The first TEDxSummit was hosted by the Doha Film Institute at the Katara Cultural Village in Doha Qatar. The “village” is a bit like a sprawling outdoor convention center that houses an ampitheatre, tents and domes where you can see live concerts and events.

Katara was born out of a long held vision to position the State of Qatar as a cultural lighthouse of art if you will, highlighting the best of theatre, literature, music and visual art in the Middle East.

It sits along the water, so you can watch boats sail by and a sunrise in the early evening off in the distance while you take in your event, whether it be performing arts or meetings, or in our case, a mishmash of both.

Before arriving, I wasn’t sure what to expect, from the kinds of content they’d choose to why Qatar andwhat is Qatar? Refer to my numerous posts on Qatar including a write-up on the Arab Museum of Modern Art, images of the impressive Museum of Islamic Art, a display of work from renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang and the over-the-top Murakami Ego exhibit.

What is Qatar is probably the most mind blowing takeaway from the event as you’ll see from my write-ups. At first, it didn’t make sense why we were having an event in such a remote place, a country barely known to so many and yet, after returning from the Summit, the location makes perfect sense.

Given that the Summit attracted TEDsters from nearly a hundred countries around the world, it is in fact a fairly central location, though obviously a longer haul for those of us on the American west coast. And, given the diversity of the attendees, Qatar, which rather than having hundreds of years of history and cultural references, really only started to make its marks a few decades ago.

In other words, its a country in search of an identity as demonstrated by the volume of new immigrants pouring in to tap into Qatar’s exploding economic growth…less a land of local Qataris and more a land of transplants from Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, the list goes on.

And, let’s not forget other stats: 75% of those living in Doha and surrounding area are expats/foreign nationals. Doha is preparing for its growing global interest; the city is about as modern as it gets with highrises going up faster than Las Vegas hotels in its prime.

The other reason Qatar makes sense as a location, is that so few of us in the west know “enough” about the Middle East, particularly the complexities of Islam and the culture that goes along with it. Understanding Qatar helps you understand the rest of the region.

Through greater understanding comes compassion, empathy, tolerance, gratitude and a willingness to not just expand your horizons and knowledge base, but reach out and help in whatever way makes sense. This, by the way, is integral to what TED at its core is about.

And so, we all embarked on soil that is new, yet old, to discuss ways we can help each other, sharing best practices, what works and what doesn’t.

Some of the sessions included: How to Write About Your Speakers, Sponsorships, Keeping Your Event Sustainable, Social Media Strategies, Building Salons, Blogging, Making Change with Corporate Events, Capturing Great Photo Content, Planning, Stage & Production Tips, Branding, Livestreaming, Working with Tight Budgets and more.

Clearly it made sense for teams from specific regions to pow-wow with each other. Wwe had breakout sessions in large tents in the middle of the desert broken out by parts of the world, i.e., Eastern Europe, Australia, Central America and in the states, it was broken down even further (northern California, Midwest and so on).

Below are ketchnotes of one of the TEDxSummit sessions from C. Todd Lombardo, organizer of TEDxSomerville in the greater Boston area.

While meeting by region helps each group share resources, and even space for meetings, its amazing how much you can learn from organizers in parts of the world that have nothing in common with your own. This is separate of course from what you learned from locals who happened to be hanging out or ‘working the event’ – in the middle of the desert.

For example, storytelling on stage is very different at a small event in West Africa, yet what is so natural in a village is often missing from a large TEDx stage that may resort to Powerpoint and a speaker’s 20 years of experience and knowledge. The opposite applies too of course; there are clearly things from larger events that small towns can use to expand their presence and brand awareness. In other words: borrow from the formal for the informal and take the informal into the formal and make magic happen by blending the best of both together.

The other surprise for me was the whole concept of ”you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t know who you don’t know.” I didn’t even know all the organizers in my own region (greater Bay Area), nor did I know the depth of where TEDx events had spread.

For example, while the events are largely by geography, there are a few that are connected to brands/companies, universities and other institutions. Did you know that there’s a TEDxHouses of Parliament? This isn’t just fascinating data – this is revolutionary. Consider the kinds of conversations they have already had and will evolve as a result of this kind of “new” organization and collaboration.

Bringing everyone together to share, collaborate and execute on ideas around the world is brilliant. Let’s not forget the ‘healing’ and compassion that comes as a result of greater understanding, which inevitably comes from bringing such a global audience together in one place.

Well done and hats off to Bruno Giussani, Chris Anderson, Lara Stein, and the NY & Doha teams for turning another great idea into a reality.

Some of the Speaker and Presentation Highlights include:

• ‘The Human Arabesque’ opening night video sourced inspiration from Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art. The team researched traditional arabesque patterns in a quest to incorporate regional culture to create a moving, human sculpture representing the transformative power of x.
• Futurist Juan Enriquez has always been a long time favorite of mine. He contends that science and technology are leading us rapidly towards the next “human species.” See excelvm.com.
• Vinay Venkatraman, who is a founding partner at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, has developed an alternative vision to creating a more inclusive world through a design concept he refers to as ’Frugal Digital.’
• TED Senior Fellow Cesar Harada demonstrated a bold new design for a sailing craft with a flexible rudder — on both ends. Called ‘Protei,‘ the robot is designed to sense and clean up oceans.

• I loved Shereen El Fedi’s talk on how bad laws fuel and good laws fight HIV. Chart after chart, example after example, she demonstrated her point. Check out their work at HIV Law Commission.
• Amit Sood wowed the crowd with an incredibly impressive demo of the Google Art Project. They have collected and curated the world’s greatest art, from museums and beyond, onto the web, making it as easy to access your favorite piece of work or view art you’ve never heard of or are likely never to see in person. You can search by sub-category, by typing in for example, red and Picasso for everything that Picasso did in red. There are other filters as well that could keep you glued to this site for hours if not days.
• Rives, who many of us know as a renowned poet, has given awe-inspiring performances on the TED stage before. In Doha, he took us a journey of factoids using his poetic tongue. Bouncing from site to site, we learned about some of the most trivial and not so trivial knowledge on the web, ranging from culture and politics to insects and sex.
• With passion and energy, Indian artist Raghava KK argued why everyone should have a 200-year plan.
• Rare book scholar William Noel fascinated the audience with his research. Using a particle accelerator to read ancient works, he took us on a journey from start to finish. He’s a huge believer in open-source and open-data and he and his team are making their work open to others(aka the web of ancient manuscripts).
• Comedian Maz Jobrani intertwined humor with local culture and events. You have depth as a comedian when you can stand on a stage in Qatar and have Americans, Lebanese, Saudi Arabians, Qataris, Scandinavians, Japanese and Aussies all laughing at the same time. He’s known for his work on the ‘Axis of Evil Comedy Tour,’ which traveled around the world, including the Middle East.

• National Food Security Programme chairman Fahad Bin Mohammed Al-Attiya educated me most about where Qatar was a hundred years ago versus where it is today and where’s its heading. They’re working on a Master Plan, using Qatar, which only has two days of water supply, as a model for sustainable, environmentally friendly agriculture in arid regions.
• Yahay Alabdeli who curates TEDxBaghdad created a lot of teary eyed attendees with his story about how he traveled back to Iraq after 34 years to create an event that pulled not just locals but others who had left Iraq but returned specifically for his event. As you can imagine, it was much more than a reunion. He went through a number of obstacles to make it happen, so it seems perfect that his event theme was: “Making the Impossible Possible.”

• One of my old time favorites Hans Rosling returned to the TED stage, bringing humor to sex, religion and data once again. What was even more fascinating was having his global trends in health and economics from every country in the world presented in a place where we had representation by nearly every region in the world. All of his talks exude one of his sweetest talents – his dry humor and quirkiness. Beyond the quirkiness he shows in his professional life, which adds to the power of his talks, let’s not forget that the man swallows swords for kicks in his spare time. What’s not to adore about Hans? (see a video interview with Hans at the Summit here – he uses legos, rocks and humor that reveals deep insight in typical Hans-style).

Because the event was an International Summit where best practices and learning beyond “talks” were a big part of the agenda, the highlights that will inevitably be glued to people’s minds and hearts include the experiencial activities.

Below is a brainstorming session in a tent set up in the desert dunes, roughly an hour and a half south of Doha.

TEDx-ers formed a TEDx in the middle of the sand dunes while others filmed from above:

There was dune bashing, also in the south of the country.

And, kayacking among mangroves in the north, after which we were guests in the home of a local man, who fed us well and shared some of his photos and life experiences:

A visit to the Al-Zubara Fort:

A boat tour along the water:

The incredibly breathtaking Islam Museum of Art:

Education City has representation from some of the top schools, including Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Northwestern University, and others, with a goal to grow Qatar’s knowledge base, making it an attractive place to visit and work in the future.

Below, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar Weill Cornell.

Below is a shot taken at one of the cafes in the Souq Waqif one night (we ended up in the Souq several evenings). Despite the fact that the Souq doesn’t serve alcohol, it was a great place to hang out, socialize, shop, drink coffee and eat fabulous local food.

Desert Day in the South. Of course, it wouldn’t be desert day without an opportunity to catch a ride on a camel. Below shots: Curators Kevin Gong & Renee Blodgett.

A casual shot of TEDx organizers in the desert…

Then there was the late afternoon drumming session, which frankly, I can never get ‘enough of…’.

A music jam session in one of the main tents – small but intimate and full of great TEDx talent:

18-year old Jordanian pianist Sima Sirriyeh, who composes her own pieces played for us on the main stage.

Opening night, they danced and sang. And then, danced and sang some more.

We took in the best of the local culture and greater Doha through visits to Souq Faqif, the Arab Museum of Modern Art, and the Cai Guo Qiang and Murakami Ego exhibitions. Also check out Doha’s Centre for Media Freedom.Late nights were spent in the hotel bars where we stayed: The W and Kempinski Hotels.

Posted by Co-Curator Renee Blodgett.

Photo Credits:

• Katara Village, Fort, Boat, Landscape City Shots, Brainstorm session, Hands, Anderson, Dunes, TedxStage Shot1: Javier Yunes
• Yahay Alabdeli, Cesar Harada, Inside Museum of Islamic Art: Duncan Davidson
• Group shot in dunes: taken on my camera by a TEDx-er
• North site visit for lunch, middle of desert scene, Hans sword shot from a previous event, casual desert day shot, camel close up, Souq, Maz Jobrani, opening night, drumming circle, jam session in tent after hours, Sima Sirriyeh: Renee Blodgett / MSM
• Education City Weill Cornell University shot - website.

15 ground-breaking thinkers, leaders and performers entertained and educated the audience through storytelling, performance and anecdotes from their life experiences.

Given that UC Berkeley is involved, so were some of the professors and students, including the opening act by DeCadence (pronounced dee-KAY-dence, with a capital ‘C’), a vocalist group that sports eye-catching blue and gold capes and creative dance moves at nearly every performance.

The musician in me couldn’t help but call out music brilliance first and while we’re on the topic of incredible voices, Charles Holt stole the stage with his storytelling and singing of “He Lives in You,” my favorite Lion King number.  

He had me at “go” is an understatement, largely because of his intuitive nature, the fact that he lives his life through that intuitive lense and his witty and incredibly honest stories of his mother and grandmother from the south, which will leave you crying and laughing at the same time.

From music to dance, Jodi Lomask then awed us through her dance troupe. Known for her work with an organization she founded called Capacitor 15 years ago, she works with world-renowned research scientists to create original dance works that draw attention to critical environmental issues.

I think about people I know who spend their life committed to understanding oceans and I think about the moment it was for me that I got one step closer: deep sea diving off the coast of Australia some 60 or so feet below the surface. In that world, that remarkable world, you truly understand the beauty of a world we need to cherish and preserve.

Her dancers showed us that beauty through a combination of violin, dance movements in and outside of rings in somewhat of a Cirque du Soleil style and environmental videos, all creating an outer world exerience for us to share.

One of my favorite moments of the performance is below…the intertwining of minds, hearts and bodies.

Also involved in conservation and the environment was Dr. Maria Fadiman who I had the pleasure of setting up with a new Twitter account (social media will get us all, the deep hidden voice says, lurking in the background), is a fascinating combination of geologist, comedian, nature lover and ethnobotanist, her work focuses on the relationship between people and plants.

From South Florida, her style was very informal for an academic crowd yet had people laughing as she pounced onto the stage with a machete in hand, telling one humorous story after another of her time in the jungle, the majority of her time spent in the rainforests of Latin America.

She has worked with Tibetan children in teaching them to record their own ethnobotanical traditions and is currently working on a global scale cross cultural study of people’s use of a cultural keystone species (the flora and fauna that are deemed important to the survival of a culture), and how these plants can act as larger ecosystem preservation incentives.

AutoDesk’s CEO Carl Bass walked us through five trends of innovation, using Kickstarter and Moon Express one example of companies doing something extremely unusual.

Digital fabrication is where you change the rules about how things are made, referencing 3D printers, showing us examples of various things which can be printed into a variety of materials, including rubber, plastic and metal.

It’s amazing what can be printed on a 3D printer now…I ran into BitTorrent’s Bram Cohen at SF Music Techwho showed me a very interesting 3D ring he was wearing on his finger. Additionally, imagine 3D buildings and even a 3D-printed human kidney.

We also heard about the rise of information, aka the wisdom of the crowds and the wisdom of the ‘cloud.‘ Not only are we all becoming creators in our own way on our own personal platforms, but we’re becoming curators as well.

ARZU’s Connie Duckworth, who took the stage in vibrant red, focused on international development sharing things learned from her work in Afghanistan. She says of the current state of international development:

• The international development industry is dysfunctional.
• Big money brings big unintended consequences.
• Hope can’t thrive in the world’s worse places.

She believes that we have an urgent call to change the structure of the international development industry, which holds in its hands the lives of billions of people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Their thinking is that somehow inherently flawed short term thinking will move into sustainable systems. Big money when not hosed in the right direction can create a lot of chaos. She asserts that its a key reason that so many people lose so much faith in their government.

She refers to another unintended consequence of big money going to the wrong places: Brain Tilt, which is when the most highly educated local people (engineers, professors, doctors), all end up working for expats in low level positions. Local smart people are working as drivers and clerks rather than working in higher level positions because they can get paid so much more in the other positions.

Connie defines the quest for peace as security. “We all see the world through our own lens of experience, so for me, success all starts with a job. This is how people start with a way to solve those basic level needs, such as the ability to eat and feed their family.” She encouraged the audience not to just sit back and want peace, but believe in it and take action.

We went on a gratitude journey with Nipun Nehta of Service Space who asked us how we could all have more “Gif-tiv-ism” in the world?

Rather than focus on money, we wanted to focus on giving, in other words, the idea of unleashing the power of compassion capital. “Once you unleash compassion,” he says, it’s amazing what happens. “Stay focused on adding value and discovered untapped capital.”

When small acts of giftivism get connected and activated, it rekindles a gift economy. A gift culture, he says, is marked by four key shifts:

• Shift from Consumption to Contribution – Instead of asking “what can I get,” open with “What can I give?” He says if you open each door with a different question, about what can you give, it changes the entire dynamics.
• Shift from Transaction to Trust: Build synergy. He refers to Karma Kitchen, a restaurant in Berkeley, where you pay for the people ahead of you or behind you rather than for your own bill. 26,000 meals so far and  people continue to pay it forward.
• Shift from Isolation to Community: it is not enough that we connect, but rather how we connect.  When you serve other people together, you create a network of ‘gift ties.’
• Shift from Scarcity to Abundance: Cultivate inner transformation to arrive at enough. “There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

From gift economies, we shifted to Gopi Kallayil from Google who talked about the power of social and a connected world, particularly during the 18 days of the Egyptian protests, showing us a video where Desmond Tutu is talking to the Dalai Lama on Google+, a clip which has now been watched 2 million times. This is a great example of how social media is driving innovation around the world.

We saw examples from Libya and Kenya to South Africa and Egypt, where during the protests, they were able to express how they really felt and more importantly, people were able to listen to those words on YouTube and other platforms.

They sang, “the most important thing is our right and writing our history with our blood – if you were one of us, better not blabber and tell us to go away and leave our dream and stop saying the word “I”. In every street in my country, the sound of freedom is calling. In every street in my country, the sound of freedom is calling.” Powerful stuff.

From the vantage point of healthcare, intuition and communications, Dr. Neha Sangwan encourages everyone to be proud of yourself for “listening to yourself.” Often, listening to ourself comes second to listening to opinions of others, whether they be friends and family or a doctor we’re seeing for a particular issue.

She asks, “what if communication is the cure that we’re missing? What is the way we talk to ourselves & whether we choose to lean into our discomfort & show up in the world? What is this is the prescription for health long before I need to write you a prescription?”

Her talk was highly emotional as she brought us a journey around the world to the Middle East, where she spoke to women, sharing with us insights she learned about their world, their pride and in turn, what we can learn from them in the western world.

A professor at Berkeley, Ken Goldberg who closed the talks, on nothing other than robots. Yes, robots…and what we can learn from them. As someone who worked in speech recognition for years and did a project for the Willow Garage guys (I love PR2 and even danced with one), I was eager to hear his insights.

Ken thinks robots can inspire us and that we have a lot to learn from them. Some of those insights from various projects over the years include: always question assumptions. It’s amazing how quick we are to turn to other people’s assumptions and make decisions based on them without digging deeper. Secondly, when in doubt, improvise.

I couldn’t help but smile but when i realized that both of these recommendations btw are great ones for start-ups as well as for children. So is tihs one: When your path is blocked, pivot. In start-up culture, we learn to pivot a lot, something that Fortune 500 companies should pay more attention to…

Author and thought leader David Ewing Duncanfocused on DATA and how do we make sense of it all?’,something he thinks is an awesome achievement of humanity, for ‘better or worse.’

Because of his background, he centered his talk around bio-data. He points out that today, we can get a micro-analysis of our blood work, which can tell us how just whether we have a high chance of cancer and chronic diseases, but how empathetic we are as human beings. He notes “more experiences, more tests leads to more data.”

But, as so many of us know, we have so much data, that its often overwhelming, so much so we can’t make sense of the data we have at our fingertips. This is David’s point.

Whats needed, he asserts is a new mindset in every occupation. “Enough of all this data, what does this data actually mean?” he says. “We need a revolution in interpreting the tools and the data as well as a radical shift in resources. In other words, how do we go about testing 42,000 genetic traits?”

Clearly, we need a radical shift in resources. There’s only 4% invested on translational medicine and he thinks there needs to be a reversal in resource allocation. He also pointed to trends in the future for all the students sitting in the hall: “we’re going to need 500 million analysts in 6 years and we only have 100 million today.” Clearly, these are the people who are going to be well versed at making sense of all that data and transforming it into something usable and most importantly, actionable by individuals.

Tapan Parikh, a Berkeley University professor brought us back into traditional technology and current trends. Tapan’s research interests include human-computer interaction (HCI), mobile computing, speech UIs and information systems for microfinance, smallholder agriculture and global health.

He showed us photographs and results of some of his work in rural areas. Of his latest projects, Tapan has been designing, developing and deploying information systems in the rural developing world – initially in India, and now also in Latin America and Africa.

Tapan and his students have started several technology companies serving rural communities and the development sector. It was inspirational to see what they have accomplished so far and to see what is possible with resources, tearing down silos, sharing among communities and better access.

What he hopes to represent is the notion of showing respect for where you come from. He says, “Pick a challenge that is important to you” (for him, it was setting up real-time video conferencing, knowledge sharing and instant messaging in India), “and stick to it.” He adds, “Don’t assume you know what people need for their development – let them speak up, don’t act for them.”

I was thrilled that Tiffany Shlain was able to join us this year as I’ve always been a fan of her work. She has been making films for 20 years, and some of them have hit Sundance, Tribeca, Rotterdam and others and her films have won over 36 film festival awards.

Tiffany says, “each time we were able to change the way we recorded film and show reality, we were able to change reality itself.”

She showed us snippets from her most recent film: Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology, A Declaration of Interdependence.”Connected had its U.S. theatrical tour this past fall and is now available for people to host their own screenings.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) announced earlier this month the 29 films selected for the American Film Showcase, an international cultural diplomacy initiative that brings people together worldwide through film and Connected made the list.

The movie is enlightening and sad at the same time, taking us deep into what is happening around us in aconnected world and how technology is shaping and reshaping us. Bravo!! I have a love/hate relationship with technology myself — the timing of this film couldn’t be more perfect.

“Do something radical and true,” she says. “We as humans should declare our human interdependence.”Film projects they’re working on for others are centered on life’s most emotional topics: engagement, power, money, wisdom, death, inspiration, the brain and others.

Now that we’re back to Entertainment, the E in TED, the last two speakers this year were performers: magician Robert Strong and violinist Lindsey Stirling.

Robert Strong is known as ‘The Comedy Magician’ and in watching him, it’s so clear that magic is his life passion. He has performed on every major television network, in more than 40 different countries, in all 50 states, and twice at the White House.

I never paid much attention to the word magic until I renamed my own consultancy with Magic in the name. Now, I see ‘magic’ everywhere and am a true believer that perception is reality and that we can create any outcome we want through our own belief systems.

Lindsey Stirling, who I first saw play at Idea Festival in Kentucky last fall, is often referred to as the Hip Hop Violinist. Her passion, energy, and presence is magnetic, so much so, that you can’t help but want to get up on stage and dance as she jumps around, violin and all, around you. Here’s some background on her work. Let’s just say that I’m a huge fan.

Check out last year’s (2011) TEDxBerkeley talks on video. And a few talks from last year to get you inspired were Chip Conley on remembering that we’re human in business, Anat Baniel on flexibility and vitality,Lopas Brunjes on carbon reduction, Bryan Alvarez on living organisms in our body, and Shore Slocum onspiritual awakening and awareness and how this can transform your everyday life.

Photo Credits:  Renee Blodgett. Also posted here.

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She currently consults with innovative corporations and cross-functional healthcare teams. Dr. Sangwan has pioneered numerous successful programs for corporations and health professionals that improve organizational metrics.

Notably, Dr. Sangwan and her team have developed a comprehensive employee accountability program called the i-5 Experience that connects the dots between job satisfaction, health and performance. Dr. Sangwan has taken this philosophy to tech giants Facebook and eBay, and is a speaker for Google’s “Optimize Your Life” series.

Dr. Sangwan began her teaching career as faculty at Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Physician Education and Development team. She designed and delivered innovative workshops to integrate physicians and nurses into cohesive, productive teams within fast-paced and high stress environments.

Dr. Sangwan earned her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from Michigan State University. She worked as a manufacturing engineer for Motorola before attending medical school at State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY at Buffalo). She completed her Internal Medicine residency training at Temple University Hospital and is board certified.

Carl Bass is president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc. Autodesk is the leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.

Formerly he was Autodesk’s chief operating officer, responsible for worldwide sales, marketing, and product development. Earlier roles included CTO and EVP of product development.

Bass co-founded Ithaca Software, the developers of HOOPS, which was acquired by Autodesk in 1993.

Bass serves on the Board of Directors of Autodesk, E2open, the Art Center College of Design, and the Rocky Mountain Institute. He is also a member of the Executive Advisory Boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science and UC Berkeley School of Information. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University.

UC Berkeley’s DeCadence (pronounced dee-KAY-dence, with a capital ‘C’), is best known around the Bay Area for their one-of-a-kind quirkiness and lovable eccentricity. Sporting eye-catching blue and gold capes at nearly every performance, this slightly unconventional gaggle of crime-fighting, booty-dropping vocalists has been spotted artfully wielding crazy costumes and daring dance moves wherever they go. An entirely student-run organization, DeCadence has also proudly earned a reputation for their classy arrangements of songs with offensive lyrics, an accolade that has earned mentions on the front page of Ben Folds’ website, millions of views on Youtube, and horrified looks from their parents.

Connie Duckworth founded ARZU, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, in 2004 and serves pro bono as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. She is a retired Partner and Managing Director of Goldman, Sachs, & Co., where she was named the first woman sales and trading partner in the firm’s history during her 20 year career from 1981-2001.

Ms. Duckworth is currently a Trustee of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and a Director of Russell Investment Group and Steelcase Inc. In her philanthropic work, Ms. Duckworth is the immediate past Chairman of The Global Heritage Fund in Palo Alto and serves on the boards of The Wharton School in Philadelphia, the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago and NorthShore University HealthSystem, in Evanston, Illinois, where she was the first woman to be named Chairman of the Board. She is a member of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, a public/private partnership aligned with the U.S. State Department and past Chair of the Committee of 200, the organization of leading women entrepreneurs and corporate business executives in the U.S. She also co-authored a primer on entrepreneurship entitled The Old Girls Network: Insider Advice for Women Building Businesses in a Man’s World (Basic Books 2003).

The recipient of numerous awards for leadership, advocacy, social impact, innovation and global presence, Ms. Duckworth was awarded the 2011 Wharton School Dean’s Medal, the school’s highest honor. In addition, Ms. Duckworth was named a 2008 Skoll Foundation honoree for Social Entrepreneurship. She holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from the University of Texas.

is an award-winning, best-selling author of seven books published in 19 languages; he is a journalist and a television, radio and film producer and correspondent. His most recent book is the bestseller Experimental Man: What one man’s body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world. He is the Chief Correspondent of public radio’s Biotech Nation; and a columnist for Fortune. He is the Director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley. He has been a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, and a contributing editor for Wired, Discover and Conde Nast Portfolio. David writes for The New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications. He is a former special correspondent and producer for ABC Nightline and a correspondent for NOVA’s ScienceNOW! He has won numerous awards including the Magazine Story of the Year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His articles have twice been cited in nominations for National Magazine Awards, and his work has appeared twice in The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He is a graduate of Vassar College and now lives in San Francisco.

Dr. Maria Fadiman works with the human/environmental aspect of conservation. She received her Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and a B.A. from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was named one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers in 2006. Her research focuses on ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between people and plants. She works primarily in rural areas with indigenous people and subsistence agriculturalists. The majority of her research is in the rainforests of Latin America, mostly Ecuador. Projects include researching oil exploration in the Amazon; organic coffee production in the Galápagos; and the comparative use of rainforest palms and vines. Fadiman has worked with Mayan weavers in the Yucatan and studied medicinal plants with the Lacandon people in Chiapas, Mexico. She has researched alternative livelihoods in Africa for those who depend on tree poaching from the national parks in the savanna; explored house construction from natural materials in the Philippines; studied the Maori utilization of the Kauri tree in New Zealand; and worked with Tibetan children in teaching them to record their own ethnobotanical traditions. She currently is working on a global scale cross cultural study of people’s use of a cultural keystone species (the flora and fauna that are deemed important to the survival of a culture), and how these plants can act as larger ecosystem preservation incentives. Fadiman is an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University in the department of Geosciences.

Ken Goldberg is an inventor working at the intersection of art, robotics, and social media. At UC Berkeley, Ken teaches and supervises research in Robotics, Automation, and New Media. Ken holds dual degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania (1984) and MS and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon University (1990). He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1995 where he is craigslist Distinguished Professor of New Media. He is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with secondary appointments in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and the School of Information. Ken also holds an appointment in the UC San Francisco Medical School where he pursues research in medical robotics.

Ken has published over 150 peer-reviewed technical papers on algorithms for robotics, automation, and social information filtering; his inventions have been awarded eight US Patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), Co-Founder of the Berkeley Center for New Media, Co-Founder and CTO of Hybrid Wisdom Labs, Co-Founder of the Moxie Institute, and Founding Director of UC Berkeley’s Art, Technology, and Culture Lecture Series.

Ken’s art installations, based on his research, have been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Whitney Biennial, Berkeley Art Museum, SF Contemporary Jewish Museum, Pompidou Center, Buenos Aires Biennial, and the ICC in Tokyo. Ken co-wrote three award-winning Sundance documentary films, “The Tribe”, “Yelp”, and “Connected: An Autoblogography of Love, Death, and Technology.” His artwork is represented by the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.

Ken was awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellowship in 1995 by President Clinton, the National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship in 1994, the Joseph Engelberger Robotics Award in 2000, and elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.

Ken lives in Mill Valley, California with his daughters and wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.

CV and Details on research and teaching: http://goldberg.berkeley.edu

Details on artwork: http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/art

@Ken_Goldberg — goldberg@berkeley.edu

Music and storytelling have always been a vital part of Charles’ life growing up in the South. However, despite thorough tutelage from his staunchly religious grandmother, who insisted upon him learning church hymns as a child, Charles never aspired to walk the path of a performing artist. He dreamed of playing professional football. After a disappointing end to his athletic career, he then pursued a career in Corporate America with IBM. After two successful years as a sales representative, he left to spearhead a regional office of another large company. A year from the date he started, he was fired. It wasn’t until a friend encouraged his potential as a singer and actor that Charles’ love for music resurfaced.

In July1996, Charles, led by intuition, left the comforts of the South with $400 dollars for the bright lights of Broadway. He has since starred in some of the most celebrated and spectacular productions in American theatre history including Smokey Joe’s Café, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Lion King. He was the first African American to play the role of ‘Rocky’ in the European tour of The Rocky Horror Show. Charles adds guest starring roles in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, All My Children, the award winning independent film Anne B. Real, and the thought provoking comedy, Ed’s Trip. He received national acclaim and rave reviews for his 20-character portrayal in his one-man stage play Black Boy, based on best selling author Richard Wright’s autobiographical landmark, as well as his portrayal of Civil Rights activist and icon, W.E.B. Du Bois in the one-man production, The Smoke King. Charles recently toured the country in Never Fight a Shark in Water, a one-man play based on the life of Gregory Bright who was exonerated after spending 27 ½ years in  Louisiana’s Angola Penitentiary for wrongful conviction of second-degree murder.

Charles with fellow actor Gerald C. Rivers will present and tour the world premiere event Martin & Music in January 2012. The play chronicles the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while threading King’s love for music into his speeches and life experience.

Charles has entertained sold-out audiences around the world, including The John F. Kennedy Center The Turkish-American Association in Ankara, Turkey, and Rikers Island Correctional Facility. He speaks to groups and organizations and serves as facilitator of workshops based on his work as an artist in order to empower, encourage, and uplift  audiences everywhere.

Agape Media International released Charles’ second album Rushing Over Me project in fall 2010, after his debut album, I Am, was released to critical acclaim. Charles tours colleges, universities, and spiritual centers around the world performing his ‘Sole’ Music Concert Series: A journey through an African American quilt of song.

Intuitive Rebel, Charles’ landmark book about his journey in finding his own unique voice and life purpose will be released in Spring 2012.