Lada Adamic
Research Scientist, HP Labs

Bio: Lada Adamic researches the flow of information in networks. Her particular interest is in how small-scale, local interactions can have global effects. This has led her to study the World Wide Web, email, peer-to-peer systems and bioinformatics. She has published on information flow, network dynamics, and social networks.

She has a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2001, and was previously a researcher at the Internet Ecologies group at Xerox PARC. (More) [back]

Clark Aldrich
Co-Founder, SimuLearn; Lead Designer, Virtual Learner;
Author, Simulations and the Future of Learning, 2003

Bio: Clark Aldrich recently lead the international team that created SimuLearn's Virtual Leader, the first ever learning experience to follow the development cycle of a modern computer game. Virtual Leader has been featured on CNNfn, on CNet, in The New York Times, and in U.S. News and World Report, and it has been sold to some of the largest enterprises in the United States.
The simulation is currently being translated into other languages. SimuLearn became an Eduventures 100 company in 2003.

Aldrich speaks, writes, and does consulting work on e-learning issues. He authors the popular monthly "Industry Watch" column for Training magazine, and Jossey-Bass published his book Simulations and the Future of Learning, which outlines a new philosophy of immersive e-learning, in September 2003. Aldrich also co-developed, chairs, and keynotes the E-learning Supplier Summit, which is affiliated with the annual Online Learning Conference.

In February 2002, Aldrich was listed as one of the 20 people to watch in the Lifelong Learning Market Report. In 2001, the American Society of Training and Development identified him as one of nine members of Training’s New Guard. In 2000, he was chosen as one of three e-learning "gurus" by Fortune magazine and was named one of Training magazine's 16 visionaries of the industry.

Aldrich previously worked for Gartner Group, where he was the research director responsible for creating and building the company’s e-learning practice. In this position he developed strategies with Global 1000 organizations, vendors, and venture capitalists and published more than 40 research notes. Prior to joining Gartner, Aldrich worked for almost 8 years at Xerox, where his responsibilities included special projects for the executive office. Aldrich earned a bachelor's degree in artificial intelligence and cognitive science from Brown University. [back]

Shai Agassi
Executive Board Member, SAP

Bio: Shai Agassi is a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG. He is responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position he oversees the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver, SAP xApps, packaged composite applications mySAP SRM, and Business One. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-leads the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

Software entrepreneur Shai Agassi founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001.

In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi founded several other companies, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market, and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

Agassi graduated with honors from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where he received a bachelor's degree in computer science. [back]

Bailenson’s main area of interest is the phenomenon of digital human representation, especially in the context of immersive virtual reality. He explores the manner in which people are able to represent themselves when the physical constraints of body and veridically-rendered behaviors are removed. Furthermore, he designs and studies collaborative virtual reality systems that allow physically remote individuals to meet in virtual space, and explores the manner in which these systems change the nature of verbal and nonverbal interaction.

His work has been published in several academic journals, including Cognitive Psychology, Discourse Processes, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, and his research is funded by the National Science Foundation. [back]

Nova Barlow
Online Community Developer, Themis Group

Bio: Ms. Barlow brings experience from the top ranks of the former Ultima Online interest program, where she designed and implemented quests and events for a populace of several thousand players, covering both long and short term entertainment needs during her tenure. Under her direction at Themis, she has worked with players and fellow staff members to bring a unique experience and approach to deployment of official fiction for both Jumpgate and The Saga of Ryzom. Lead author for both Themis Reports 2004 and 2005 (upcoming), she wears many hats at Themis as researcher, editor, story writer, and speaker.

As Online Community Developer at the Themis Group, a research and development firm for the simulation industry, she brings her long running track record of community building in various MOOs and MUDs throughout the years, being responsible for creation and programming of many interesting interactive areas. [back]

Gordon has long evangelized scalable systems starting with his interest in multiprocessors (mP) beginning in 1965 with the design of Digital's PDP-6, PDP-10's antecedent, one of the first mPs and the first timesharing computer.  He continues this interest with various talks about trends in future supercomputing (see Papers …presentations, etc.) and especially clustered systems formed from cost-effective “personal computers”.  As Digital's VP of R&D he was responsible for the VAX Computing Environment. In 1987, he led the cross-agency group as head of NSF's Computing Directorate that made "the plan" for the National Research and Education Network (NREN) aka the Internet.  His Supercomputing and the CyberInfrastructure page lists articles, memos, talks, and testimony regarding the various aspects of computing including funding, goals, and problems in reaching to the Teraflops in 1995 and Petaflops in 2010.

Beginning in 1995, Gordon had started focused on the use of computers and the necessity of telepresence: being there without really being there, then. In 1999 this project was extended to include multimedia in the home (visit Papers… presentations, etc.). Presently, he is putting all of his atom- and electron-based bits in his local Cyberspace, including everything he has accumulated, written, photographed, presented, and owns (e.g. CDs). This project is called by MyLifeBits, a successor to the Cyber All project. [back]

He's a Rice graduate (1977) and holds an M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern. Since 1981, he's been a resident of Atlanta, Georgia. [back]

Cynthia Breazeale
IT Innovation Strategic Program Manager, Intel

Bio: For the past twelve years, Cynthia has held senior research positions within Intel’s Information Technology (IT) organization. Her work has centered on the spectrum of data, information and knowledge management. Cynthia has been responsible for the creation of Intel’s business-critical Enterprise Data Warehouse environment, early path-finding and executive staff education on the principles Knowledge Management, creation of Intel IT’s high-impact externally facing web environment - www.intel.com/it, development of the IT/eBusiness Intellectual Property Program, early structuring of the content development capability for the IAA- (Intel Achievement Award; Intel’s highest level internal award) winning ‘IT@Intel’ program and the conception and launch of Intel´s Innovation Engine.

Cynthia currently serves as the manager of Intel’s newest IT Innovation Centre in Folsom, CA. Cynthia is involved in innovation-related research at a number of universities in the United States, the U.K. and Ireland. Prior to Intel, Cynthia was a computer scientist on staff at U.C. Berkeley. She has also performed as an HRIS consultant to corporate, governmental and educational organizations. Cynthia served on the Board of Directors for a nationally recognized non-profit serving Sacramento County and functioned as the center’s Operational Director for three years. [back]

David Brin
Physicist, Science Fiction and Nonfiction Writer;
Author, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?, 1999

Bio: David Brin, Ph.D. has a triple career as scientist, public speaker, and author. His fifteen novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on The Postman. Another novel, Startide Rising, is in pre-production at Paramount Pictures. Brin's 1998 non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with a wide range of threats and opportunities facing our wired society during the information age.

As a scientist, Brin was a fellow at the California Space Institute. More recently, he has been a research affiliate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and participated in interdisciplinary activities at the UCLA Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. He now lives in San Diego County with his wife, two infants, and about a hundred very demanding trees. [back]

Milton Chen
CTO, VSee Lab

Bio: Dr. Milton Chen is the President and Chief Technology Officer of VSee Lab. Milton’s pioneering research at Stanford University has shown why videoconferencing has failed to become ubiquitous despite billions in investments since 1927. His unique insight in how to make real-time video communication an integral part of the everyday experience has led to more than 30 invited talks to major research institutions around the world. Milton received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

VSee Lab, founded in 2003, is a leader in multiparty real-time video communication and collaboration software. Intel President Paul Otellini recently demonstrated VSee in his keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum. VSee also won 2nd place at the Stanford-Berkeley Innovator's Challenge and 2nd place at the Berkeley business plan competition. In addition, VSee was chosen to be the videoconferencing solution for the US Navy Strong Angel humanitarian exercise and the DARPA Grand Challenge. Today, VSee is used by customers ranging from Royal Dutch Shell to NASA and across the globe in countries as diverse as Iceland and Afghanistan. [back]

Doug Engelbart
Inventor of the Mouse; Digital Interface Legend; Founder, Bootstrap Institute;
Winner, Turing Award, MIT-Lemelson Prize

Bio: Doug Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute founder and Director, has an unparalleled 30-year track record in predicting, designing, and implementing the future of organizational computing. From his early vision of turning organizations into augmented knowledge workshops, his mlab went on to pioneer what is now known as collaborative hypermedia, knowledge management, community networking, and organizational transformation.

Well-known technological firsts include the mouse, display editing, windows, cross-file editing, outline processing, hypermedia, and groupware. Integrated prototypes were in full operation under the NLS (oNLine System) system, as early as 1968. Thousands of users have benefited from its unique team support capabilities.

After 20 years directing his own lab at SRI, and 11 years as senior scientist, first at Tymshare, and then at McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Engelbart founded the Bootstrap Institute, where he works with industry and government stakeholders to launch a collaborative implementation of his work.

Engelbart has received numerous awards for outstanding lifetime achievement and ingenuity. His life's work, with his "big-picture" vision and persistent pioneering breakthroughs, has made a significant impact on the past, present, and future of personal, interpersonal, and organizational computing. (More) [back]

BJ Fogg
Director of Research and Design, Persuasive Technology Lab, Stanford University
Author, Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, 2002

Bio: BJ Fogg (Ph.D. Stanford) directs research and design at Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab (www.captology.org). An experimental psychologist, Dr. Fogg teaches courses in persuasive technology for Stanford's Computer Science Department. He's also on the consulting faculty for Stanford's School of Education, where he teaches graduate seminars in the Learning, Design & Technology Program.

In addition to his Stanford work, Dr. Fogg is the Senior Director of Research & Innovation at Casio's R&D Center in Silicon Valley (www.casioresearch.com). In that role he leads Casio's U.S. efforts to create next-generation products. In previous positions, Dr. Fogg led innovation efforts at HP Labs, Interval Research, and Sun Microsystems.

Dr. Fogg holds several patents, and his work has been featured in Business 2.0, Wired News, The Washington Post, ID Magazine, and The New York Times. On a more personal note . . . BJ craves mustard and goes through about 60 jars a year. [back]

Gillmor joined the Mercury News in September 1994 after about six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Vermont, Gillmor received a Herbert Davenport fellowship in 1982 for economics and business reporting at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. During the 1986-1987 academic year he was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied history, political theory and economics. He has won several state and regional journalism awards.

Gillmor has had a longstanding interest in technology. He studied programming in high school. He bought his first personal computer in the late 1970s and first went online in the early 1980s. Before becoming a journalist he played music professionally for seven years. [back]

Bruce Hall
Business Development, Digital Auto Drive (DARPA Grand Challenge)

Bio: Bruce Hall is the president of Velodyne Acoustics and runs the day-to-day operations there. He coordinates Team DAD activity in the areas of communications, funding, and personnel. He has spent many years in the software and loudspeaker industries, and has accompanied Dave Hall for most of his robotic adventures. [back]

Keith was President of media services firm, Medium Rare, Inc., where his clients included Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Yahoo and Dennis Publishing’s Maxim Magazine. His has also executed key strategic assignments as chief operating officer for internet community pioneer CyberSites, head of corporate and business development for Warburg Pincus-backed Sticky Networks, and key consultative assignments for venture fund TDA Direct Advisors and DIMAC Marketing Partners. Additionally, Keith helped found interactive software giant Simon & Schuster Interactive and while there produced their key products, including Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual, one of the best-selling CD-ROMs of all time.

Keith earned his B.A. in philosophy from Princeton University in 1988. He and his wife Nancy reside in Summit, NJ, with their two sons and two daughters. [back]

Robin Harper
Senior VP, Linden Lab, creators of Second Life

Bio: Robin Harper joined Linden Lab in 2002, bringing extensive experience in consumer marketing of innovative software. Since joining she has been responsible for all marketing activities, and more recently has added responsibility for community development and growth.

Earlier in her career she was the Vice President of Marketing at Maxis, a division of Electronic Arts (EA). At Maxis she played a prominent role in their emergence as the leader in PC simulation games and was a core member of the senior executive team that guided the company through their IPO and subsequent sale to Electronic Arts. Also while at Maxis, she established SimCity as one of the most recognized brand names in entertainment software, and was named one of the marketing 100 by Advertising Age/Newsweek.

In addition to Maxis and Linden Lab, Harper has held senior marketing positions at Ninth House Network (corporate learning and online education) and at Mondo Media (online entertainment). She holds an MBA in marketing from the University of Chicago. [back]

Prior to forming Dandin Group, he was the General Manager of the Wireless Business Unit for Com21, Inc. He joined Com21 following an opportunity to participate as the Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation’s Wireless Field Tests for Education project. The project sucessfully connected remote educational institutions to the Internet. The test sites ranged from rural primary schools in Colorado, USA to a University in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.

Dewayne was the CEO and co-founder of Tetherless Access Ltd. Tetherless Access was one of the first companies to develop and deploy Part 15 unlicensed wireless metropolitan area data networks using the TCP/IP protocols. He has participated in the installation of these networks in other parts of the world including: Kenya, Tonga, Mexico, Canada and Mongolia.

Back in 1986, he ported the popular KA9Q Internet Protocol package to the Macintosh, allowing the Macintosh platform to be used in packet radio networks. Today, thousands of amateur radio operators worldwide use the NET/Mac system he developed to participate in the global packet radio Internet. This system continues to be developed and deployed by the amateur radio service.

He has been involved with radio since receiving his amateur radio operator's license as a teen. He currently holds official positions in several national non-profit amateur radio organizations and is a director of the Wireless Communications Alliance, an industry group representing manufacturers in the unlicensed radio industry.

Dewayne’s background includes several other entrepreunerial positions as CEO and founder, and inclusion on various “top 100” lists as an innovator in the industry. More information on Dewayne is available at the Dandin Group web site: http://www.dandin.com/. Information on the FCC TAC can be found on the FCC web site at: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tac If you would like to contact Dewayne you can email him at: dewayne(at)dandin(dot)com. [back]

Daniel James
CEO, Three Rings; Lead Designer, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates

Debate: Real Money in Virtual Economies: The Future of User-Created Content
Bio: Daniel James is CEO of Three Rings, an independent developer of online games based in San Francisco, and Lead Designer of Three Rings' first game, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, a skill-based persistent world based on casual puzzle games. Prior to founding Three Rings, Daniel consulted on online games design, endeavoured to create Middle-earth Online, and founded two successful start-ups. He has been playing and building online games since 1983. [back]

Steve Jurvetson
Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Bio: Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail (MSFT), Interwoven (IWOV), and Kana (KANA). He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras (acquired by Ariba and Ciena for $8B), and most recently, in pioneering companies in nanotechnology and molecular electronics. Previously, Mr. Jurvetson was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP's PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software. As a Consultant with Bain & Company, Mr. Jurvetson developed executive marketing, sales, engineering and business strategies for a wide range of companies in the software, networking and semiconductor industries.

At Stanford University, he finished his BSEE in 2.5 years and graduated #1 in his class, as the Henry Ford Scholar. Mr. Jurvetson also holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He received his MBA from the Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Mr. Jurvetson also serves on the Merrill Lynch and STVP Advisory Boards and is Co-Chair of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He was recently honored as "The Valley's Sharpest VC" on the cover of Business 2.0 and chosen by the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner as one of "the ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century." He was profiled in the New York Times Magazine and featured on the cover of Worth and Fortune Magazines. Steve was chosen by Forbes as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors", by the VC Journal as one of the "Ten Most Influential VCs", and by Fortune as part of their "Brain Trust of Top Ten Minds." [back]

Kaminski is also a General Partner of OakStone Ventures, Investigatorius of the Minciu Sodas Laboratories in Lithuania, Software Development Director of the Software Product Marketing eGroup, and a Senior Associate of the Foresight Institute. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children. [back]

Jaron Lanier
Founder, VPL Research; Advisor, National Tele-Immersion Initiative; Computer Scientist, Composer, Artist

Bio: Jaron Lanier is well known among developers as the co-inventor of "virtual reality," a term he coined in the 1980s, as founder and former CEO of VPL Research. In the late 1980s he lead the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays, for both local and wide area networks, as well as the first "avatars", or representations of users within such systems. While at VPL, he co-developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He lead the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. Sun Microsystems acquired VPL’s patents related to Virtual Reality and networked 3D graphics in 1999.

As a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new "classical" music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Vernon Reid, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan. Current recording projects include his "acoustic techno" duet with Sean Lennon and an album of duets with flautist Robert Dick.

Renowned as a composer, musician, computer scientist, and artist, he has taught at many university computer science departments around the country, including Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn. He recently served as the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, which is devoted to using computers to enable people in different cities to experience the illusion that they are in the same room at the same time. In 1993, he predicted that virtual reality would be accessible to consumers by about 2010. He still thinks that's true. [back]

Alex Lightman
CEO, Charmed Technology; Chair, North American IPv6 Summits;
Author, Brave New Unwired World, 2002

Bio: Alex Lightman is a leading writer and speaker on the future of technology. He has published over 250,000 words in the 21st century, including 100 articles for business, technology, and political magazines. He is the author of the first book on 4G: Brave New Unwired World: The Digital Big Bang and The Infinite Internet (Wiley, 2002).

Alex is CEO of Charmed Technology and chairs the IPv6 Summits in North America, which attract the largest assemblage of Internet innovators in government, business, and academia. He is also the first and so far only Cal--(IT)2 scholar, affiliated with the University of California, and a visiting scholar with California State University (via SDSU). CEO Magazine recognized him as one of ten CEOs of the Future. He has been interviewed over 1,000 times, primarily related to wearable computers as fashion. [back]

Richard Marks
Special Projects Manager, Research and Development,
Sony Computer Entertainment America

Bio: Richard Marks was an Avionics major at MIT before getting his PhD at Stanford in the area of visual sensing for underwater robotics. He then joined Teleos Research, a computer vision start-up later acquired by Autodesk. He departed and consulted for a year, before the unveiling of the PlayStation2 hardware inspired him to join PlayStation R&D. His research focus has been studying real-time video input to the PS2, and he now manages R&D Special Projects, which includes Man-Machine Interfaces and Physical Simulation.

One of Marks's recent creations is the EyeToy. EyeToy: Play has been a strong commercial success, selling over 4 million copies worldwide since it launched last year. For Sony's upcoming PlayStation platforms, his lab is working on even more direct interaction as well as new natural interfaces. [back]

Peter Norvig
Director of Search Quality, Google;
Author, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (the world's leading texbook in AI), 2002

Bio: Peter Norvig is the Director of Search Quality at Google Inc.. He is a Fellow and Councilor of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field.

Previously he was head of the Computational Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center, where he oversaw a staff of 200 scientists performing NASA's research and development in autonomy and robotics, automated software engineering and data analysis, neuro-engineering, collaborative systems research, and simulation-based decision-making. Before that he was Chief Scientist at Junglee, where he helped develop one of the first Internet comparison shopping service; Chief designer at Harlequin Inc; and Senior Scientist at Sun Microsystems Laboratories.

Dr. Norvig received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a Professor at the University of Southern California and a Research Faculty Member at Berkeley. He has over fifty publications in various areas of Computer Science, concentrating on Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Software Engineering including the books Paradigms of AI Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp, Verbmobil: A Translation System for Face-to-Face Dialog, and Intelligent Help Systems for UNIX. [back]

Andreas Olligschlaeger
President, TruNorth Data Systems

Bio: Dr. Andreas (Olli) M. Olligschlaeger was formerly Systems Scientist at the Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. He has over 18 years experience working with advanced database systems and GIS, and is internationally recognized for his pioneering efforts in designing, developing and implementing state-of-art law enforcement information systems. The Pittsburgh Drug Market Analysis Program GIS that he developed in the early 1990's was the most advanced crime analysis GIS of its time. His dissertation research on crime leading indicators and neural network forecast methods was seminal in establishing the potential for crime forecasting. He has also developed a number of innovative techniques for automatically processing and geocoding massive amounts of data. He was the first person to automate geocoding of video, using speech recognition and entity extraction techniques.

Dr. Olligschlaeger's work with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies has been documented by national and international media. He is a regular invited speaker at crime mapping conferences, and is a member of the International Association of Crime Analysts, where he is a member of the Crime Analyst Certification Committee. In addition, Dr. Olligschlaeger serves on the advisory board of the High Tech Crime Consortium.

From ForecastingPrinciples.com: One of the factors leading to increased attention to crime forecasting in the U.S. was the completion of Andreas M. Olligschlaeger's Ph.D. dissertation (Carnegie Mellon University, 1997), Spatial Analysis of Crime Using GIS-Based Data: Weighted Spatial Adaptive Filtering and Chaotic Cellular Forecasting with Applications to Street Level Drug Markets. Presentations by Olligschlaeger at the second and third Crime Mapping Research Conferences held by the National Institute of Justice showed that short-term, leading indicator models could forecast crime in small areas with reasonable accuracy. About this time, police departments across the country were having big successes in mapping real-time crime data, and were thus primed for the next step of one-month-ahead crime forecasts. [back]

Cory Ondrejka
VP of Product Development, Linden Lab, creators of Second Life

Bio: Cory Ondrejka joined Linden Lab in November of 2000 and brought an extensive background in software development and project management. Most recently, Ondrejka served as project leader and lead programmer for Pacific Coast Power and Light's Nintendo 64 title, Road Rash. Previous experience includes a position as lead programmer for Acclaim Entertainment's first internal coin-op title. Prior to Acclaim, Ondrejka worked on Department of Defense electronic warfare software projects for Lockheed Sanders.

While an officer in the United States Navy, he worked at the National Security Agency and graduated from the Navy Nuclear Power School. Ondrejka is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he was a Presidential "Thousand Points of Light" recipient and became the first person ever to earn Bachelors of Science degrees in two technical majors: Weapons and Systems Engineering and Computer Science. [back]

Jerry Paffendorf
Director, ASF

Bio: Jerry Paffendorf is AC2004 Co-Director at the Acceleration Studies Foundation. He has an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts (video and mixed-media installation) from Montclair State University in New Jersey, and an MS degree in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. His recent concentration has been in the study of collaborative virtual environments and massively multi-player online games that interact with the real world–a subject he's presented on at four major conferences since April. After AC2004 Jerry will begin work on a forward-looking semi-fictional autobiography chronicling recent international adventures he figures to be something between Ray Kurzweil's Age of Spiritual Machines, Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, a Jack London short story, Charlie-Brown-meets-Indiana-Jones, and a politically balanced but even more lop-sidedly good-looking issue of Adbusters. [back]

She directs the Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology, organizes the Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes, and chairs the Foresight Vision Weekends. In fall 2004 she will chair the 1st Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology: Research, Applications, and Policy.

She lectures on nanotechnology to a wide variety of audiences, focusing on making this complex field understandable, and on clarifying the difference between near-term commercial advances and the "Next Industrial Revolution" arriving in the next few decades. (More) [back]

Gee Rittenhouse
VP of Wireless Research, Lucent

Bio: Dr. George ("Gee") Rittenhouse is Vice President of Wireless Research for Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs. Rittenhouse joined Bell Labs as a member of technical staff in 1993 where he developed a high-speed 0.1 um NMOS process for optical networking. He later joined the Wireless Research Laboratory where his research focused on RF front-end radio architectures and cellular system engineering. In 2000 he was promoted to Director of the Wireless Technology Research Department where he led several projects related to Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) system development, network optimization, wireless IP networks, and fourth generation wireless.

In 2001 he was named a Bell Labs Fellow, Bell Labs' highest honor, which recognizes sustained research and development contributions to the company. He has numerous publications and patents in the areas of wireless systems and circuits.

Rittenhouse was also one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Wireless Emergency Response Team (WERT), an industry-wide effort to locate survivors at Ground Zero through signals from their wireless telephones. He is also active on several national policy and standards boards, working with FCC and Homeland Security subgroups on the scientific side of wireless in the post 9/11 era.

Gee received a B.S. degree in physics from UCLA, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Dr. Rittenhouse received his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Then in 1993 received his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [back]

Zack Rosen
Founder and Director, CivicSpace Labs; Creator, DeanSpace social software

Bio: Rosen kicked off the "DeanSpace" volunteer open source development project for the Dean campaign last year during his summer break from the University of Illinois. He then took a job at the Dean campaign headquarters to work as a web developer and technical volunteer coordinator. He was responsible for servicing the web technology needs of the state campaign offices, constituency groups, and grassroots web developers.

After the campaign ended, he received funding to create a foundation (CivicSpaceLabs.org) to continue work on the "DeanSpace" project building "CivicSpace," an open source grassroots organizing web application toolkit. [back]

Prior to joining IGE, as president of business development for Ubisoft, a top tier videogame publisher, Mr. Salyer identified and managed the acquisition of a number of important properties and companies including RedStorm Entertainment, the Tom Clancy brand, and the Entertainment Division of the Learning Company, including rights to such premier properties as Myst, SSI, and Prince of Persia.

During the mid to late 90’s, Mr. Salyer was founder and CEO of 911 Entertainment, Inc., an Internet-based music company whose strategic partners included Intel, Softbank, and venture capital firms. 911 Entertainment published the award winning Worldwide Internet Live Music Archive (WILMA) and shipped the first interactive music CD’s which linked directly to the artist’s web site.

From the late 80’s through the mid-90’s, Mr. Salyer was a senior vice president at Electronic Arts. He helped build Electronic Arts from a privately held company into the leading independent games publisher. Mr. Salyer’s responsibilities included strategic planning, establishing new international publishing ventures, building significant third-party affiliated label distribution operations and managing Electronic Art’s mergers and acquisitions activities. Among his many achievements, Steve founded and was chairman of Electronic Arts Victor, Inc. Earlier in his career, Steve served in top management at various technology-based entertainment companies including positions at Strategic Simulations, Inc., a leading publisher of war and role playing games, and at ARP and Sequential Circuits, Inc. – pioneers in the synthesizer industry and co-creators of the MIDI standard. [back]

Joachim received his diploma in computer science in 1988 from the Technical University of Karlsruhe, and went on to receive his doctoral degree (Doctor of Natural Science) in 1995 as well. Joachim contributes to numerous academic events such as hosting seminars, practical training courses and lectures for the EU. He has written several publications for academic journal and congresses. [back]

Tim Sibley
Chief Scientist, StreamSage

Bio: Tim is a leading researcher in advanced computational linguistic and statistical techniques for analyzing audio, video, and text. He has received and led multiple R&D grants and contracts from leading research organizations such as NIST, the NSF, the US Army, the US Air Force, the Missile Defense Agency, and the Lemelson Foundation to conduct research into natural language understanding techniques, machine translation, and artificial intelligence. Tim is responsible for continuing to expand the state- of-the-art through StreamSage's automated rich media indexing platform and related applications.

In January 2001, Tim received an award from the Washington Techway Magazine as one of the top young technology executives in the DC area; in 2003 he was selected as one of MIT Technology Review’s top 100 technology innovators worldwide under the age of 35.

Prior to joining StreamSage, Tim co-founded the Journal of Young Investigators, the first international, peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate science research which has been featured in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He has been an invited presenter at conferences ranging across Internet infrastructure, digital television, scientific publication, and undergraduate science education and repeated guest lecturer at the Georgetown University Department of Linguistics.[back]

Rich Skrenta
Co-Founder and CEO, Topix.net

Bio: Rich has a background in both business management and technical expertise. In his last position, Rich held a variety of senior roles at Netscape/America Online, including Director of Engineering for Netscape Search, AOL Music, and AOL Shopping. Rich joined Netscape/AOL upon its purchase of NewHoo/The Open Directory Project, where he was Co-founder & CEO. The Open Directory is the largest human-edited directory of the web, currently used by Google, AOL and other major web portals.

Previously, Rich led an engineering group at Sun Microsystems implementing network security and encryption products. Rich also successfully operated a successful small online gaming company from 1994-2001. Rich has a BA degree from Northwestern University. [back]

John has a B.S. in Business from the Haas School at U.C. Berkeley and seven years of coursework in biological, medical, cognitive, computer and physical science at UCLA, Berkeley, and UCSD. He is the author of Planning A Life In Medicine (for premedical students), Random House (March 2005). He's currently completing an M.S. in Future Studies at U. Houston and writing his second book, Destiny of Species, on the topic of accelerating change. John lives in Los Angeles, CA and can be reached at johnsmart(at)accelerating.org [back]

From 2000-2003, at IBM, he was CTO of IBM's Venture Capital Relations Group, where he identified technology trends and worked to establish win-win relationships between IBM and VC-backed portfolio companies. Previously, Dr. Spohrer directed the IBM Almaden Research Center's (ARC) Computer Science Foundation Department, and before that was senior manager and co-strategist for IBM's User Experience/Human Computer Interaction Research effort.
From 1989-1998, at Apple, he was a DEST (Distinguished Engineer, Scientist, and Technologist) and program manager of learning technology projects in Apple's Advanced Technology Group (ATG). He lead the effort to create Apple's first on-line learning community and vision for mobile any time, any where e-learning. From 1978-1982, he developed speech recognition algorithms and products at Verbex, an Exxon Enterprises company.

Jim received a B.S. in Physics from MIT in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University in 1988. In 1989, Jim lived in Rome, Italy where he was a visiting scholar at the University of Rome La Sapienza, and lecturer at major universities across Europe. Jim has published broadly in the areas of speech recognition, empirical studies of programmers, artificial intelligence, authoring tools, on-line learning communities, open source software, intelligent tutoring systems and student modeling, new paradigms in using computers, implications of rapid technical change, as well as the coevolution of social, business, and technical systems. Jim has also helped to establish two education research non-profit web sites: The Educational Object Economy (http://www.eoe.org/) and WorldBoard: Associating Information with Places (http://www.worldboard.org/). Jim is a frequent advisor to the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, and other groups (http://www.merlot.org, http://www.newmediacenters.org) on the implications of rapid technological change to the future of education. [back]

Brad Templeton
Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Bio: Brad Templeton founded and ran ClariNet Communications Corp., the first internet-based content company, then sold it to Newsedge Corporation in 1997. ClariNet publishes an online electronic newspaper delivered for live reading on subscribers machines. He has been active in the computer network community since 1979, participated in the building and growth of USENET from its earliest days and in 1987 he founded and edited rec.humor.funny, the world's most widely read computerized conference on that network. He has been a software company founder, and is the author of a dozen packaged microcomputer software products.

Brad is chairman of the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading civil rights advocacy group for cyberspace. He also sits on the advisory boards for a few internet startups. Currently he is building a new startup to reinvent the phone call. He is also on the board of the Foresight Institute, a nanotech think-tank.[back]

Peter Thiel
Co-Founder and Former CEO, PayPal; President, Clarium Capital
Author, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance On Campus, 1998

Bio: Mr. Thiel is Clarium's President and oversees the firm's research, investment, and trading strategies. Before starting Clarium, Mr. Thiel served as Chairman and CEO of PayPal, Inc., an Internet company he co-founded in December 1998 and that was acquired by eBay Inc. for $1.5 billion in October 2002.

Prior to founding PayPal, Mr. Thiel ran Thiel Capital Management LLC, the Menlo Park-based predecessor to Clarium, which started with $1 million under management in the fall of 1996. Mr. Thiel began his financial career as a derivatives trader at CS Financial Products, after he practiced securities law at Sullivan & Cromwell. In addition to managing Clarium, Mr. Thiel is active in a variety of philanthropic and educational pursuits; he sits on the Board of Directors of the Pacific Research Institute and on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School.

Mr. Thiel received a B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. [back]

Will Wright
Founder, Maxis; Creator, Sim City, The Sims

Bio: Will Wright, Maxis’ Chief Designer, co-founded Maxis with Jeff Braun in 1987. He released his first game SimCity: The City Simulator in 1989, an instant hit which has won 24 domestic and international awards. Sim City brought complex, realistic simulations to desktop PCs, a capability previously only available to military, scientists and academicians. Using an easy graphical interface, Sim City opened the world of simulations to consumers. SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, and SimCity 4 Deluxe have continued the tradition. SimEarth, SimAnt, and other games have explored other facets of the natural world.

His social simulation game, The Sims, was released in February of 2000. With over 9 million copies worldwide, 7 expansion packs, and numerous "Game of The Year" accolades, The Sims has become the best-selling PC game of all time. The Sims Online and The Sims 2 (released September 2004, to critical acclaim) are the latest extensions of the Sims tradition in an increasingly open-ended, online world where you choose your role, attitude and destiny. He is now working on a "third generation" simulation project at Maxis.

Wright has become one of the most successful designers of interactive entertainment in the world. In 1999 he was included in Entertainment Weekly’s "It List" of "the 100 most creative people in entertainment" as well as Time Digital’s "Digital 50", a listing of "the most important people shaping technology today." As one of his hobbies, each year Wright (along with his daughter) takes part in the annual Battlebot competition broadcast nationally on Comedy Central. Interestingly, it was Wright’s interest in robots that eventually led him into computer programming. [back]

Wlodek Zadrozny
Technologist, On Demand Innovation Services, IBM Research

Bio: Wlodek Zadrozny has been with IBM Research for 19 years. His experience includes R&D management, research in natural language understanding, product development and consulting. His technical background includes a Ph.D. in Mathematics, 50 refereed publications and 20 patents, including one of the best IBM patents in 2001. Dr. Zadrozny has led the development of natural language systems for several IBM clients, and more recently, coordinated development and transfer of search and text processing technologies between IBM Research and the Software Group.

Currently, he works as Technologist in On Demand Innovation Services -- a new IBM initiative to combine research and business consulting. In this role, he advises IBM Business Consulting Services and their clients on the capabilities of newest technologies. He also designs and evaluates business applications of text analytics and data mining. [back]

Sonia Arrison (Emcee)
Director of Technology Studies, Pacific Research Institute (PRI)

Bio: Sonia Arrison is director of Technology Studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute (PRI) where she researches and writes on the intersection of new technologies and public policy. Specific areas of interest include privacy policy, e-government, intellectual property, nanotechnology, evolutionary theory, and telecommunications.

She is a regular columnist for Tech Central Station and Tech News World. Her work has appeared in many publications including CBS MarketWatch, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, The National Post, Washington Times, and Consumer Research Magazine. A frequent media guest and National Press Club First Amendment Scholar, Ms. Arrison has appeared on National Public Radio’s Forum, Tech TV, CBC's The National, and CNN's Headline News. She was also recently the host of a radio show called "digital dialogue" on the Voice America network.

Arrison is author of several major PRI studies including Canning Spam: An Economic Solution to Unwanted Email, Being Served: Broadband Competition in the Small and Medium Sized Business Market, and Consumer Privacy: A Free Choice Approach. She is co-author of Punishing Innovation: A Report on California Legislators’ Anti-Tech Voting, Internet Taxes: What California Legislators Should Know, and editor of Telecrisis: How Regulation Stifles High Speed Internet Access.

Often asked for advice on technology issues, Arrison has given testimony and served as an expert witness for various government committees such as the Congressional Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce and the California Commission on Internet Political Practices.

Prior to joining PRI, Arrison focused on Canadian-U.S. regulatory and political issues at the Donner Canadian Foundation. She also worked at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, B.C., where she specialized in regulatory policy and privatization. She received her BA from the University of Calgary and an MA from the University of British Columbia. [back]

Mark Finnern (Emcee)
Collaboration Manager, SAP Developer Network; Blogger, O'Reilly Network; Director, ASF

Bio: Mark Finnern manages the Collaboration Area of the fastest growing SAP Community: The SAP Developer Network. Mark is also the founder and host of the Future Salon, co-producer of the Accelerating Change 2004 conference, and blogger for the O'Reilly Network. [back]

Ms. Swan formerly served as the Research Director of Telecom Economics for communications industry analyst and consultancy RHK, Inc. Prior to RHK, Ms. Swan was the Co-founder and President of the GroupPurchase Corporation, a firm that created direct input purchasing cooperatives for small businesses via the Internet and was acquired by Laguna Street Software in April 2000.

Prior to forming GroupPurchase, Ms. Swan was responsible for Strategic Alliances & Marketing Programs at iPass, Inc. the world's leading provider of enterprise connectivity solutions. Before joining iPass, Ms. Swan was an Investment Banker at J.P. Morgan in New York, NY where she managed Merger & Acquisition transactions. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Ms. Swan was a Securities Analyst with Fidelity Management & Research Company in Boston, MA. At the start of her career, Ms. Swan was a Senior Consultant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in Los Angeles, CA where she designed, coded and implemented PC, client-server and mainframe based accounting solutions.

Ms. Swan holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in French from Georgetown University. She sits on the Board of a New York-based commercial real estate company and serves as the elected Treasurer of Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization. Ms. Swan is involved with a variety of science and technology projects, including participation in the Accelerating Change Conference and is a certified Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming. [back]