutants.

Luis von Ahn harnesses brainpower

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:10:08 +0000

Computer scientist Luis von Ahn’s programs harness the human brainpower to solve complex problems. von Ahn invented ReCaptcha, a program that uses squiggly characters that humans easily decipher but blocks spambots – and helps digitize millions of old texts. The CMU professor also makes games that use human knowledge to improve computers. Find them at gwap.com.

Amishi Jha: Building attention

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:28:15 +0000

Amishi Jha is a brain scientist who is working on ways to train brains to pay better attention. How can mindfulness training help people in high-stress situations – from medical staff to soldiers – better navigate their challenging environments?

Dean Ornish: Healthy connections

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:40:39 +0000

For more than thirty years, Dr Dean Ornish has demonstrated the power of a healthy lifestyle as the best kind of preventive care. These choices, Ornish reveals, are can turn on” disease-preventing genes and “turn off” genes that promote illness. Dr. Ornish has published a number of best-selling books on the subject; the most recent is The Spectrum.

Kacie Kinzer: Robot love

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:33:06 +0000

Designer Kacie Kinzer explores what technology can reveal about empathy and cooperation. So she built a Tweenbot, a cardboard robot equipped only with “cuteness and a flag that says ‘help me’” to elicit help from passersby. With the help of 29 strangers, the tiny robot crossed NYC’s Washington Square Park in just 42 minutes.

John Fetterman: Reviving Braddock

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:24:45 +0000

Braddock, Pennsylvania Mayor John Fetterman is fighting for the future of his rust belt town’s future. Braddock has lost ninety percent of its buildings and most of its population. Yet Fetterman’s ambitious plans include repurposing abandoned lots and fostering numerous arts and community initiatives.

Elizabeth Dunn: Happiness and money

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:49:11 +0000

Elizabeth Dunn conducts experimental research on self-knowledge and happiness with a focus on how people can more effectively use their money to increase well-being. Dunn determined that by rethinking how we spend our money, we can “change the world, increase our happiness, or win a game of dodgeball.”

eL Seed: The art of calligraffiti

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:01:57 +0000

eL Seed is a French artist who creates large-scale works of art combining the vernacular of street art with Arabic calligraphy. What he calls “Calligraffiti” is his response to both his role as an Arabic artist in a Western-dominated art world as well as his role as an artist of the “streets.”

Kevin Starr: Lasting impact

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:27:09 +0000

Kevin Starr, Mulago Foundation director, looks for the best solutions to the biggest problems in the poorest countries. He thinks all projects need to answer four questions: Is it needed? Does it work? Will it get to those who need it? Will they use it correctly when they get it? Too many bad ideas are using up our limited resources and that needs to change.

Jennifer Leaning: Keys to human security

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Dr. Jennifer Leaning is the director of the Harvard François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, and the FXB professor of the practice of health and human rights at Harvard School of Public Health. She travels the world researching human security. “I’m looking at the ways in which you can promote health and well-being through time in the setting of war and disaster.”

Esther Duflo: Ending poverty

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:00:28 +0000

Esther Duflo, MIT economist and co-founder of the Poverty Action Lab, asks why the world’s poorest people tend to stay poor. Duflo’s pioneering research applies randomized trials, used extensively in drug discovery research, to development economics. What she discovers are strategies for transforming current approaches to development policy.

Brooke Betts Farrell: Waste as treasure

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:23:01 +0000

Brooke Betts Farrell’s idea is simple – she wants her company, RecycleMatch, to be the eBay of trash. Matching those who have waste with those who need it, RecycleMatch lowers costs, reduces waste and accelerates green innovation.

Logan Richardson: Improvisations

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:25:50 +0000

Aydogan Ozcan: Mobile microscopes

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:54:39 +0000

UCLA professor Aydogan Ozcan has discovered how to convert cellphones into microscopes by relying on shadow imaging instead of expensive optics. In time, the ability to conduct tests and detect infectious diseases by leveraging mobile technologies in resource-poor settings could transform public health.

ee.ucla.edu/

Rinku Sen: Locating justice

Tue, 11 May 2010 20:44:16 +0000

Rinku Sen, president and executive director of the Applied Research Center, is devoted to creating a more inclusive America. If we’re willing to be explicit about the ways racism works around us, Sen says, we can create the society we all want to live in. Sen also publishes the ColorLines, a magazine on race and politics. (www.arc.org)

Dan Ariely: Irrational economics

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:19:54 +0000

MIT professor Dan Ariely believes that the starting point for making better decisions, particularly with financial matters, requires understanding the impulse to act irrationally. At PopTech 2009, Ariely discussed an excerpt from his new book, The Upside of Irrationality, about the role of emotions in the workplace.

Willie Smits: Saving rainforests

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:22:38 +0000

Biologist Willie Smits has spent the last thirty years searching for ways to restore fragile ecosystems. From his home in Indonesia – a leading producer of greenhouse gases – Smits has discovered a method of sustainable energy production: using the forest to generate biofuels with a carbon-positive impact.

Zach Lieberman: Interactive Art

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:10:23 +0000

Artist Zach Lieberman uses interactive media to inspire – and explore the relationship between technology, performance, and the body. His recent projects include an open-source eye-tracking system that allows disabled artists to draw using their eyes and a performance that includes drawn sketches that react to a visitors’ touch.

Yasser Ansari: Citizen science

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:19:37 +0000

Yasser Ansari’s Project Noah (Networked Organisms and Habitats), strives to be what he calls “a field guide for every organism.” Inspired by Darwin’s Field Guide, bio-instruments, and a little bit of steampunk, the platform encourages citizen scientists to step into the world, eyes open, and begin documenting what they find.

Beth Shapiro: Species extinction

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:44:30 +0000

What makes species go extinct? Evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro explores the influences of climate and humans in determining species extinction. By analyzing the genes of ancient plants and animals, she traces the complex relationship between environment and the extinction and evolution of species.

Kurt Andersen: Renewing America

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:21:57 +0000

Kurt Andersen, best-selling author and host of the radio program Studio 360, has turned his unflagging curiosity to the current economic crisis. He believes it is an opportunity to get the nation back on track. Part of the answer, Andersen suggests, lies in reconnecting to the amateur spirit that first helped create America.

Jay Rogers: Open source your car

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:04:32 +0000

Jay Rogers is revolutionizing the automobile industry. The former U.S. Marine and co-founder of Local Motors has created the world’s first crowdsourced car. Rogers believes that making car production local – and personal – holds the key to fostering a sustainable car culture that also tackles our dependence on oil.

Anthony Doerr: Am I still here

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:24:49 +0000

Fiction writer and memoirist Anthony Doerr is the author of three books, The Shell Collector, About Grace, and Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. Here, the award-winning writer shares a story about how networked technologies can alienate us from nature and the things that matter most.

Lauren Abramson: Better justice

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:59:27 +0000

As the founder of the Community Conferencing Center, Social Innovation Fellow Lauren Abramson works to alter how society typically responds to crime and conflict — changing the focus from punishment to accountability, healing, and learning.

Laura Kurgan: Human geographies

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:53:46 +0000

Architect Laura Kurgan is the Co-Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University. Kurgan visualizes complex political and social data to advocate for social reform. One project, “Million Dollar Blocks”, shows how the government spends more than one million dollars to incarcerate prisoners who live within a single census block.

Assaf Biderman: Sentient cities

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:51:03 +0000

Assaf Biderman is the Associate Director of the SENSEable City Laboratory, an MIT university research group that explores the “real-time city” by studying how distributed technologies can be used to improve our understanding of cities and create a more sustainable ways of interacting in urban environments.

Deborah Kenny's fixing education

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:25:19 +0000

Deborah Kenny wants to scale the effective programs her organization, Harlem Village Academies, has produced. By avoiding previous, well-intentioned, failures and by providing teachers and students with empowering tools, she wants to get what’s working for her schools in every US school—and she encourages all of us to get involved.

Zee Avi: YouTube sensation

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:43:03 +0000

Shortly after posting self-styled videos on You Tube, singer songwriter Zee Avi woke up to 3,000 emails one morning. One offered her a recording contract with Brushfire Records. Since then, Avi left her home in Kuala Lumpur for Los Angeles. Avi performs melodic, melancholy songs tinged with irrepressible optimism. mp3s: 1, 2, 3, 4

Dennis Littky on Big Picture ed

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:18:51 +0000

The co-founder and co-director of Big Picture Learning, Dennis Littky believes that cookie-cutter teaching fails too many students. So Littky works to make alternative, non-standardized curriculums the new standard. Big Picture now has more than 70 schools nationwide.

Siddhartha Mukherjee: The cancer puzzle

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:53:31 +0000

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s fascination with cancer is rooted not just in how to fight it, but in where it originated. Discovering almost nothing on the subject, the cancer physician and researcher wrote “Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” that explores the history of the disease that causes one-quarter of all American deaths.

Mark O'Connor and Ruby Jane Smith: More fiddles

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:41:12 +0000

Kyna Leski: Creative processes

Tue, 04 May 2010 15:30:43 +0000

Kyna Leski is a designer and architecture professor at RISD, where she explores the craft of architecture as a design form. Artistic sensibility, she suggests, comes from the actual process of gathering, seeing, and grasping — allowing us to “know” the world. She is also Principal at 3six0 Architecture. (www.3six0.com)

Hasan Elahi lives in public

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:16:09 +0000

Since being detained and interrogated by the FBI as a suspected terrorist, Hasan Elahi has documented his every move in maps and images on the web. He walks us through his “little” self-surveillance experiment, where he’s found that the more public his personal information, the more protected he is.

Robert Guest: On U.S. power

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:15:05 +0000

Robert Guest is a Washington correspondent and the Lexington columnist for The Economist, covering American news and politics. Despite some predictions otherwise, Guest suggests that America is uniquely
positioned to continue as the world’s leading superpower thanks to its unparalleled ability to attract working immigrants from around the world.

Nicole Kuepper: Low-cost solar

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:47:26 +0000

Ph.D. candidate Nicole Kuepper has been passionate about solar energy since she received a toy solar-powered car for her 8th birthday. Kuepper has recently patented a simple low-temperature process for printing low-cost solar cells that could make solar energy affordable across the developing world.

Naif Al-Mutawa: The new superheroes

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:24:06 +0000

Naif Al-Mutawa is the creator of THE 99 – the first comic series to include multicultural superheroes inspired by an Islamic archetype. A clinical psychologist by training, Al-Mutawa is creating new frameworks for confronting stereotypes and extremism through a cast of characters that derive their power from Allah’s 99 attributes.

www.the99.org/

Josh Nesbit: Mobile healthcare

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:09:29 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Josh Nesbit co-founded Medic Mobile to bring the innovative use of mobile phones for healthcare to the developing world. A central clinic laptop runs FrontlineSMS software, enabling community health workers to use text messages to coordinate patient care, offer mobile diagnostics, and map health services.

Erica Williams on youth politics

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:42:22 +0000

Erica Williams is a Washington, D.C.-based activist and commentator who currently serves as the Deputy Director of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress. In this riveting Poptech talk, Williams discusses how the Millennial generation—today’s 18-30 year olds—are re-imagining the nature of political engagement.

Massoud Amin: A smart grid

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:25:48 +0000

Massoud Amin wants to make our energy infrastructure more sustainable and secure. The complex systems researcher from the University of Minnesota believes this requires networking energy into a “smart” grid that incorporates alternative energy. This will provide national as well as environmental and financial security.

Sameer Kalwani: Safe drinking water

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:41:09 +0000

Health in India is compromised by dirty water. Sameer Kalwani’s Sarvajal enables access to clean water, enlisting local entrepreneurs to sell it and monitoring water quality remotely. Customers are happy to pay to get clean water at their doorstep. What started with 1 village 3 years ago now provides safe water to 70,000 people daily.

Katy Payne: Elephant songs

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:13:11 +0000

Animal communication researcher Katy Payne has been studying the sounds of African elephants and humpback whales for decades. Her research has led her to fascinating conclusions on how acoustic phenomena shape relationships and communities. In1999, Payne founded the Elephant Listening Project to monitor elephants’ movements.

Zoë Keating: Avant-cello

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:02:04 +0000

Cellist Zoë Keating uses a cello and a small box of electronics to create a one-woman avant-garde orchestra. A former member of the cello-rock trio Rasputina, Keating has played live on radio and television, in the Nevada desert, in medieval churches, punk clubs, and in venues across North America and Europe.

Paul van Zyl: Legacy of torture

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:47:39 +0000

Co-founder of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Paul Van Zyl has devoted his career to human rights. The South African has been helping his country out of apartheid through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Van Zyl calls on America to hold its own commission to “openly and publicly” confront the torture that recently occurred in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Will Allen on urban farming

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:08:22 +0000

Will Allen is co-founder and director of Growing Power, Inc., an organization that is transforming the production and delivery of healthy foods to underserved, urban populations. Growing Power operates as an urban farm and education center in Milwaukee, WI, and more recently, Chicago, teaching urban youth how to produce low-cost healthy foods for their communities.

Emily Pilloton: Design for change

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:14:50 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Emily Pilloton founded Project H Design to mobilize innovative product design for social good. In its first year, the organization built a community of more than 300 designers and launched more than 20 projects in 6 countries. These initiatives include water transport solutions and designs for foster care therapy.

Nina Jablonski: Power of touch

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:36:02 +0000

A decade of e-mailing, IM’ing and social networking is beginning to undo forty million years of touching as a primary human modality. Acclaimed primatologist and evolutionary biologist, Nina Jablonski explores this change, man’s role as the only “self-decorating ape,” and how our underappreciated skin holds the key to our humanity.

Steve Barr fixes failing schools

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:14:23 +0000

According to Steve Barr, the fastest way to fix education in America would be to make private schools illegal. As the founder of Green Dot Public Schools, Barr is devoted to improving public education in blighted cities. His efforts have transformed high schools across Los Angeles into charter schools that send nearly 80% of students to college.

George Church: Know your genes

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:57:34 +0000

Geneticist George Church believes that genome sequencing can bring us closer to personalized medicine. Several years ago, Church launched the Personal Genome Project, a public database that connects genes to diseases as well as physical and biological characteristics. 100,000 volunteers are expected to contribute by 2010.

Jonah Lehrer: Creative insights

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:48:20 +0000

Author Jonah Lehrer explores the power of outsider intelligence. At PopTech 2009, the best-selling author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, notes that, paradoxically, lacking expertise on a subject can be an asset. “It’s what allows us to see the connections, to see the problems that no one else can see.”

The Yes Men on practicing "identity correction"

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:29:47 +0000

Practicing “identity correction” – the Yes Men target large corporations that put profits ahead of everything else. Getting inside the system, and impersonating business leaders, they smuggle stories out to the world to expose big business wrong-doing.

Alec Ross on statecraft 3.0

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:45:04 +0000

Senior Advisor on Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Alec Ross, says it’s time to reboot US diplomatic efforts abroad. Ross calls for 21st century statecraft based on the innovative use of new media. Previously, Ross co-founded One Economy, a nonprofit devoted to closing the digital divide, and brought his expertise to then Senator Obama’s presidential campaign.

Marije Vogelzang: Dine by design

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:32:24 +0000

Marije Vogelzang runs her own food-design laboratory, Proef. She is inspired by everything that surrounds the act of eating – from the stories and rituals surrounding food preparation to the emotional impact of the texture and color of specific foods. The result? Edible art installations that are at once provocative and intimate.

Barry Schwartz on happiness

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:52:38 +0000

What makes us happy? Societies flourish and people are most content when they are faced with fewer choices and more constraints argues psychologist Barry Schwartz. We are tortured by the idea of having it all – “Impossible!”, he says.

Saul Griffith audits energy use

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:00:49 +0000

Inventor, engineer and MacArthur Genius Grant-winner, Saul Griffith thought he was an eco-prude until he audited his total power consumption and learned he burns three times the energy as the average European. So, he developed Wattzon.com, a free, online tool we can use to gauge our energy footprints and learn how to reduce our roles in climate change.

Simonetta Carbonaro: Liquid societies

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:24:26 +0000

Consumer psychologist Simonetta Carbonaro implores us to think differently about consumption. A consumer-hungry outlook for cheaper and faster has gotten old. We now know that consuming and producing less, in fact, creates more jobs, more free time, and more happiness.

Dan Nocera: Personalized energy

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:50:16 +0000

MIT Professor Dan Nocera believes he can solve the world’s energy problems with an Olympic-sized pool of water. Nocera and his research team have identified a simple technique for powering the Earth inexpensively—by using the sun to split water and store energy—and thus making the large-scale deployment of personalized solar energy possible.

Serena Koenig: Global healthcare inequalities

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:10:14 +0000

Dr. Serena Koenig, director of Haiti programs for Partners in Health, isn’t afraid to ask the searing questions, especially about global inequalities in health care. With a simple philosophy—equal lives deserve equal treatment—she addresses the dilemma head-on.

John Forté: An impresario returns

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:36:35 +0000

John Forté is an accomplished musician and producer who recently released StyleFREE the EP, his first album since serving seven years in federal prison. Forte’s career was interrupted by a 14-year sentence for a first-time non-violent drug offense; Former President Bush commuted his sentence in 2008. mp3s: 1, 2, 3, 4

Ashley Merryman on parenting

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:22:10 +0000

Ashley Merryman has co-authored numerous articles about parenthood. Over the past two years, she and journalist Po Bronson have collaborated on an award-winning series of articles in New York Magazine. Their most recent work, a book titled NurtureShock, explores cutting edge research that challenges many familiar myths about how to best parent kids.

Suketu Mehta: Looking to the future through the lens of Mumbai

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:09:54 +0000

Writer Suketu Mehta glimpses our possible urban future through the lens of the vastly contrasting lifestyles in Mumbai, the biggest, fastest, richest city in India, and with a population of 21 million, larger and more crowded than many nation states.

Jason Aramburu: New energy

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:52:50 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Jason Aramburu launched re:char in 2005 to develop low-cost technologies that fight climate change while improving the quality of degraded soils. re:char’s systems convert agricultural waste into renewable fuel and into biochar, sequestering atmospheric carbon and improving soil quality.

Pamela Ronald: Plant genomics

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:42:56 +0000

You might think that genetically engineered agriculture and organic farming are diametrically opposed, but Pamela Ronald – chair of the Plant Genomics Program at UC Davis – argues the two go together like peanut butter and chocolate. In this informative Pop!Tech talk, Ronald describes how marrying organic farming techniques with G.E. crops holds the potential to help solve the impending global food crisis.

Anthony Doerr: Butterflies

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:20:58 +0000

Fiction writer and memoirist Anthony Doerr is the author of three books: The Shell Collector, About Grace, and Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. In this moving story, the award-winning writer shares a chance encounter between migrants in western Wyoming.

Imogen Heap: Electronic chanteuse

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:55:36 +0000

Imogen Heap is an ethereal, Grammy-nominated, electronic chanteuse. Bear witness to her powers of improvisation and see her perform the global smash hit “Hide and Seek” live on the Pop!Tech stage.

Katherine J. Kuchenbecker: Haptic interfaces

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:41:46 +0000

Katherine J. Kuchenbecker studies how humans process tactile stimuli. Through her work, she is able to design haptic interfaces, virtual objects and distant environments that feel real to the human touch. Her work aids in everything from creating more immersive environments for surgeons to designing tablet computers with surfaces that simulate reality.

Riley Crane: Crowdsource win

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:47:49 +0000

Riley Crane, a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Media Lab, found out about the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge four days before it started (find ten balloons placed in ten different locations around the country). Four days, eight hours, and 52 minutes later his team had won the competition. Watch him talk about how they did it and the challenges they encountered in the process.

Young Guru: Capitalizing on "free"

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:58:39 +0000

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. He is also a leader in adapting to a challenging music business. “It is always vibe over money."

Andri Magnason: Questioning growth

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:03:28 +0000

Andri Magnason is an Icelandic writer who co-directed the documentary film Dreamland, about a massive industrial project in Iceland that exposed some ugly truths about politics, industry and so-called green energy. He studies what seem like cycles of endless growth simply for growth’s sake. “I was wondering about how rational we are as humans. Where does this come from? Where does this need, this addiction come from?”

Bill Bishop: The Big Sort

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:08:59 +0000

Author of the striking book “The Big Sort: Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart,” Bishop is ringing an alarm bell on the country’s self-imposed “way-of-life segregation.” Here he details the increasing polarization of American communities and the corresponding impact on American culture, politics, economy and potential.

Mark Lynas: Environmental journalism

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:45:53 +0000

Environmental journalist Mark Lynas reports from his global tour of climate change hotspots – documenting the dramatic effects that even one degree of global warming may have around the world.

Zoë Keating: Radical cello

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:51:21 +0000

Elizabeth Streb's extreme moves

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:37:54 +0000

Who says we should only dance on our feet and not on our shoulders, hands or backs? Why dance on the ground but not in the sky? Take a look as self-described ‘action inventor’ Elizabeth Streb dreams up new ways to set the human body in motion.

Carl Safina: Fishing with long lines

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:55:16 +0000

Ecologist, author and lifelong fisherman Carl Safina is fighting to wake people up to the fact that fish are going the way of the buffalo. In this eye-opening Pop!Cast, Safina paints a grim portrait of the impact we’re having on the Earth’s oceans and what we need to do to turn the tide.

Jay Parkinson's medicine 2.0

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:03:47 +0000

Dr. Parkinson re-imagines the doctor/patient relationship, marrying social networking, IM, video chat, SMS and PayPal with old-fashioned, doctor-in-your-neighborhood, quality care. Pay a virtual visit to his Web 2.0 primary care practice, Hello Health, which offers a new way of keeping people well.

Eric Dawson: Peace First

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:32:03 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Eric Dawson launched Peace First to address sky-rocketing youth homicide rates. Peace First has already reached 40,000 children and families in five states, and is changing school cultures – teaching students the conflict resolution and peacemaking skills critical to create a safe learning environment.

Nigel Waller on the mobile cloud

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:26:10 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Nigel Waller launched Movirtu to provide virtual mobile phone services for people earning less than two dollars a day. As Movirtu expands across Africa and Asia, even the poorest individuals can send text messages and make mobile payments as well as find work and access healthcare.

Michael Pollan: Sustainable food

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:15:25 +0000

Author and activist Michael Pollan is a passionate advocate for sustainable food. In his compelling PopTech talk, he explores how our industrial food system keeps us overly dependent on fossil fuels, destroys our environment, and makes us sick. Breaking this cycle requires changing our relationship to food – and eating more meals together.

Neri Oxman: On designing form

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:13:13 +0000

Architect Neri Oxman is the founder of MATERIALECOLOGY, an interdisciplinary design initiative expanding the boundaries of computational form-generation and material engineering. One of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” Oxman investigates nature’s material and performance, to define form itself.

Paula Kahumbu: Conservation 2.0

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:59:49 +0000

As executive director of WildlifeDirect, 2009 PopTech Fellow Paula Kahumbu is building a global wildlife conservation community that connects conservationists and their supporters through blogs and direct funding. The goal: a movement powerful enough to reverse catastrophic species loss in Africa and around the world.

Robert Neuwirth on resilience

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:35:38 +0000

Having spent two years living in squatter communities across four continents, urban ethnographer Robert Neuwirth finds people living lives of complexity, challenge, and surprising resiliency.

Tevis Howard: Microforestry

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:12:19 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Tevis Howard founded KOMAZA to help end extreme poverty for rural Kenyan families living in arid landscapes. The organization partners with poor families to plant high-profit commercial tree farms that generate life-changing income and help preserve indigenous biodiversity.

Eben Bayer: Bio-packaging

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:54:58 +0000

Ecovative Design founder, 2009 PopTech Fellow Eben Bayer, on this initiative that transforms low-value agricultural byproducts into strong biological composites that can be used as biodegradable alternatives to conventional plastics, foams, and packaging materials.

Frank Warren: PostSecret

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:36:27 +0000

Four years ago, Frank Warren walked the streets of DC at night, handing out self-addressed postcards to strangers, soliciting their secrets. Watch as the creator of the wildly popular blog PostSecret reveals some of the hundreds of thousands of secrets shared by people from around the world in those four years…including a few of his own.

Ransler and Sinha: Husk Power

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:29:22 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellows Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha are key principals behind Husk Power Systems (HPS), a for-profit company that’s created a proprietary technology to cost-effectively convert rice husks into electricity. HPS delivers electricity – and dramatically improved lives – to India’s “Rice Belt.”

Melanie Edwards: Counting lives

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:03:28 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Melanie Edwards launched Mobile Metrix to identify and serve the world’s one billion “invisible” people. Mobile Metrix connects those at the base of the pyramid to critical products and services, and develops, administers and analyzes surveys for partners and local communities.

Laura Waters Hinson: As We Forgive

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:50:25 +0000

Filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson went to Rwanda with a chilling question: is it possible to forgive the person who killed your family? Hear the stories of reconciliation she found while making “As We Forgive,” which documents how confessed murderers and genocide survivors are partnering to rebuild Rwanda.

Jonathan Harris on web stories

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:30:12 +0000

Jonathan Harris is redefining the idea of what it means to tell a story. Take a ride through an arctic whale hunt and plunge headfirst into the feelings Harris finds running rampant in cyberspace as he describes what he calls “storytelling platforms.”

K. David Harrison: Revitalizing linguistic diversity

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:03:35 +0000

K. David Harrison discusses how language death leads to intellectual impoverishment in all fields of science and culture. Watch as he details efforts to sustain, value and revitalize linguistic diversity worldwide.

Ken Banks: Mobile-enabled change

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:12:45 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Ken Banks is the founder of kiwanja.net, which helps non-profits put mobiles to work through innovative offerings like FrontlineSMS – free software enabling coordinated, many-to-many, two-way text messaging. Ken’s solutions are being used worldwide to improve communications in a variety of critical situations.

John Priscu: Below the Antarctic ice

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:55:49 +0000

Join polar scientist John Priscu – and his autonomous robots – as he takes us miles below the Antarctic ice to search for living organisms that may have been cut off from the rest of the planet’s ecosystem for millions of years.

Rufus Cappadocia: Uncategorizeable cellist

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:51:03 +0000

Rapidly-rising, uncategorizeable cellist Rufus Cappadocia performs on the PopTech stage.

Carolyn Porco on the Cassini mission to Saturn

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:03:28 +0000

As leader of the Imaging Science Team on the Cassini mission to Saturn, Carolyn Porco brings to the Pop!Tech stage breathtaking images and stories of exploration and discovery that, by her own admission, make grown men cry.

Tshewang Dendup: Evolving Bhutan

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:04:32 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Tshewang Dendup of the Bhutan Broadcasting Service is training his compatriots in journalism, filmmaking, business, and other key skills to help them thrive as Bhutan undergoes its historic transition from absolute monarchy to democracy.

Stephen Badylak: Regenerative medicine

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:46:09 +0000

Last year regenerative medicine expert Dr. Badylak shocked the medical world when two of his patients re-grew severed fingertips in just six weeks. Learn how he and his colleagues are applying this breakthrough solution to help Iraqi war veterans re-grow tissue and body parts lost in battle.

Priti Radhakrishnan: Health access

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:58:29 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Priti Radhakrishnan is Co-Director of Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), a team of lawyers and scientists working to strengthen patent systems and encourage innovation in new medicines, while expanding broad access to the best and latest treatments.

Brian McCarthy: Container homes

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:16:02 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Brian McCarthy is Founder and CEO of PFNC, a manufacturer and provider of affordable housing. The company converts surplus U.S. shipping containers into residences for the 1.1 million laborers who work in maquiladoras in Mexico, providing improved safety and sanitation and enabling wealth creation.

John Thackara: The end of endless growth

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:00:59 +0000

Social critic John Thackara argues that the current human paradigm of endless growth is obviously unsustainable, so we should consider the brilliance of the Brazilian Jequitiba tree, which soaks up four tons of water a day. “I am a proper tree hugger, as well as a lichen hugger.”

Sound and science with Jad Abumrad

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:06:16 +0000

From crayfish hairs to monkey neurons, Radiolab host and producer Jad Abumrad shares examples of how sound has been used to make scientific strides. Along the way, he explains how audio can convey failure or express error.

Abby Falik: Global service

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:25:43 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Abby Falik is the founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year (GCY), which aims to institutionalize a global service “gap year” for young Americans between high school and college – fundamentally transforming how they understand and act on their responsibilities as global citizens.

Dan Ariely: Adaptive responses

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:50:17 +0000

Adaptation is the basic idea that we get used to stuff and interpret signals. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores how these types of signals relate to pain and social adaptation. How does our previous exposure to pain alter how we experience it now? How is it that we all appreciate the pinnacle of beauty in the same way, but we’re drawn to partners with a level of attractiveness similar to our own?

Bill Shore: Break the rules

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:17:32 +0000

Bill Shore is the founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit that is working to end childhood hunger in America. “Those of us who are passionate about social change and social innovation, we have got to find ways to break the rules. I believe it is a strategic necessity and a moral imperative.”

Ian Lipkin: Diagnostic tech

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:51:57 +0000

Pioneering epidemiologist Dr. Lipkin is developing world-changing methods to rapidly identify and decode mystery pathogens. Listen as he explains how an increased understanding of “zoonotic diseases,” coupled with advancements in diagnostic technology, is helping us to predict and prevent the next SARS or HIV/AIDS.

Gary Slutkin: From conflict to Ceasefire

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:29:40 +0000

After spending years in Africa fighting AIDS, TB and cholera with the W.H.O., Gary Slutkin returned to Chicago and had an epiphany: the violence plaguing his hometown exhibited all the signs of an infectious disease. Learn how he’s applied epidemiological principles to reduce shootings and violent crime in inner-city Chicago neighborhoods by as much as 75% through the CeaseFire approach.

Vanessa German: Raucous jazz

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:39:01 +0000

In a stirring performance, slam poet and visual artist Vanessa German imagines the things she could accomplish if her hands were two shooting stars or a raucous jazz quintet.

Matt Mason: Pirate radio

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:56:31 +0000

Journalist, author and former pirate radio DJ Matt Mason argues that if you can’t stop the pirates – and you can’t – you should figure out how to out-compete them (like Apple did). Mason is an ardent believer that where there’s piracy, there’s market failure – and a big opportunity for organizations smart enough to understand that “you should talk to marketing before you talk to legal.”

Sigworth and Thompson: Secure meds

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:43:53 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellows Taylor Thompson and Nathan Sigworth are co-founders of PharmaSecure, a for-profit startup with a breakthrough solution to the $50+ billion, global pharmaceutical counterfeiting racket – which kills millions each year.

Laurie Garrett: Our failing global health system

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:57:32 +0000

The only author to ever win a Peabody, Polk and Pulitzer, Garrett has a distinct and well-informed perspective on the failings of our global health system. Here she has some critical considerations for increasing the effectiveness of aid to Africa, narrowing the life expectancy gap between the developed and developing worlds, and preventing the spread of pandemics.

Ann Masten: Inside resilient children

Tue, 28 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Ann Masten is a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies resilience in young people exposed to poverty, homelessness, migration, disaster, war and other adversities. “The most powerful protective system for a human child is a loving, caring family.”

Chandler Burr: Astonishing smells

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:52:00 +0000

Chandler Burr was the New York Times’ first-ever fragrance critic. His knowledge of the history, culture, emotion, economics, science and global geography of scent may be unrivaled. Come along with Chandler as he leads the Camden Opera House on an interactive, hyper-articulate and hilarious olfactory journey.

Christian Nold: Bio mapping

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:01:29 +0000

Christian Nold thinks we should pay more attention to how our environment shapes our emotional and physiological states. His work with Bio Mapping—which measures people’s responses to their environment and connects those feelings to their physical location—suggests that a map of emotional landscapes represents a powerful tool for analyzing the relationship between place and broader social issues.

Marian Bantjes on the infinity of inspiration

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:26:57 +0000

The legendary Stefan Sagmeister calls Bantjes "one of the most innovative typographers working today,” but on the PopTech stage she eclipsed that lofty praise, marrying poignant personal stories with visually stunning design. Prepare to be wowed as Marian holds forth on the infinity of inspiration and the inherent wonder in cathedrals, neurons, love letters…and cake.

Kelly Dobson: Machine therapy

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:44:49 +0000

An eminent roboticist and Ph.D. at MIT’s Media Lab, Dobson is exploring “machine therapy” – a personal, societal and psychoanalytical study of machine design and its effects on peoples’ everyday lives. Watch as she exhibits Screambody, Blendie and Omo, three fascinating robots that respond to – and influence – their users in provocative ways.

Clay Shirky: Designing for generosity

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:17:42 +0000

Internet guru Clay Shirky presents the chaos of the Web in stunningly clear terms, documenting what a “spontaneously, self-assembling, online philanthropic venture” tells us about human motivation. He explains “designing for generosity,” and what we can learn about it from the Josh Groban Foundation, Napster and a top online mobile phone forum.

Cary Fowler's seeds

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:25:11 +0000

Agricultural impresario Cary Fowler is kind of a latter-day Superman: his mission is to protect life on Earth, and he even operates out of an arctic fortress. While Dr. Fowler can’t fly or leap tall buildings, his work has captured the world’s imagination, and he’s safeguarding mankind’s future with a practical solution: seeds.

Sandro Galea: Rebounding after trauma

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Sandro Galea is a doctor and epidemiologist who has researched the role of traumatic events in shaping population health; particularly the health of urban populations. “Ninety percent of people in this country will have a traumatic event in their lifetime.”

Benjamin Zander: A world of possibility

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:39:29 +0000

The only conductor to ever lead the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Zander is a prophet of human potential and an unrivaled champion of joie de vivre. Watch as he helps unlock the boundless potential of a 15 year old cellist and teaches the entire PopTech audience what it means to live in a world of possibility.

Steven Pinker: Thought structures

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:24:42 +0000

What can we glean about underlying thought structures from the way we ask someone to “pass the guacamole”? Preeminent psychologist and best-selling author Steven Pinker examines how the words we use, from swears to simple requests at the dinner table, reflect how we think.

Bill Shannon: Dancing with crutches

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:48:29 +0000

Bill Shannon dances — on four legs. Born with a bilateral hip deformity, this ingenious performance artist’s work will challenge your notions of disability.

Peter Kareiva is upbeat on the environment

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:28:50 +0000

Peter Kareiva is the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Kareiva is often noted for his emphasis on nature’s resiliency, rather than its impending doom. “Totally unnecessarily we get into a conversation where it is farmers versus conservation, where it is loggers versus conservation, where it is fishermen versus conservation.”

Sarah Otterstrom: Biodiversity conservation

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:12:23 +0000

Ecologist and leading biodiversity conservationist Dr. Sarah Otterstrom illustrates the power of collaboration to combat climate change. Through partnerships, employment generation and environmental education in Nicaragua, Otterstrom finds ways to rebuild native forest, benefiting wildlife and people alike.

Stefano Merlin: Renewable waste

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:06:45 +0000

Renewable bamboo, coconut waste and sawdust aren’t usually used as fuels for factories, but in the northeast Brazilian Atlantic rainforest, ecological expert Stefano Merlin is pushing local factories to do just that. Leading a major fuel-switching initiative that blends social and environmental responsibilities with emission reductions, Merlin hopes that his most recent work will create what he calls in this address “a long-term biomass supply for the future.”

Kelly Joe Phelps: Poignancy and passion

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:52:38 +0000

With roots in folk and country-blues, Kelly Joe Phelps serves up music the Washington Post says is brimming with “poignancy, passion and spirituality.” Live on the PopTech stage, the distinctive singer-songwriter coaxes satin-smooth melodies from his guitar, while his raw, honest voice delivers heartfelt lyrics.

Bob Freling: Solar-powered pumps

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:15:50 +0000

Robert Freling has set his sights on the ambitious goal of providing clean, sustainable solar energy to the world’s two billion people who currently go without. As the executive director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), he works toward his goal with projects that range from powering schools and health clinics to providing access to clean water through solar-powered pumps.

Peter Whybrow: When more is not enough

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:08:30 +0000

Leading neuropsychiatrist Peter Whybrow recently authored “American Mania: When More Is Not Enough,” a neurobiological look at the instinctual and social behaviors that balance a market economy. Pay attention as he explains how America’s reward-driven culture is pushing the physiological limits of our evolutionary inheritance – making us sick in body and mind.

Zainab Salbi on Women for Women

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:12:35 +0000

Zainab Salbi, co-founder and president of Women for Women International, gives a voice to what she calls the “backline” of war—the often unheard and ignored experiences of women and their efforts to survive the terrifying consequences of the frontline.

Caleb Chung on designing toys

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:39:32 +0000

Toy designer Caleb Chung—famous for creating 1998’s hot toy of the year, “Furby” — provides a playful peak into his wild creative process. He reveals that his recipe for success is to blend the uniquely human qualities of artistry and empathy with the science of technology.

Enric Sala: Marine ecology

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Watch pioneering marine ecologist and Scripps Institution professor Enric Sala build a time machine to the 16th century – exposing a pristine coral reef few human eyes have ever glimpsed. He also explains how 99.9% of the world’s coral reef research has been flawed and posits tourism as a way to save these endangered, natural wonders.

The Project Masiluleke story

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:01:03 +0000

A signature program of the PopTech Accelerator, Project Masiluleke, harnesses the power of mobile devices to help reverse South Africa’s crippling HIV/AIDS and TB crises. Partners from frog design, iTeach and the Praekelt Foundation discuss the program’s breakthrough approach, which endeavors to connect millions to testing and care.

Davy Rothbart - PopTech 2007

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:23:43 +0000

The creator of FOUND magazine digs up some of his best finds, ranging from unusual “To do” lists to surprising flyers and discarded notes.

Heather Fleming: Design for good

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:35:45 +0000

2008 PopTech Fellow Heather Fleming is the founder of Catapult Design, which helps foundations and non-profits apply design thinking to global development. Hear her discuss breakthrough design projects, including a low-cost wind turbine that can charge a cell phone or power LED lighting.

Chris Jordan: Running the numbers

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:36:08 +0000

Artist Chris Jordan brings the enormous scale of our mass consumption into high-resolution. He shares Running the Numbers, composite photographs of discarded cell phones, computers, aluminum cans and other modern detritus, urging us to consider the consequences of our consumer culture while insisting that each of us has the power to make a difference.

John Legend: Show me

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:30:35 +0000

Five-time Grammy award-winner John Legend will move you and motivate you. He weaves stories from his Show Me Campaign—a movement he launched to help eradicate extreme global poverty—in between each soulful song.

Rodrigo y Gabriela: Fingers to strings

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:56:13 +0000

The Mexican acoustic guitar duo sensation Rodrigo y Gabriela put fast fingers to strings for a performance that will put you on your feet and keep you moving. There’s no better way to say it: they rock!

Jessica Hagy: Indexed art

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:21:27 +0000

Equal parts artist, writer and joke teller, Jessica Hagy describes her work as “a little project that helps me make fun of some things and sense of others.” Watch how the creator of the wildly popular blog, Indexed, injects humanity, humor and a modern sensibility into her medium—the 3 × 5-inch index card.

Sheila Kennedy: Upcycled lighting

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:55:00 +0000

Most of us wouldn’t see anything remarkable about a cell phone battery, a dishwasher switch and the light from a crosswalk signal. But Sheila Kennedy reveals how the combination of these common items can create something groundbreaking: portable, durable, reliable lighting for the third world.

Carl Honoré - PopTech 2007

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:27:31 +0000

In this busy, hectic world, speed often trumps quality of life. Best-selling author and Slow Movement purveyor Carl Honoré urges us to slow down and alter our culture of speed and its negative effect on our happiness.

Dan Gilbert on a capricious culture

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:23:29 +0000

Why haven’t we rallied our collective power to solve global warning? Join best-selling author Dan Gilbert as he explores our capricious reaction to different threats—from tooth decay to anthrax to climate change.

Van Jones on starting a Green Revolution

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:03:57 +0000

Activist Van Jones is tackling two of our biggest problems—urban poverty and environmental peril—with a fresh, dynamic plan. His vision for providing America’s poor with “green jobs instead of jails” touts a Green Revolution that includes everyone.

Will Wright on Sims and Spore

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:07:13 +0000

The creative force behind The Sims series believes a complex way of understanding the world can be gained through very simple rules. Will Wright unveils his next game, Spore, where players are creators who build—and react to—ever-more complexity within their environments.

Zoë Keating: Electronic cello

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:25:47 +0000

Canadian-born cellist Zoë Keating layers the sounds of her cello with live electronic sampling, as if she were an entire string ensemble condensed into one woman. Watch and listen to her infuse the Camden Opera House with wave after wave of beautiful and diverse rhythms.

Jessica Flannery: Microfinance

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:05:34 +0000

The co-founder of Kiva.org, the first peer-to-peer microloan website, demonstrates how the Internet can facilitate meaningful, positive connections between lenders and entrepreneurs in the developing world and even help us all become microfinanciers.

Victoria Hale: Nonprofit pharmaceuticals

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:07:20 +0000

Simply put, Victoria Hale’s organization has saved thousands of lives. Join the founder of OneWorld Health—the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the US—as she shares her vision of bringing an end to what she calls the “diseases of poverty.”

Clifford Ross: Magnificent images

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:04:14 +0000

Artist, photographer and inventor Clifford Ross demonstrates some of the magnificent images from his invention, the R2. It’s the highest-resolution 360-degree high-definition camera array ever built. He’s using it to shoot his current project—the vast, undisturbed wetlands ecosystem of Brazil’s famed Pantanal.

Adrian Bowyer: Rapid prototyping

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:20:17 +0000

A machine that builds itself? Adrian Bowyer, leading researcher at the University of Bath, shows us that this seemingly fantastic idea is not far from becoming reality. The self-replicating rapid prototyper, or “RepRap,” could have dramatic effects on people in developing countries.

Malcolm Gladwell: Psychology of business

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:11:40 +0000

Malcolm Gladwell takes the lessons of psychology and sociology and applies them to business in ways we’ve never thought of before. Here, he deep-dives into the world of office chair invention and soft drink taste tests to answer the question, “Can we believe what people tell us?”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the wisdom of “I don’t know.”

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:23:13 +0000

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is not afraid to say “I don’t know.” In fact, he’s proud of his ignorance. A mathematician, philosopher and hedge-fund manager all in one iconoclastic package, Taleb demonstrates the wisdom in admitting the limitations of our knowledge.

Louann Brizendine: The female brain

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:28:06 +0000

Dr. Louann Brizendine, founder of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic and author of the bestselling book, The Female Brain, tells us why the brain is not a unisex organ. She offers compelling insight into how these differences explain distinct emotional and behavioral patterns between genders.

Richard Alley: Climate change

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:37:01 +0000

Get inspired by Richard Alley’s optimistic view on global warming. This world-renowned paleoclimatologist does have some bad news about climate change, although he’ll convince you that we not only have the tools to solve the problem, but we can make money doing it too.

Bunker Roy: Barefoot College

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:46:00 +0000

Profound respect for collective wisdom and traditional skills permeate Bunker Roy’s tale of how his Barefoot College empowers local people to improve their communities by demystifying technology and recognizing the dignity of labor.

Ben Saunders: Exploring the Arctic

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:02:01 +0000

Follow explorer Ben Saunders’ solo, unsupported journey across the frozen Arctic Ocean and grasp the true limits of human potential. At 26, he’s the youngest person to ski to the North Pole and only the fourth in history to accomplish the feat. He’s also witness to climate change at work.

Daniel Pink: A whole new mind

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:36:45 +0000

Provocateur Daniel Pink has built a career on his keen insights into business, technology and the economy. Engaging, enlightening and funny, the best-selling author heralds a new job market—one that devalues the logical and rule-based in favor of the artistic, empathic and inventive.

Richard Dawkins: Arrogance of faith

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:09:01 +0000

Richard Dawkins believes science’s ability to admit ignorance is one of its greatest strengths. On the flip side, he proposes that faith remains arrogant and all too certain of its validity without any rational set of proofs.

Chris Anderson: The Long Tail

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:30:12 +0000

What happens when material things become free? Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson examines new models of wealth distribution and claims we’re moving from economies of scarcity to an age of abundance.

Zinhle Thabethe: Stories of survival

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:04:38 +0000

Zinhle Thabethe has faced the prospect of her own death. Her personal stories about survival and family loss reflect a nation’s epidemic in a sobering and inspirational wake-up call.

Kwame Anthony Appiah: Deconstruction of a monolith

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:31:01 +0000

Expert on race, ethics and philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah takes to task the myths of Western culture and civilization, explaining the “Golden Nugget” theory and its five major errors. Get ready for his deconstruction of a monolith.

Eloma Simpson Barnes channels Martin Luther King

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:23:30 +0000

With a voice that could move a mountain, orator Eloma Simpson Barnes practically channels Martin Luther King, Jr., as she performs one of his speeches. She emulates King’s cadence, intonation and enunciation in this inspirational reminder to stand up for what you believe in.

Brian Fagan: Adapt or die

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:26:18 +0000

If you think this is the first time humans have grappled with climate change, you weren’t paying attention in archeology class. Join world-famous archeologist Brian Fagan as he travels back in time to teach us a lesson that ancient civilizations learned the hard way: adapt or die.

Juan Enriquez on a history of borders

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:59:12 +0000

The stars and stripes forever? Futurist and author Juan Enriquez isn’t sure of that. He cites a long history of borders, countries and flags that have changed, and warns the United States isn’t immune.

Education Fellows: PopTech 2006

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:19:21 +0000

Five educators, demonstrating leadership in technology and education, were awarded PopTech Fellowships presented by Sun Microsystems and Curriki, a new open-source-focused educational foundation. Check out their discussion about the future of technology and education.

Ivan Marovic: Gaming a virtual revolution

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:27:22 +0000

You say you want a revolution? Ivan Marovic’s got one for you—a nonviolent one, that is. This Serbian activist is connecting the virtual world to the real world with a video game to promote nonviolent strategies. It’s an interactive approach that teaches in a way books and films can’t.

Thomas Barnett: National security

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:30:20 +0000

Strategist and expert on national security affairs Tom Barnett takes command and focuses in on the role of the United States in a geopolitical world of “core” and “gap” states. As you were, soldier.

Alex Steffen: Building a sustainable planet

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:57:59 +0000

As co-founder and editor of WorldChanging.com, Alex Steffen sees the biggest barriers to building a sustainable planet as political, not technological. Here, he offers an actionable task list of challenges, ideas, products and services to help dematerialize the world.

Craig Venter on sequencing the human genome

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:07:58 +0000

Dr. Craig Venter’s contributions to human genome research have made him one of the 21st century’s leading biologists. He introduces potential opportunities for using recombinant DNA and synthesized cells to help solve the world’s energy problems.

Stewart Brand on environmentalism

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:26:35 +0000

Author, futurist, activist and visionary, the inimitable Stewart Brand puts a lens to the next 30 years of the green movement. He sees increasing urbanization, new cities full of young people, the expansion of environmentalism and more.

Losang Rabgey: Technology in Tibet

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:29:30 +0000

Anthropologist and Tibetan studies expert Losang Rabgey shows how technology is being used to open up Tibet to the world, as well as connect lives across the region, in ways true to their various experiences.

Yungchen Lhamo: A voice from Tibet

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:45:57 +0000

For many, vocalist Yungchen Lhamo has become the voice of Tibet. Yungchen’s powerful a cappella vocals fill the Camden Opera House as she weaves rich narrative with spirit to share her life’s journey.

African Fellows: Roundtable to the future

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:15:40 +0000

Get a glimpse into the future of Africa from this astounding roundtable of African leaders. Internet entrepreneurs, peace activists, government officials, technology experts—even a Nobel Peace Prize nominee—share their visions for taking the lessons of PopTech home.

Neema Mgana: Architecture for Humanity

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:53:23 +0000

Neema Mgana is a social entrepreneur, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and PopTech Fellow. She gives us an insider’s view into work she started last year with Architecture for Humanity in a PopTech match-up. Together, they’re creating a community-based health center in the rural Singida region of Tanzania.

Bob Freling: Solar power

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:00:44 +0000

Hear how executive director of SELF, Robert Freling, is lighting up the developing world and empowering self-sufficiency by delivering solar power to more than 2 billion people on the planet living without electricity.

Bruce Sterling: Web semantics

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:55:20 +0000

Author, journalist and contributing editor at Wired magazine Bruce Sterling understands why people get confused about new technology concepts. In what he sees as a culture war of web semantics, Bruce gets the audience’s attention with a unique call for a new vocabulary to better describe experiences with technology.

Theo Jansen: Kinetic skeleton sculptures

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:49:37 +0000

Blending the line between art and engineering, this Dutch visual artist creates “life” in the form of “animals” that walk the beach in the Netherlands, and, to the delight of PopTechers, the stage and streets of Camden, Maine

Blaine Brownell: Sustainable building

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:12:52 +0000

Blaine Brownell is an architect obsessed with sustainable building materials. He introduces a wonderful world of products made from repurposed materials and provides a glimpse of what a post-fossil fuel world might look like.

Homaro Cantu: Visionary cuisine

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:15:05 +0000

Part mad scientist, part artist, chef Homaro Cantu pushes the traditional limits of known taste, texture and technique in a stunning futuristic fashion. With lab partner Ben Roche, Homaro slices and dices technology to reinvent the way people eat.

Lester Brown: A world in balance

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:09:21 +0000

Lester Brown, preeminent environmentalist and head of the Earth Policy Institute, warns that society is too dependent on fossil fuels, and consumption habits must change to maintain a healthy social, economic and environmental balance in the world.

Neil Gershenfeld: MIT’s Fab Lab

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:08:13 +0000

Twenty minutes may not really be enough time to fully understand the implications of the so-called Fab Lab, invented by the director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms. But it’s a mind-blowing place to start!

Brian Eno on a roadmap for human culture

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:18:59 +0000

Musician, producer and artist Brian Eno shows how simple things can give rise to complex things—in art and life. See how he uses Darwin’s ecological model of the world as a roadmap for human culture now and in the future.

Marcia McNutt: Ocean potential

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:07:20 +0000

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute director Marcia McNutt takes us on an amazing, otherworldly tour of the deep seas, the incomprehensible life still undiscovered there, and the full power and potential of our oceans.

Kevin Kelly: Collective intelligence of technology

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:19:43 +0000

Wired editor-at-large Kevin Kelly explores the nature of technology through technology’s eyes. And, watch out!—Kevin thinks we’ll soon be dwarfed by the collective intelligence of all the technology we’re creating.

Taylor Stuckert and Mark Rembert: Green ideas

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:19:58 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellows Taylor Stuckert and Mark Rembert co-founded Energize Clinton County after the departure of a major employer threatened the Wilmington, Ohio region. The grassroots movement transformed the crisis into an opportunity for the region to become the country’s first Green Enterprise Zone.

Thomas Friedman: Energy in crisis

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:58:42 +0000

You may know Tom Friedman as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author, but a fashionista?! Well, sort of. Tom purports that green is the new red, white and blue, and that our current energy crisis is like no other.

Jason Moran: Experimental jazz

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:15:55 +0000

Many consider Jason Moran, 32, the foremost jazz pianist of his generation, with seven albums under the Blue Note label since 1999. Here’s a sample of how he experiments with new methods and ideas to cook up his own flavor of jazz.

James O'Brien: Hands-on education

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:12:46 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow James O’Brien assembled a staff of like-minded educators to create BCAM – Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School. The fledgling educational-innovation tank combines performance-based academics and professional training in media and arts to prepare teenagers for success in the 21st century.

Jonathan Coulton: Code monkey balladeer

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:52:37 +0000

Code Monkey get up. Code Monkey go to job. Code Monkey have boring meeting. With boring manager Rob. Want more from singer/songwriter and PopTech balladeer Jonathan Coulton? Download podcast, Monkey.

Marianne Weems: Extraordinary theater tech

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:40:43 +0000

As artistic director of the New York-based performance and media ensemble The Builders Association, Marianne Weems shows us how she puts technology at center stage to extend the boundaries of contemporary theater.

Peter Diamandis: Awarding big ideas

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:39:41 +0000

Founder and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, Peter Diamandis believes that competition can drive radical innovation in the sciences. He first did so through a $10 million purse that developed private spaceflight. From overhauling the automobile industry to personalized medicine, Diamandis argues, “The right prize can change the world.”

Casey Dunn: Evolving diversity

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:31:22 +0000

Casey Dunn"Casey Dunn is rethinking where individuality begins. He is fascinated by siphonophores, deep sea superorganinisms comprised of thousands of organisms that are genetically identical but function in different ways. How have evolutionary pressures acted on the siphonophore and the individual organisms within it?

Martin Marty on religion

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:11:21 +0000

A foremost interpreter of religion and culture says we’re missing a rest-of-world perspective about faith. Martin Marty invites a broader definition of religion as well as a closer look at its meaning for the majority of the world.

Sinikithemba Choir: Give us hope

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:06:42 +0000

Prepare to be moved … “Sinikithemba” is Zulu for “give us hope” or “we give hope.” This group of HIV-positive Zulu men and women who provide support to persons with HIV/AIDS at McCord Hospital in Durban shake down the house.

Kent Nichols: Ask a ninja

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:27:44 +0000

What does the future of entertainment look like? Ask a ninja! Entertainer, tech geek and co-creator of AskaNinja.com, Kent Nichols, delivers his rules for phenomenal success in the Participation Economy.

Derek Lomas: Open source games

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:05:00 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Derek Lomas is director of the Playpower Foundation, a global network of developers, designers, academics, NGOs and businesses. Playpower leverages the availability of ultra-low-cost computers to create and distribute affordable, effective, and fun learning games for under-privileged children worldwide.

Yasser Ansari: Networked organisms

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:31:28 +0000

Yasser Ansari, self-described bio geek-turned-telecom nerd, wants to help boost eco-literacy. To do so, he has created Noah, an online platform and mobile application that allows “curious naturalists” to contribute to ongoing scientific research through data collection and documentation efforts.

Christen Lien: Viola interpretations

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:41:03 +0000

Violist Christen Lien combines her classical training with experimental acoustic and electronic sounds and a looping machine. What results is mesmerizing, layers of music that one fan called “a bridge to the divine.” Entitled “Unabi,” or Zulu for “flash of light,” this song appears on Lien’s debut album Vol I: Battle Cry.

A comedic trip with Reggie Watts

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:01:45 +0000

Hop on board. Writer, composer, musician and comedian extraordinaire Reggie Watts leads a musical trip that’ll get (and keep) you movin.’

Hayat Sindi: Accessible health

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:17:40 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Hayat Sindi co-founded Diagnostics For All to offer point-of-care diagnostic tools micro-fabricated in paper. These technologies allow healthcare workers to monitor the treatment of the 60% of people living beyond the reach of medical infrastructures. Sindi is also an advocate for science education and careers for women in the Middle East.

Sullivan and Kuiken: The world’s first non-fictional bionic man

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:56:10 +0000

Don’t miss the “it” moment from Pop!Tech 2005, as the world’s first non-fictional bionic man maneuvers his prosthetic arm using only his mind. Jesse Sullivan and his doctor, Todd Kuiken, move every heart in the room with indomitable spirit and astonishing bionics.

Lorrie Vogel: Pioneering designs

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:15:25 +0000

As General Manager for Nike’s “Considered” team, Lorrie Vogel is conducting pioneering research in sustainable product design. Vogel says that green design requires fundamentally altering Nike business practices – which would dramatically cut waste, boost the use of eco-conscious materials, and transform social attitudes around consumption.

Matthew Berg: Mobiles for health

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:18:13 +0000

Matt Berg helped create and pilot ChildCount+, a mobile-phone-based health platform that empowers communities in Africa to improve child and maternal health. Matt also trains local programmers at the Rural Technology Lab, with a goal to advance the health of millions while decentralizing the software development process.

Tony Hey: Citizen science

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:14:59 +0000

As Corporate Vice President of External Research for Microsoft, Tony Hey is responsible for public-private partnerships with scientific and engineering communities, government agencies, and industry partners worldwide. At PopTech 2009, Hey discussed the critical role of citizen scientists in understanding complex data-intensive problems like climate change and galaxy formation.

Colin Rich's near space images

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:10:15 +0000

Colin Rich captures fantastic images of the world from 24 miles in space. He creates his amazing videos and still photographs with simple system that includes high-altitude weather balloons, hacked video cameras and a GPS system to track the cameras wherever they land. Read and watch more on the PopTech blog.

Kel Sheppey: Fighting HIV/AIDS

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:52:50 +0000

To combat the spread of AIDS, Kel Sheppey founded Wild4Life, an AIDS awareness and testing organization that collaborates with wildlife conservation groups, reaching remote communities and educating them about the importance of AIDS testing and education. The goal: to completely stop the spread of AIDS by leveraging influence within communities.

Nils Gilman: Deviant globalization

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:10:56 +0000

Deviant globalization is the global flow of “repugnant” goods and services like drugs, human trafficking and illegal wildlife. Such globalization leverages the mainstream infrastructure of the formal economy along with any downsizing in the role of the state. Nils Gilman asks what this means for countries in flux like Greece and Libya.

Bhagwan Chowdhry's Financial Access at Birth

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:30:53 +0000

Bhagwan Chowdhry started Financial Access at Birth (FAB), which aims to give every child born in the world an initial deposit of $100 in an online bank account so the next generation would have access to financial services in a few decades.

Aiden and Van Vuuren: Dirt power

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:49:18 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellows Aviva Presser Aiden and Hugo Van Vuuren co-founded Lebônê Solutions in 2007 to help meet the need for off-grid energy and lighting in the developing world. Fuel cells sold by local entrepreneurs generate electricity from soil microbes to power LED lights, cell phones, and other devices.

Christen Lien: Viola expressions

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:38:34 +0000

Violist Christen Lien combines her classical training with experimental acoustic and electronic sounds and a looping machine. What results is mesmerizing, layers of music that one fan called “a bridge to the divine.” This song, “Unconditional,” appears on Lien’s debut album Vol I: Battle Cry.

Milenko Matanovic: Art as community builder

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:49:31 +0000

Milenko Matanovic is a community builder and visual artist. He describes his journey from pure artist to facilitator, working with the betterment of the community in mind. Through his organization, The Pomegranate Center, Matanovic guides the conception and construction of open-air gathering places, involving the community in all phases of the project.

Simon Hauger and Azeem Hill on building bad-ass hybrids

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:46:07 +0000

The West Philly Hybrid XTeam came this close (thumb and forefinger ever so narrowly spaced) to winning the Progressive Automotive XPRIZE’s $10 million prize this year. Simon Hauger, who came to teaching from a career in engineering, started the team as an afterschool project for students who wanted a hands-on science experience. Hauger and team co-captain Azeem Hill, a senior at West Philly, share their XTeam story.

Ben Dubin-Thaler: Science by bus

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:37:37 +0000

Ben Dubin-Thaler, a biologist and founder of Cell Motion Laboratories Inc., drives the BioBus, a repurposed transit bus outfitted with a high-tech science lab that serves as a mobile laboratory to get kids interested in science.

H. Sebastian Seung: Connectomics

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:42:54 +0000

Computational neuroscientist H. Sebastian Seung conducts pioneering research on the wiring of the brain, and what it reveals about genetics, personality, and memory. Seung suggests that complex maps of neural connective structures, or connectomes, will reveal that our experiences literally shape our brains.

Laura Kurgan: Mapping justice

Wed, 19 May 2010 18:01:38 +0000

At the PopTech Chicago 2010 Salon event, Laura Kurgan, director of the Spatial Information Design Lab, presents data illustrating the relationship between incarceration rates, financial expenditures, and neighborhoods— block by block. This new perspective provides shocking insight into how to re-envision community investment.

Jonathan Greenblatt: New models for social progress

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:48:40 +0000

Jonathan Greenblatt, the White House’s new head of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, describes the rise of an “impact economy” – a new approach to social problem solving that involves impact investing and new hybrids of business and philanthropy to scale social progress.

Deb Levine: 21st century sex ed

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:02:18 +0000

2009 PopTech Fellow Deb Levine founded YTH – youth+tech+health (formerly ISIS) – in 2001 to advance youth health and wellness through technology. Using the web, mobile phones and other media, YTH gives people private and convenient access to information on critical health issues like HIV prevention and unplanned pregnancies.

Sean Gourley: Tracking innovation

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:08:16 +0000

Sean Gourley is a mathematician who has spent the last seven years using math to understand war and insurgency. He is now applying that understanding to develop ways to map technology companies – in search of the “technology genome.”

Tony Orrico: Choreography’s shape on paper

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:50:42 +0000

Tony Orrico, visual artist, performer, and choreographer, uses his own body to inscribe geometries on paper. Through physically exhausting performances involving highly choreographed motions, Orrico explores line and shape with his actual body, creating works of visual art that record his own motion.

The Egyptian revolution on film

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:39:54 +0000

Shima’a Helmy joins filmmakers and friends Micah Garen and Marie-Hélène Carleton onstage at PopTech to talk about their collaboration on an upcoming documentary film, If. The film explores what it’s like being a young revolutionary through the eyes of four different Egyptian women, including Helmy.

Bernard Lietaer: Money diversity

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:04:35 +0000

Bernard Lietaer argues that the monoculture of money is what creates economic instability, leading to liquidity crises. He calls for a greater diversity of alternative currencies, citing innovative and enormously successful initiatives like the Lithuanian Doraland Economy, the Torekes in Belgium and Switzerland’s famous alternative currency, the WIR.

Nina Dudnik: Seeding Labs

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 20:23:50 +0000

2010 Social Innovation Fellow Nina Dudnik’s organization, Seeding Labs, takes discarded lab equipment from the United States to needy labs in other countries. As part of its commitment, Seeding Labs also connects scientists from the U.S. with their counterparts in Africa and South America.

Lloyd and Zimbalist: Memory mapping the news

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:11:25 +0000

Alexis Lloyd and Michael Zimbalist, both from the New York Times R&D Lab, describe a new app for memory mapping the news, which they created for PopTech’s iPad app. Unlike the old model of top-down publishing, it allows consumers to combine news with their own personal memories. Users can see timelines in real and perceived time and view stories from the archives within the context of their own lives.

Desney Tan and Scott Saponas: Our bodies as the interface

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:45:41 +0000

Scott Saponas and Desney Tan both work at Microsoft Research where their latest project, called Skinput, focuses on allowing richer, more natural ways of interacting with our ubiquitous technology devices. They envision a day when you can change your music, learn a language, and even answer email using bio-acoustics on the touch-sensitive surfaces of our bodies.

Tresset and Leymarie: Aikon II: Personal robotics

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:56:45 +0000

Patrick Tresset and Frederic Fol Leymarie direct the Aikon-II project, which uses computational modeling and robotics to replicate the sketching performed by a human hand.

Unity Dow: Rethinking Africa

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:34:23 +0000

Unity Dow, a lawyer, high court justice in Botswana and novelist, describes seismic generational shifts between pre- and post-independence Africans. She asks how the identity shifts of the next generation will change the dynamics of the world stage and what that means for Americans, many of whom are working with outdated paradigms in a world rebalancing.

Jan Chipchase: Design anthropology

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:29:54 +0000

Jan Chipchase, head of research for frog Design, talks about the process behind his company’s acclaimed work. Chipchase and his team spend weeks on the ground, living with participants and observing the activities and rules of their daily lives. The result is a process of drilling down to the essence of an experience before even beginning to design it.

Erik Hersman: Africa on the rise

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:06:40 +0000

Erik Hersman asks us to shed outdated notions of Africa as a unified place plagued by starvation and war. Between mobile phone innovations like M-PESA, social networking like MXit and entrepreneurial spaces like Maker Faire Africa, Hersman sees innovation and entrepreneurship exploding within some of Africa’s—and the world’s—fastest growing economies.

Hayat Sindi launches i2

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:18:16 +0000

A leader in both science and social innovation, Dr. Hayat Sindi launched i2, the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity at PopTech 2011. Dr. Sindi created the institute to bridge the gap between education and opportunity in the Middle East.

Robert Neuwirth: Free markets vs. flea markets

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:23:34 +0000

Robert Neuwirth tells us about life in the informal economy, what French culture classifies as System D. 1.8 billion people on the planet subsist through economic transactions that happen outside legal spheres and, by 2020, two thirds of our planet will be doing business in this domain. The future is the free market vs. the flea market.

Dean Karlan: Poverty measures

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:43:07 +0000

Dean Karlan is President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems, and works to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. He is a Professor of Economics at Yale University. “There are some problems that we can solve. But we have to be pragmatic about it and figure out what is actually working and what is not.”

Alan Rabinowitz: Saving big cats

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:24:41 +0000

Alan Rabinowitz overcame a debilitating stutter to lend his voice on behalf of big cats. After creating the world’s first jaguar sanctuary and world’s largest tiger reserve, the wildlife biologist now calls for new models of conservation that rely on wildlife corridors to allow humans and animals to coexist more peacefully.

Chris Jordan: Polluting plastics

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:31:52 +0000

Photographer Chris Jordan specializes in large-scale works that depict the magnitude of our consumerism and its impact on our environment. In one of the most emotional presentations at PopTech 2009, Jordan shares heart-wrenching images of birds killed by ingesting plastics that increasingly pollute our oceans.

Andri Magnason: Iceland, human experiment

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:13:35 +0000

From the Icelandic food store chain, Bonus, to the midnight sun, everyday Iceland inspires activist poet Andri Magnason. His poetry and children’s books reflect his deep connection to his homeland as does the way he’s schooled himself—and the public—on preserving Iceland’s beauty and natural resources.