14/48 Theater Festival
http://www.1448fest.com/
Known as “the world’s quickest theater festival,” the 14/48 Theater Festival takes places annually in Seattle, Washington, and harnesses the talent, ingenuity, and stamina of local playwrights, musicians, and actors in time-driven explorations of the creative process. Under a tight deadline and with minimal resources, a group of approximately 80 artists convene to create and present 14 entirely new works, each only ten minutes long yet perfectly clear in intent, plot, and theatrical direction.

Paula Boggs, jazz musician
http://www.myspace.com/paulaboggs
Most people would probably assume that having a corporate job and being a performing artist are mutually exclusive occupations—not so for Paula Boggs, the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Starbucks Corporation, who also happens to be a Seattle-based songwriter, musician, and performer. As a child, Boggs found joy in playing guitar and composing music. As an adult, she rediscovered her musical gifts through participation in the University of Washington’s Songwriters Certificate Program in 2006. By January of 2007, Boggs’ began to participate in “open mics” in the Seattle area, and since then has been enthusiastically received on many stages.

Zach Brock, jazz musician, “omnivore of improvisation”
http://www.zachbrock.com/
Zach Brock is a Brooklyn-based performer, composer, bandleader, and producer who has earned the reputation of being one of today’s most exciting independent innovators of jazz violin. In addition to performing with his own ensembles, he has collaborated with such luminaries as Stanley Clarke, Patricia Barber, Alice Coltrane, Mose Allison, Kurt Elling, Chris Potter, and John McLean, as well as ensembles such as The Mahavishnu Project and Eastern Blok.

Jerilyn Brusseau, co-founder of PeaceTrees Vietnam
http://www.peacetreesvietnam.org/the-team.htm
When her father served with the U.S. military in Vietnam, he could hardly have imagined that his daughter Jerilyn would become an integral part of “Peace Trees Vietnam,” an organization that decommissions land mines and UXBs in Quang Tri Province and plants trees in their place. Ms. Brusseau lends her expertise in fundraising, data management, and donor relations to undo the consequences of war, and works with people of Northeastern Vietnam to reclaim their land and create a safer environment for future generations.

John Seely Brown
http://www.johnseelybrown.com/
John Seely Brown, former head of Xerox and Palo Alto Research Center, is the cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). Brown’s broad and dynamic view of the human contexts in which technologies operate is often tempered with a critical examination of the idea that change is always synonymous with progress. His research interests range from the management of radical innovation to digital youth culture, digital media, and new forms of communication and learning.

Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone
http://www.hcz.org/
Imagine an interlocking web of comprehensive community outreach, educational, social, and medical services; then imagine a safety net woven so tightly that the children in the neighborhood can’t slip through. With a “cradle-to-college” approach that addresses the educational, social, and economic challenges that face inner city children and their families, Geoffrey Canada, the President and Chief Executive Officer for Harlem Children’s Zone, has created a rich network of support and outreach programs that encompass a 100-block radius in Harlem, NYC.

Cloud Appreciation Society based in Somerton, England
“Hot Pink Flying Saucers”
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/
With a membership totaling over 17,000, the Cloud Appreciation Society is an enthusiastic organization devoted to banishing the “banality of blue-sky thinking” one cumulus at a time. Their Web site is a veritable clearinghouse of all things cloud—one will find photographs, artworks, essays and poetry about clouds and even samples of music for cloud watching. “Hot Pink Flying Saucers” is the U.S. edition of the Society’s publication of cloud photography. It serves as a beautiful reminder to everyone to find a few moments in the day to gaze up and let your imagination wander among the ever-shifting shapes of the sky.

Bonnie Dunbar, The Museum of Flight
http://www.museumofflight.org/
Since 2005, retired NASA astronaut Bonnie Dunbar has been the President and CEO of the Museum of Flight, located in Seattle, Washington. This highly-accomplished Washington native became an astronaut in 1978. Career highlights include being a veteran of five space-shuttle missions, two of which docked at the Mir Space Station. Ms. Dunbar spent a total of over 50 days living outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, and is widely regarded as one of America’s finest female astronauts.

Carol Dweck, Stanford University
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~dweck/
How does our self-conception motivate and shape our behavior? Where do our notions about ourselves derive from, and how does that impact the choices we make? Social Psychologist, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, and author, Carol Dweck researches and explores these questions. She posits that we should encourage people to celebrate the process of learning by rewarding effort, not only result, and to view mistakes as opportunities for personal growth.

Nick Fortugno, Rebel Monkey
http://www.rebelmonkey.com/
Fortugno is Chief Creative Officer of Rebel Monkey, a New York City-based game development studio, co-founded with Margaret Wallace, that conceptualizes and designs online casual games. He also teaches game design and interactive narrative design at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Fortugno’s most recent work revolves around the concepts of real-time, cooperative gaming and emphasizes team-based, collaborative play.

Buckminster Fuller Institute
http://www.bfi.org/
The innovative theories and designs of architect, designer, idealist, social thinker, and humanitarian Buckminster Fuller continue to flourish through the comprehensive and interdisciplinary work of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. BFI’s programs and initiatives provide an atmosphere of hands-on exploration and critical inquiry and serve to promote and develop ethical and sustainable design that addresses both global trends and local needs.

Alison Gopnik
http://alisongopnik.com/
Alison Gopnik is a Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, and an international leader in the field of children’s learning. Through her groundbreaking studies of the nature of early childhood cognitive thought processes, she posits that the ways in which a child creates and changes its worldviews through the close observation of real phenomena, active experimental investigation, and a process of guided apprenticeship, can provide a lifetime model for personal growth and intellectual development.

David Gonzalez
http://www.davidgonzalez.com/frame.html
David Gonzalez is a Bronx-born, master storyteller, playwright and musician who engages language with a rhythm and musicality drawn from his rich cultural Puerto Rican/Cuban heritage and fueled by his deep appreciation and respect for the storytelling and theatrical traditions of many cultures around the globe. With his limitless imagination and fluid ability to embody a wide variety of characters, Gonzalez seamlessly brings contemporary relevance to the age-old art of storytelling.

Maxine Greene
http://lcinstitute.org
Maxine Greene has been the Philosopher-in-Residence at Lincoln Center Institute since 1976, and she is also the founder of the Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination. As a highly regarded educator, author, and social activist, Greene has boldly led the charge to encourage students to realize their deep connection to, and responsibility for, not only their own individual experience, but also to other human beings who share this world.

Harvard Negotiation Project
http://www.pon.harvard.edu/about/
The Program on Negotiation (PON) is a university consortium dedicated to developing the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. With an interdisciplinary approach taken from numerous fields of study including law, business, government, psychology, economics, anthropology, and education, PON strives to connect rigorous research and scholarship with a deep understanding of practice. PON publishes teaching materials, and presents podcasts, discussions, classes, lectures, and conferences.

Eric Haseltine
http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=431
Eric Haseltine is a neuroscientist who has applied new discoveries about the human brain in fields as diverse as aerospace technology, virtual reality, special effects, journalism, entertainment, and, most recently, national security and intelligence. He is also the former Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering in charge of research and development and Director of Engineering for Hughes Aircraft. Among his most recent accomplishments, Haseltine has lent his broad expertise to envisioning “game changing” defense technologies for the U.S. intelligence community.

David Herskovits
http://targetmargin.org/davidbio.html
David Herskovits is the Founder and Artistic Director of the experimental theatrical company Target Margin Theater, located in Brooklyn, New York. David’s vision is founded on the principle that works of art that diverge from strict reality have the ability to reveal powerful truths. Through creative risk-taking combined with a sense of play and willingness to embrace mystery and contradiction, Herskovits and his dedicated ensemble invigorate both canonical and lesser-known texts to present engaging, entertaining, and thought provoking theatrical productions.

Luke Keller
http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/depts/physics/facresearch/luke/
Luke Keller, Associate Professor of Physics at Ithaca College has given himself the ambitious task of bringing the complex study of star formation and planetary systems down to earth and into the classroom. Currently, Keller’s work focuses on interactive teaching and performance-based learning methods for college-level introductory science in addition to pursuing his research interests in the areas of astrophysics and optics.

Richard Lewis
http://www.touchstonecenter.net/home.html
Richard Lewis is an educator and author of numerous essays and books, including Living By Wonder: The Imaginative Life of Childhood. He is also the founder and director of The Touchstone Center, a New York City-based, non-profit organization devoted to the creation of interdisciplinary, educational arts programs that expand the educational possibilities deriving from our innate creativity and sense of exploration, discovery, and play.

Brice Marden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brice_Marden
Brice Marden is a New York-based, minimalist painter whose body of work includes both muted and luminous monochrome paintings and a preoccupation with quiet, rectangular forms, and intertwined, calligraphic lines. His compositions and color choices are often inspired by intensely personal encounters with a particular idea, person, or place. For Marden, painting is a continual and ongoing process of observation, introspection, revision, and experimentation.

David McConville
http://www.elumenati.com/
Inspired by the geodesic dome structure of Buckminster Fuller, artist, inventor, and digital pioneer David McConville creates immersive, virtual environments through the use of a single projector that can fill a variety of room shapes and has an infinite depth of focus. McConville and his innovative design team at Elumenati create visualization tools that have profound educational applications for raising awareness of our interconnectedness both to our immediate environment and to the larger world and universe we inhabit.

MIT Media Lab
http://www.media.mit.edu/about
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, the future of sustainable vehicle technology is receiving a complete overhaul thanks to the concept of the Stackable Smart Car. Envisioned as a lithium battery-powered, modular system, this vehicle rides on “electric robot wheels” that allow for the car to be collapsible, stackable, and spin on a dime. The implications of this kind of car design could potentially dramatically improve the environmental transportation problems that have been created by conventional cars, especially in urban areas.

Oblique Strategies
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/
Oblique Strategies is a collaborative, interactive deck of cards that function as a creative oracle of sorts, designed by musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt. Each card contains either a word, phrase, or image that can be referred to for inspiration and/or as a meditative, guiding thought. The cards can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind), or singularly from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation.

Andrea Peterson
http://www.ccsso.org/projects/national_teacher_of_the_year/national_teachers/9842.cfm
Andrea Peterson is an elementary-school music teacher from Granite Falls, Washington, and the 2007 recipient of the prestigious National Teacher of the Year Award. Initially armed only with a minimal budget, her skill as a team builder, and the strong belief that a music curriculum can enrich all aspects of the educational process, Peterson completely revitalized her local elementary- and high-school music programs, and, in the process, created a template for success that can undoubtedly inspire other regional school systems around the country.

V.S. Ramachandran
http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html
V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. He has also lectured widely on the nature of art in regard to visual perception and the brain.

Rockwell Group
http://rockwellgroup.com/
Rockwell Group is an award-winning, cross-disciplinary, 250-person architecture and design practice founded by David Rockwell. Based in New York City, Rockwell Group specializes in hospitality, cultural, healthcare, theater, and film design. His firm has created a signature design style that is an “adventure playground,” inspired in equal measure by fine art, vernacular architecture, and old-fashioned Hollywood glamor, and vaudevillian entertainment spectacle.

Mark Roth
http://labs.fhcrc.org/roth/
Dr. Mark Roth is a cell biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and 2007 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in the area of reversible metabolic hibernation, aka “suspended animation.” The remarkable applications for his line of research include the potential to “suspend” human organs in transplant procedures, and to improve clinical treatments for major health events such as trauma, stroke, and cancer.

Katie Salen
http://www.gamersmob.com/
Katie Salen is an Associate Professor in the Design and Technology, Parsons The New School for Design, and co-author of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (2004, MIT Press). Salen also writes extensively on game design and theory, and has developed a critical practice that includes designing games of many different types, from big games, to downloadable games to conference games and game-hybrids that take gaming as a point of departure.

Bartlett Sher
http://www.intiman.org/about/bsher.html
As a young man, Bartlett Sher fell in love with the craft of directing plays; this has since brought him on an incredible journey of education and mentorship, and ultimately to the mastery of this creative and challenging vocation. Sher currently serves as the Artistic Director of the Intiman Theater in Seattle, Washington, and is also the Director in Residence at the Lincoln Center Theater. Here he received a 2009 Tony Award Nomination for his production of August Wilson’s play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and a 2008 Tony Award for South Pacific.

Julie Taymor
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0853380/bio
A world-renowned director of theater, opera, and film, Julie Taymor started out as a puppeteer, a vocation which brought her acclaim. Her formative years were spent abroad, absorbing the fascinating theatrical traditions and folklore of Sri Lanka, India, Japan, and Indonesia. Taymor’s adventurous life has inspired and informed her remarkable cross-genre and multicultural productions.

Twyla Tharp
http://www.twylatharp.org/bio.shtml
Twyla Tharp is considered as one of the most inventive choreographers since the seventies. After cuting her teeth as a dancer in the company of another giant of contemporary dance—Paul Taylor—she started her own company and pioneered the so-called “crossover” dance, which combines ballet and contemporary techniques. She has also used striking musical scores that added jazz and pop to the classical canon. Tharp is a winner of numerous awards, including an Emmy and a Tony. Her work has graced stages around the world, on Broadway, and in Hollywood films.

United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates School
http://www.ocs.usmc.mil/#
Those who are admitted to the USMC Officer’s Candidates school submit to a rigorous program of academic, physical, and mental training and conditioning that tests endurance, discipline, and aptitude for leadership in the armed forces. One of the core leadership principles that runs throughout candidates’ training is the importance of team building that promotes mutual confidence and inspires trust, crucial elements in the relationship between soldiers and commanders as they accomplish their missions.

Walt Disney Imagineering
http://corporate.disney.go.com/careers/who_imagineering.html
“Imagineering” is a term coined by the Walt Disney Corporation to describe how its team of inventors brings magic to life, in the form of resorts, theme parks, attractions, hotels, regional entertainment venues, and new media technology projects. Disney’s Imagineers are a diverse and talented corps of hundreds of visionary designers, writers, computer animators, project managers, and engineers.

Eric Walton
http://www.ericwalton.com/
How can a card trick change your life? New York City-based magician and slight-of-hand artist Eric Walton has lived the answer to this question ever since the tender age of eight, when he fell in love with the art of magic and illusion. Since 1999, Walton has performed internationally, and is widely recognized as a master of prestidigitation and the conjuring arts.

X Prize Foundation
http://www.xprize.org/
The X Prize Foundation is a non-profit, philanthropic institute that designs and manages public competitions for the benefit of humanity. As a celebration of technological innovation and creative problem solving, the X Prize promotes international collaboration across disciplines in order to solve pressing issues in the fields of space exploration, life sciences, energy and development, education, and global development.

Benjamin Zander
http://www.benjaminzander.com/
Benjamin Zander is the Conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and a faculty member of the New England Conservatory. He also lectures widely on the subjects of leadership and personal development, and is the co-author, with Rosamund Zander, of The Art of Possibility. Through a discussion of his own career and experiences Zander examines the role that unmediated joy and collaboration play in creative expression. He encourages readers to “lift off from a world of struggle and sail into a vast universe of possibility.”

Rosamund Zander
http://www.rosamundzander.com/
Rosamund Zander is a family therapist, executive coach, and co-author, with Benjamin Zander, of The Art of Possibility. With insights gained from her experiences working in private practice and workshop settings, she offers cognitive tools that facilitate reflection, growth, and healing that aim to benefit both personal and professional relationships.