Antionette D. Carroll is the Founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers and challenges community members to develop solutions addressing personal and structural racism. Throughout her career, Antionette has worked for social justice, human rights, and diversity and inclusion nonprofits - with her last position being head of communications for Diversity Awareness Partnership. Currently, Antionette is the Chair Emeritus of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of AIGA: The Professional Association of Design. At the local level, she is also serving as the President of AIGA St. Louis and co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference.

Antionette is an active community volunteer, named the Founding Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of AIGA: The Professional Association of Design in 2014. Currently, she’s the Chair Emerita of the Task Force working on long-term strategic initiatives such as the Design Census Program with Google and national Inclusivity in Design Summit. With her encouragement, AIGA created the first Racial Justice by Design program, with Antionette co-organizing and assuming the role of online producer for the national Town Hall in 2016.  At the local level, she is currently serving as the President of AIGA St. Louis and co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference. Antionette also sits on several awards and programming committees for local and national non-profits, including the steering committee for The City of St. Louis’ Resiliency Office, supported by Rockefeller Foundation and formerly the founding anti-bias/anti-racism committee for City Garden Montessori School.

Alexa is a leading expert on subculture and innovation from unlikely places. She is the co-author of The Misfit Economy (Simon & Schuster), a book that explores underground and informal innovation. Alexa works to create bridges and opportunities for misfit subcultures within the formal economy. She is the Founder of Wisdom Hackers, an incubator for philosophical inquiry. And the Co-Founder of the League of Intrapreneurs, a movement to create change from within incumbent systems and big organizations.

Alexa has written and appeared in Fast Company, Forbes, Wired, Dazed and Confused, VICE, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times and MTV. She is a regular commentator on topics related to economic transition, misfit subculture, social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship and technology angst. She received her BA from Brown University and a MSc. from Oxford University. When not operating in the world as Alexa, you can find her playing the Amish Futurist, an alter ego bringing Socratic inquiry to the tech scene. WEBSITE >  

Using innovation, strategy & design Dagny's work pushes the boundaries of how we think about everyday decisions and builds the capacity in others to have real impact on today’s pressing issues. She is the co-founder and CEO of Vessel, a library system for reusable coffee cups to disrupt the disposable cup sector. 

Her appointment with non-profit, business and government players has traversed five continents and navigates complexity to forge deeper understanding and actionable interventions for increased sustainability and positive peace. With a foundation in international peace, conflict & development, her work bolsters others and addresses “wicked problems” through novel ventures, engaging and sound frameworks, interventions, workshops, popular education pieces and media.

She teaches at Parsons The New School for Design, was formerly the Managing Director of Strategic Global Affairs for New Hope Natural Media and is co-founder of Thread Count Creative and Vessel. A Tishman Scholarship recipient for “outstanding achievement in sustainability,” and a Ph.D (c) at Universitat Jaume I in Spain, Dagny has spoken at major conferences globally including United Nations Habitat II, Structures for Inclusion, Green Festivals and Natural Products Expo West.

As an experienced actioner and ideator, she understands that a sustainable paradigm for the future is not simply the pursuit of a healthy environment, but a revolution in the understanding of interconnectedness. Website > 

Lee-Sean is a designer, community builder, and educator. He is cofounder and creative director of Foossa, a strategy and design consultancy with a focus on social innovation. Before Foossa, Lee-Sean started the design practice at Purpose, a consultancy and incubator for social movements, and served as creative director for Meu Rio (now Nossas Cidades), a Brazilian organization working to foster civic participation among young people. Lee-Sean is also faculty member at the School of Visual Arts MFA Design for Social Innovation. He regular writes and presents workshops on storytelling, community building, and the power of design in social innovation.He has worked on five continents and has collaborated with organizations including the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, the Service Employees International Union, the Dalai Lama Center, the Brazil Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Grammy Foundation, the Kigali Genocide Memorial, and the Guggenheim Museum. WEBSITE >

Recognized as one of the Most Innovative People in 2013, one of the most influential women in technology in 2011, one of the inaugural top young innovators for MIT Technology Review and one of the 40 most influential designers, Natalie Jeremijenko directs the Environmental Health Clinic at NYU. She is also an Associate Professor for NYU's Visual Art Department and is affiliated with the Computer Science Department and Environmental Studies program. Previously, she was a member of the Visual Arts faculty at UCSD, Faculty of Engineering at Yale University, a visiting professor at Royal College of Art in London, a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Public Understanding of Science at Michigan State University, and a Visiting Global Distinguished Professor at they NYU College of Arts and Sciences. She holds degrees in biochemistry, engineering, neuroscience and the History and Philosophy of Science. WEBSITE >

Eli spent the previous ten years designing and delivering programs to support social entrepreneurs in Toronto and New York City. During his ten year stint at the Centre for Social Innovation, Eli created a grant-making program for social enterprises, a microloan fund for social entrepreneurs and a number of sector-specific accelerator programs. Prior to his work with CSI, Eli managed the research program at the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy and picked up an MA focused on the intersection of organization culture, organizational structure and technology. Eli has deep expertise in community-building, network development and multi-stakeholder engagement. 

Garance is a social entrepreneur, international system builder and innovation strategist. She is the founder of Coda, a global network of grassroots problem solvers exchanging how-tos across continents. Born and raised in Paris, France, she started her career as a concert pianist at the age of 3. Later, when she moved to the United States to continue her performance studies, she pursued her passion for political theory and design practices. She has designed organizational structures, national and local health care systems, educational programs, impact evaluations and poverty relief strategies for institutions, corporations and governments in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. She earned a Master of Public Administration from Cornell University. Garance's philosophy is rooted in challenging the notion of institutionalized expertise and its deriving power structures. She has used participatory design principles in her work with the US Congress, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Clinton Global Initiative, Purpose, The Lowline, Community Solutions, and Nesta. As a speaker and educator, she has taught her unique participatory design framework at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Parsons, Brown, and to high-level government officials. LinkedIn

As day job, Jess leads the 202020 Vision – a collective impact campaign that is increasing and improving urban green space by 20% by 2020. Jess is founded Grow it Local - campaign that seeks to improve urban and suburban food resilience by encouraging small-scale urban farming through bribery (amazing dinner) and cheap tricks (very good-looking people). Grow it Local is also the vehicle through which Jess realised her vision of doing 80s Garden Aerobics in full fluoro lycra alongside Costa Georgiadis during a busy lunchtime in Swanson Street. She is theTEDxSydney food curator. In 2012 she introduced the idea of crowd-farming, and in 2015 she based the day’s menu around the idea of ‘rebel food’ to discourage supermarket diets and broaden the food spectrum to include bugs, weeds, ugly food and wasted cuts of meat and seafood. 

She co-created the Elizabeth Street Gallery, a ‘guerilla’ long-form photo essay gallery located (initially illegally) on an ugly wall on Elizabeth Street. She has worked with lots of interesting groups, businesses and agencies including Republic of Everyone, Right Angle Studio, AMPlify, Librarians, local council, State Government. She has won some awards. WEBSITE > 

Adam Morris is one of Australia’s most respected Creative Directors and designers. Creative Director, co-founder of Studio Thick, Adam is a veteran Creative Director, having held some of the country’s most coveted senior creative posts; as Creative Director at DT, Digital Creative Director for the Ogilvy group in Melbourne and Digital Director at Cornwell.

Through his proficiency in information architecture, user experience design and digital marketing, Adam has led multiple award-winning projects for the world’s most successful brands across Europe and Australia. 

Adam is a co-founder of Thick. He is passionate about the power of design to improve people's lives, and guides our clients through relevant and effective design processes to ensure their experiences, services and products deliver genuine and meaningful value.

Social entrepreneur and a conscious business netweaver, Tomás co-founded Goma a co-owning space and collaborative ecosystem of social entrepreneurs and two Hubs of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. Business administrator with a master in digital communication, Tomás is a specialist on collaborative and sustainable economies, is a co-leader of B Corps movement in Brazil, member of the board of Coca-Cola Brazil’s foundation and a teacher at Brazil’s leading social innovation schools. Invited in 2013 to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss technologies for social innovation and crowdfunding, Tomás is based now in Rio de Janeiro focusing his work, studies and lectures on fostering the shift of old businesses paradigms that are based on competitive and EGOcentric culture to ECOcentric and collaborative economical life supporting systems.

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Carol Shapiro, an innovator in the field of criminal and social justice for over 35 years, is known largely for her integration of asset and family network tools for community and correctional use. Carol is the Founder and served as President of Family Justice, a non-profit focused on tapping the strengths of families and their social networks to break cycles of victimization and justice system involvement. Among her many awards and honors for social entrepreneurship, Carol is an Ashoka fellow and her start-up, La Bodega de la Familia received an Innovation in American Government award under the auspices of the Vera Institute of Justice. Carol was an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Institute for Social and Economic Policy and Research. During her tenure at Columbia, Carol taught graduate seminars on Rethinking Justice as well as wrote on the topic of scaling innovation in this new technical and global economy. WEBSITE >

In all his professional endeavors Luis has embraced the power of combining creativity & a deep curiosity about the world. Finding the right elements with which to communicate projects and ideas are a ritual of discovery in his work as Creative Director of More Starch (A communication studio which he co-founded 4 years ago.) Their clients include NGOs such as I.M.C.O, Article 19, Arena Electoral, U.N.F.P.A, the Hewlett Foundation as well as large cultural events such as Televisa’s TagCDMX, The Fénix Film Awards, Campus Party Mexico and Catapulta Fest.

His background in Film (NYU) and Geekery (since birth) have given him an unusual insight which he passionately exploits as he works with his the talented team to find the best ways to communicate great ideas. This along side with his diverse cultural background, He was born in Mexico City but grew up in Houston, Tx followed by 8 years in NYC, has helped him understand and more importantly empathise with a the diverse audiences he comes across. WEBSITE >

Photo credit: Francesco Vicenzi 

Melbourne-based electronic producer Monkey Marc writes sonically rugged, politically charged music in his solar-powered studio (that he build in a shipping container) by day, and plays it on his solar-powered soundsystem by night. For over 15 years, Monkey Marc has worked with indigenous youth and elders in more than 30 communities around Australia. He has run songwriting, music recording and video editing workshops, using hip hop, reggae and rock music and music videos as an outlet for creativity in these remote communities.

Marc has pioneered Transfer of Knowledge projects, which transform traditional Dreamtime stories into modern songs. This helps to strengthen, preserve and reinvigorate sacred indigenous knowledge. WEBSITE >

Chris's talents and skills are in the service of making our world a more vibrant, equitable, and interesting place.  He and his partners are building a guild for slow entrepreneurship called Prime Produce.  The 8,000 sq ft space in Hell's Kitchen is unequal parts cafe, living room, workshop, coworking space, roof top garden, and they have an upstate retreat space as well. Opening in the spring of 2015, it will be a place for unlike minds who share like hearts to make time for things that matter.  Chris also has the pleasure of serving on the board of directors that guides the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of NYC and is the Co City Director of the NYC Chapter of House of Genius.WEBSITE >

Megan Fath is an empathetic designer who practices research to understand users’ needs and identify design opportunities. A passionate, avid matchmaker for research and design, she leads innovation projects and facilitates workshops to help transform the ways organizations see and act on change. In addition to her consulting work, Megan is an adjunct faculty at SVA and IIT Institute of Design, teaching graduate courses on constructing disruptive insight, imagining alternatives to existing tools and methods, and advising thesis projects. As a former director at Conifer Research, she shaped the design vision and strategy, growing the firm’s design practice and leading the venture of opening a new office. Megan’s thoughts on intersections of research and design are the focus of her graduate courses as well as published topics in several industry publications.WEBSITE >

Ron is a highly decorated Fighter Pilot, Test Pilot, Explorer, Entrepreneur, Astronaut, Aquanaut, Humanitarian and Artist who believes that appropriately designed and targeted social enterprise can solve many of the problems facing our world.

Ron traveled 71,075,867 miles in 2,842 orbits of our planet over 178 days in space and 27 hours of Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) during four spacewalks. He flew on both the US Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Ron is also an aquanaut and has conducted research in Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research laboratory.

Presently, Ron is the Chief Pilot of the commercial space company World View Enterprises and is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Orbital Perspective – Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture From A Journey of 71 Million Miles”.

Image: NGV.com.au

Pedro Reyes is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist who uses sculpture, architecture, video, performance and participation. His works aims to increase individual or collective agency in social, environmental or educational situations.He has challenged Mexico gun culture, by turning firearms into musical instruments, set up a people's UN and set up a temporary clinic with the mission of treating various kinds of urban malaise. At the Sanatorium, therapies such as trust-building games and hypnosis are offered to combat common problems such as loneliness and stress.WEBSITE >  

In 2007, after turning down his dream job offer as a corporate high-flyer, Simon moved from Australia to South Africa to immerse himself in his true passion: development aid. There he discovered that the biggest problem faced by NGOs and social entrepreneurs is a lack of funding. Since then he has launched three social businesses of his own, all focused on revolutionising the way society thinks about and engages in philanthropy.

Simon’s latest venture is an ethical home products company. Its flagship product is Who Gives A Crap, an environmentally friendly toilet paper that uses 50% of its profits to build toilets in the developing world. He is also well known for his work as co-founder of Shebeen, Australia’s first non-profit bar. Shebeen sells exotic beer and wine from the developing world with the profit from each sale supporting a project in that particular drink’s country of origin.

Simon’s work has been written up by The Standford Social Innovation Review and The New York Times. In 2010 he became Australia’s first Fellow of The Unreasonable Institute, in 2011 he was recognised by The Age’s Melbourne Magazine as one of Melbourne’s Top 100 Most Influential People, and in 2013 he was shortlisted for Young Australian of the Year. WEBSITE >

Described as endlessly optimistic, Nancy is a strategic futurist with a drive to help enterprise organizations and visionary leaders transform to meet the escalating expectations ahead. Recognized as one of the world’s top female futurists, she has spent her career building, shaping and evolving a portfolio of over $50 billion worth of major global brands with her unique abilities to sense and synthesize the shifts ahead and guide those ready to build more relevant and sustainable solutions for us all. With an early career at influential ad agencies in NY, Chicago, and LA, Nancy has spent the past 10 years as Founder/CEO of Play Big Inc, a strategic inspiration company, applying her broad understanding of the disruptive cultural and technological shifts we’re facing.

Her extensive knowledge of the drivers shaping our future (and redefining all business) have guided transformation projects with The Coca Cola Company, Brinker International, Sprint, Nestle, Acumen, Energizer, Mercedes Benz, NRG and many other conic Fortune 500 companies and emergent tech start-ups. Nancy is also regularly invited to share her perspectives via keynote talks with C-suite leaders around the globe in a wide range of industries including entertainment, travel, food, business, retail, homebuilding, culture/talent and more. Last year she helped shape an Artificial Intelligence start-up and then produced created a 3-day business summit that invited corporate leaders to better understand how emerging technologies such as AI, Robotics, Nanotechology, 3D Printing, Cybersecurity, and Virtual Reality will change business (and society) in the years ahead. 

Nancy has been ranked as one of the World’s Top Female Futurists (research by Ross Dawson) and was voted 7th on the Women of Influence - Future of Leadership (Women Speakers Association). She was the first global TEDx licensee and currently leads a youth-led team to produce one of the globe’s largest TEDx events for teens. A part of several thought-leader collectives, she has also recently joined the board of directors for GMDC, a leading trade organization guiding the future of retail. 

Dr Stuart Candy is an experiential futurist on a mission to bring foresight to life, aiming to use immersive, participatory and guerrilla futures interventions to pattern a wiser and more vital culture of public imagination. His work has appeared at conferences and museums around the world, on the Discovery Channel, and in the pages of Wired magazine and The Economist. Often sought out for strategic input on unusual initiatives, he has worked with organisations including the United Nations Development Programme, the University of Oxford, the Sydney Opera House, UNESCO, IDEO, Arup, Interface, and the government of Singapore. He recently co-created the award-winning imagination game The Thing From The Future, and helped to design the 2016 Museum of the Future at the World Government Summit in Dubai. He is currently Director of the Situation Lab and a tenure-track professor in the world's first hybrid foresight/design program, at OCAD University in Toronto. Stuart is a two-time Graduate Degree Fellow of the East-West Center (Hawaii), and a Fellow of The Long Now Foundation (San Francisco), the INK Conference (India), and the Museum of Tomorrow (Rio de Janeiro).Website

Sustainability provocateur and cultural protagonist Dr. Leyla Acaroglu challenges people to think differently about how the world works. As an award winning designer, UNEP Champion of the Earth, sociologist, and entrepreneur, she developed the Disruptive Design Method and designs cerebrally activating experiences, gamified toolkits, and unique educational experiences that help people make the status quo obsolete. Her mainstage TED talkon sustainability has been viewed over a million times, and she leads presentations around the world on activating positive social change through creative interventions.  

Award winning designer Trent Jansen focuses on producing sustainable designs, with pieces that can connect with the user and bypass the disposable mentality of many of today’s modern designs. In addition to many awards and accolades he was the joint winner of the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award in 2008 and the 2010 Edra Design Residency at Space Furniture – a residency established to cultivate local talent and bridge the manufacturing gap by connecting Australian designers with world-leading Italian manufacturers.

In late 2004 Trent Jansen opened his own studio in Sydney, Australia. Jansen’s practice is for the most part focused on creating honest and poetic sustainable design, developing pieces that aim to maintain a lasting relationship with their user. This work becomes a life long companion instead of a disposable thing, fostering meaningful relationships through the honesty and personality that this work possesses.

Trent Jansen’s work has been featured in such design publications as: I.D. - ‘The International Design Magazine - New + Notable 2008’, &Fork - ‘100 of the World’s Most Interesting Product Designers’ - Phaidon Press Limited, 2007 and Open Doors - ‘Fresh Thinking in Australian Architecture and Interiors’ - Ripe Off The Press, 2007. WEBSITE>

Dr. Nynke Tromp is an assistant professor Social Design & Behaviour Change at the department of Industrial Design, Delft University. She working as a social designer in practice at Reframing Studio and continues her work to the value of design in counteracting social problems. Tromp is intrigued by the fact that products change behaviour, often without people being aware of it, and often unintentionally. The central question to her studies is: how can we let this power of design work in favour of all of us and design it to promote pro-social behaviour?  Tromp works on the idea of social challenges being like organ donation, political engagement of citizens, and recovery from psychosis. In 2013, she won the Rotterdam Design Prize for temstem, a smartphone application to help people cope with hearing voices (developed at Reframing Studio). Currently, she is engaged in redesigning the Dutch mental health care sector, curbing the trade in ivory and rhino horn, and exploring the future of prisons.

Jennings is a designer with over a decade of experience in interaction and service design, digital strategy, and client services. His approach to creative problem solving blends techniques of storytelling, content strategy, and participatory design.

Jennings has worked with the NFL making features and digital content strategy. He also led a team in interaction and user experience for the management of assets at his favorite train company: NYC Subways. In 2015, Jennings served as a Code for America Fellow leading a team in the creation of a product to relieve financial hardship for the residents of one of America's most diverse cities, Albuquerque, NM.

Recently he's helped companies in NYC, SF, and Berkeley who are building lasting and mission driven products and services including Prudential's Spirit Awards for Volunteers and their Master of Love Campaign, Calthorpe Associates with a Sustainability Focused Urban Planning software, and Flite, a startup providing innovative advertising solutions to the New York Times and VICE Media.

Jennings is currently the Editorial Strategist for the Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Arts. His role guides teams in building comprehensive strategies for creating, sharing, and ensuing compelling narratives. He does so utilizing design tools such as rapid prototyping, design research, and data-driven decision making (both qualitative and quantitative), then formulating those insights into actionable strategies to build content around the games so many gamers love and enjoy.

Jennings earned his masters in Interaction Design from the School of Visual Arts in NYC in 2014, and his bachelors in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006. Any given weekend you can find him riding a skateboard and eating a pastry in sunny Venice Beach with his lovely wife Erin, and their baby boy, Quiller.

Raf's main purpose in life is to help create a better world. His broad range of experience enables him to move easily between different sectors. Raf enjoys adding value wherever possible and relishes new challenges.

Raf is very passionate about developing a new generation of leaders and their disruptive technologies. He has spent many years examining the friction between the public and private space and is especially interested in the reform of our monetary, welfare and tax systems, as well as in the developing social investment and peer to peer sector. Raf is keen to develop a new social contract. His other areas of focus include: a universal basic income, overt monetary financing, participatory democracy, decentralization and a more strategic approach to policy development.

Raf is currently a Christchurch City Councillor and chair of the Strategy and Finance committee. His main focus has been the Council's financial position as well as its strategic direction and risk management.

After graduating from the University of Manchester in 1987 with a degree in Economics and Social Studies, Raf spent 11 years trading global markets for investment banks in London. In 2000, he left banking to help start up and develop Trucost, which helps companies measure their environmental footprint in monetary terms. In 2002, he moved to New Zealand with his young family and has since been actively involved as a volunteer and trustee with Christchurch Budget Services, Pillars, Volunteer Army Foundation, Christchurch Arts Festival, as well as investing in and helping out early stage companies. He has a Grad Dip Arts in Political science, and a Masters in International Law and Politics from the University of Canterbury.

Jennifer Whitty is a sustainable design educator, researcher, designer, facilitator, writer and activist. Originally from Ireland, she teaches and practices at Massey University’s School of Design in New Zealand as Senior Lecturer of Fashion Design. She is the director and co-founder of Space Between a social enterprise for fashion. Her practice led research work is focused on developing new green business models and systems for alternative ecologies of fashion practice, which are connected to and have an impact on society. She strongly believes in the positive aspects that fashion can impart to both the individual and to our culture. Jennifer is involved in taking action to harness this power and to catalyse change in the current system by developing alternative roles for the fashion designer through activism and social innovation. She asks can we open up fashion to foster community, collaboration and innovation to provide a new vision and practice for fashion? Her work is informed by her industry experience in the fashion centres of Paris, New York and London. Her work has been exhibited in globally and in addition to her post in NZ she has been a visiting lecturer in Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, UK, China and Australia.

Afroz Shah, is an Indian lawyer from Mumbai, with a passion for the oceans having initiated the world’s largest beach clean-up project.

In October 2015, Shah and his neighbor Harbansh Mathur, an 84-year-old who has since passed away, were frustrated with the piles of decomposing waste that had washed up and completely overwhelmed the city’s Versova beach. Determined to do something about it, the pair started cleaning up the beach themselves, one piece of rubbish at a time.

Every weekend since, Shah has inspired volunteers to join him – from lavish Bollywood to hardworking Dharavi, from schoolchildren to politicians, the old and the young.  They have been turning up at Versova for what Shah calls "a date with the ocean", but what in reality means laboring shin-deep in rotting garbage under the scorching Indian sun.

Afroz was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program in 2016. 

Kyle Wiens is the co-founder of iFixit, the repair community internationally renowned for open source repair manuals and product teardowns. iFixit empowers millions of people to repair their broken stuff every month. Kyle has testified on electronic exports before the International Trade Commission and is actively involved in developing global environmental standards.

Kyle regularly speaks on design for repair, service documentation, and sustainable electronics. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Wired, Popular Mechanics and the Wall Street Journal.

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Julia is passionate about growing open communities. Since 2013, she has put her background in design and media studies to use as a project lead for the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and as a consultant for The Engine Room. 

Julia has been running multiple community projects that foster the reuse of open data, such as Germany’s first Civic Tech Incubator ‘Stadt Land Code’ and a series of hackathons on transport, energy and citizen science. Code for Germany, her latest project in collaboration with Code for America, is a civic tech community with 25 labs and more than 350 members all across Germany.

Julia leads open data projects in close collaboration with companies and governments alike. She also enjoys speaking at conferences. In 2015 she co-organized the international Code for All Summit in New York, a two-day conference that brought together leading experts and practitioners in civic tech. In 2016 she will be kicking off a prototype fund for civic tech projects in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany.

Internationally awarded product designers and creators with experience working in Netherlands, Denmark, Berlin and Latvia. Educated in Design Academy Eindhoven (rated as top 5 university for conceptual design in the world). After winning New Talent Awards in Copenhagen- established a design studio “Chudy & Grase”. We developed interior products and in just a half year, we landed contracts with big manufacturers and produced our first series of furniture. In 2015 we moved to Berlin and founded MIITO with the aim to bring our first consumer electronic product to the mass market.

Jermey McKane, an Artist who prefers underwater photography as his medium, has traveled the world to capture the human form in its most graceful element, water. Using water and camera, he captures the movement and grace of fabric-draped human forms underwater. McKane is working with NOAA, TBA21, 5GYRES and Take3 Australia Conservation groups to urge his viewers think differently on how we dispose of plastic. Beyond that, his latest installation LUCiD pushes further to showcase innovative people around the globe who find new ways to keep trash out of the ocean and how to re-use it. His work has appeared in Artopia – Dallas Contemporary Museum, Art + Advocacy, CRE8 Magazine, Patron Magazine, and in galleries across Texas including Cohn Drennan, Kettle Art, The Mckinney Avenue Contemporary Art Museum, Rising, LEVEL Gallery, Tractorbeam Gallery, and public new media installations at One Arts Plaza in the Nations Largest Arts District. LUCiD has been shown in Australia, Colombia, France, Chile and select markets around the United States.

In addition to this work, co-collaborator Ashley Baxter and McKane created FOUND, a project that is part of LUCiD. While McKane and his model Ashley Baxter were filming on Kamilo Beach, the most polluted beach in America, they had the idea to research where each identifiable piece came from. The idea was that if we knew that the responsibility was always handed off with lack of accountability perhaps people would think different about ocean trash. Kamilo which is the closest landmass to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch provides insight into the types of things one would see floating out to sea. From this one initial visit, items were recovered from: Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, China and Mainland United States --- showing that we are all connected on what Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Calls: “Spaceship Earth”.

During 2017 in an effort to raise funds for his installations, McKane has very few select seats available to swim with humpbacks in Tonga.

“Those who ignore the damage, are equal to those who are doing the damage.” -McKane 

Nick Gerritsen is a New Zealand based catalyst and impact entrepreneur. He loves BIG ideas – ones that are going to lead to global structural change – and is committed to the culture of innovation – unafraid of operating beyond existing boundaries. He specialises in developing technology propositions from the ground up, and has been one of the leaders promoting New Zealands contribution to emerging megatrends such as Clean Technology, and the Internet of Things. In addition, he is also involved in projects in online decision making, digital manufacturing, peer to peer energy, and next generation media and information platforms. As well as various directorships and advisory roles, he is a Principal of Tuia Innovation (specializing in innovation within the Iwi economy) and Chairman of The National Whale Centre Development Trust, and a Trustee of both the Akina Foundation, and The Land Trust. He operates within a global network across the innovation and capital markets. Nick graduated from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB). During his legal career, he advised leading corporates on intellectual property and later enjoyed a string of successful business ventures, most notably in radio, and software sectors. He has been a consultant to New Zealand On Air, Radio New Zealand, Te Mangai Paho (the Maori Broadcasting Funding Agency), and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 

Rebecca Mills is a strategist, innovator and ideator, who is internationally recognised as an expert in sustainability strategy. She has played central roles in ventures at the forefront of the impact space and has led thousands of hours of workshops and experiences around the world.  Often sought out for strategic input, she has collaborated with organisations such as The University of London, The World Economic Forum, World Wildlife Fund, Unreasonable Institute, KiwiConnect, The Olympic Delivery Authority, The B Team, Arup, The Big Idea, and more.  

 She helped build and shape The B Team (founded by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz)  and led development criteria for the UK’s first ‘eco-region’, the Thames Gateway, Europe's largest regeneration project. She has designed impact evaluations, new ventures and strategies for entreprenuers, investors, institutions, companies and governments in Europe, the United States, China and New Zealand. Rebecca’s most notable areas of expertise include: Systems Thinking,  Collective Impact, Business Model Innovation, Impact Investing, Impact Philanthropy, Energy and Climate Change, Environmental Science, Business Strategy, Sustainable Development and Regeneration. Website > 

Afroz Shah is an Indian lawyer from Mumbai, with a passion for the oceans having initiated the world’s largest beach clean-up project.

In October 2015, Shah and his neighbor Harbansh Mathur, an 84-year-old who has since passed away, were frustrated with the piles of decomposing waste that had washed up and completely overwhelmed the city’s Versova beach. Determined to do something about it, the pair started cleaning up the beach themselves, one piece of rubbish at a time.

Every weekend since, Shah has inspired volunteers to join him – from lavish Bollywood to hardworking Dharavi, from schoolchildren to politicians, the old and the young.  They have been turning up at Versova for what Shah calls "a date with the ocean", but what in reality means laboring shin-deep in rotting garbage under the scorching Indian sun.

Afroz was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program in 2016. 

Born in New York, Zubin is the founder of Project Potential in rural Bihar, India.  Project Potential enables rural youth to address challenges in learning systems sustainable living and economy by building a community and space to explore possibilities for the village.  Their vision is to revitalize environment, economy, and existence across India via a network of youth catalysts.  Before starting Project Potential, he started another organization in rural Bihar called SEEKHO, which worked on creating a culture of learning in villages across rural Bihar.  Website > 

Sonia Manchanda is a Design Strategist and Graphic Designer, with 20+ years experience, building creative organisations; training and leading interdisciplinary projects teams on massive transformational projects nationally and globally.

Her work involves designing systems, creating sustainable brands and unique experiences besides building capability and capacity by designing learning systems. She is a Founding Partner at Spread Design + Learning. Where, her mission is to spread design as a way of thinking and doing things.

She is a graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She is an appointed member of the India Design Council, is on the CII Design Council and is a Governing Council Member of Forge, an incubator in Coimbatore. Her Open Innovation and Design Strategy Project Dream:in has been awarded as a global gamechanger by Metropolis Magazine, USA. Bruce Nussbaum’s book Creative Intelligence references the project as wel