PopTech HD Videos: 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.

Rodney Mullen: Getting back up

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Skating legend Rodney Mullen describes how his sport can be physically, psychologically and creatively demanding, and why it is a metaphor for striving in life. “What we do as skateboarders is we fall. We get back up and we fall.”

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.

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”.

Shorts: Heather Knight's Rube Goldberg infatuation

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:45:39 +0000

An element of chance and an air of tension draw Heather Knight and her colleagues at Syyn Labs to construct Rube Goldberg contraptions. PopTech followed Knight to get her take on the Rube Goldberg that they created to kick off PopTech 2010. And with bated breath, we watched the apparatus come to life – with a little help from some friends.

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.”

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.”

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.

Shorts: Zeb and Haniya in the park

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:39:54 +0000

Zeb and Haniya, a singer-songwriter duo from Lahore, Pakistan and PopTech 2011 performers perform in the Camden Village Green.

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.

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.

PopTech Iceland: Toward Resilience

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:28:07 +0000

In June 2012 PopTech will convene a gathering of researchers, practitioners and thought leaders—working in fields such as international development, global business, climate adaptation, social psychology, systems ecology, emerging technology, disaster relief, community activism—for a dialogue.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Colin Rich: PopStar

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:31:46 +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. The images he creates are otherworldly. Read and watch more on the PopTech blog.

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)

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

Zoë Keating: Radical cello

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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

PopTech 2009: Friday Highlights

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:54:28 +0000

Dennis Littky on why kids drop out of school, Jay Rogers on building family cars, Rinku Sen on the continuing racial divide, Zoe Keating’s electronic layering of cello, Zach Lieberman on helping a paralyzed man make art, Hayat Sindi with a diagnostic lab on her fingertip, Robert Guest on America’s greatest strength, and Josh Nesbit on cell phones.

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.

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.

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?

Mukara Meredith

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:05:51 +0000

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.

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.

Nancy Duarte: Presentations that transform audiences

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:07:59 +0000

When speaking in front of an audience, even if you have something amazing to say, it’s crucial to have a well developed presentation. That’s where Nancy Duarte comes in. Presentation designer, PopTech Faculty Advisory and CEO of Duarte Design, Duarte is a storyteller with an eye for articulating a message and keeping an audience rapt.

PopTech 2009: Thursday Highlights

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:40:45 +0000

Erica Williams’s passionate generational call, musician Zee Avi’s bright lyrics, artist Chris Jordan’s stunning albatross photos, Mayor John Fetterman on his town isn’t, and kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin on the movement of light.

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.

PopTech 2009: Saturday Highlights

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:00:36 +0000

Michael Pollan on voting with your fork, Nick Bilton on news, Neri Oxman on an eggshell membrane, Marije Vogelzang on designing playful eating, Naif Al-Mutawa on comics, James Fowler on connections, Dean Ornish on changing your genes, and Zoë Keating, Ruby Jane Smith, Mark O’Connor musically closing the day.

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

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.

Quick takes: Amishi Jha

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:52:19 +0000

Quick takes: Ben Dubin-Thaler

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:16:34 +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.

Drawings: Peter Durand

Ben Dubin-Thaler: Science by bus

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

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.

Quick takes: Gidon Eshel

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:38:25 +0000

Quick takes: Casey Dunn

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:03:39 +0000

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?
Drawings: Peter Durand

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.

Quick takes: Beth Shapiro

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:42:58 +0000

Quick takes: Sinan Aral

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:15:20 +0000

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.

Quick takes: Justin Gallivan

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:08:53 +0000

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.

Shorts: Dava Newman's streamlined flight suit

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:28:24 +0000

MIT aeronautics professor and engineer Dava Newman had a dream: that of a slimmed down astronaut. See the streamlined, mobility-enhancing “Bio-Suit” she created for protecting astronauts from atmospheres and healthcare workers from germs.

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.

Quick takes: Sarah Fortune

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:46:34 +0000

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.

Quick takes: Jesse Bloom

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:57:51 +0000

Jesse Bloom has strong interests in evolution, infectious diseases and genetic engineering. By investigating protein evolution as a complex system, his research has implications for understanding viral evolution and the spread of disease.

Drawings: Peter Durand

Shorts: Tony Orrico performs at PopTech

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:44:43 +0000

Artist and choreographer Tony Orrico impressed us with a performance of his work at PopTech’s closing night party this year. In this video, he creates a smaller scale version of his durational Penwald Drawings, in which he uses his body to inscribe geometric shapes on paper, recording his motion meticulously and with grace.

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.

Shorts: Food as revolution

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:58:33 +0000

What better way to welcome PopTech attendees to Maine than by inviting them to participate in a cooking class run by Salt Water Farm’s chef/owner Annemarie Ahearn and farm director Ladleah Dunn?

Quick takes: Amro Hamdoun

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:30:39 +0000

Drawings: Peter Durand

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.

Quick takes: Sean Gourley

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:59:01 +0000

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.

Quick takes: Aydogan Ozcan

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:57:55 +0000

Quick takes: Kim Cobb

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:09:47 +0000

Quick takes: Tanzeem Choudhury

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:50:57 +0000

Tanzeem Choudhury envisions building computer systems that are aware of human activities, relationships and social networks. Her research facilitates the creation of tools that support effective human-to-human communication and the development of assistive technology that can improve people’s quality of life, especially in the domain of healthcare.
Drawings: Peter Durand

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.

Quick takes: Hayat Sindi

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:29:19 +0000

2010 Science 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. Drawings: Peter Durand

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.