Jan Chipchase, Principal Engineer at Nokia Research Center, studies people around the world—how they behave, communicate, and interact with each other and the things around them. He shares his observations and insights with Nokia designers, who often accompany him on field trips, helping them to create new ideas for how mobile devices will look, work, and be used in the future.

Most of his time is spent in the field conducting research. This takes him out onto the streets and into people's homes to observe, document, and analyze the rich tapestry of everyday life. Recent projects include visiting Uganda to look at shared phone use, India to look at how design can make mobile devices more accessible to people with low or non-existent levels of literacy, and South Korea to look at how early adopters were reacting to mobile TV.

His research focuses on the future three to fifteen years from now—understanding today's base human motivations, detecting early signals of new trends and combining this knowledge with an understanding of where technology is heading. The research is used by the design team together with a suite of other tools to help inform and inspire the design of future products, features, applications, services, and platforms. In 2006 alone this took him to fifteen different countries, helping Nokia understand both the similarities and differences among cultures.

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Architect Stefan Behnisch founded Behnisch Architekten in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1989, becoming renowned for innovative sustainable buildings, such as the Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands. As the firm expanded, further offices were founded in Los Angeles, CA (1999), Boston, MA (2007), and Munich, Germany (2008). Stefan Behnisch has been an advocate of sustainable design since he started working as an architect. Many of his buildings have received prestigious awards, and the Genzyme Center in Cambridge, MA, was rated LEED Platinum. Projects on the firm's drawing boards include Harvard's Allston Science Complex in Allston, Boston, and residential buildings in the USA and Germany, as well as office buildings, laboratories, and health care buildings in various countries.

Stefan Behnisch was the Eero Saarinen Chair visiting professor at Yale School of Architecture from 2005 to 2008. In 2007 he was nominated for the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (one of five) and in 2008 named Honorary Fellow of the AIA - American Institute of Architects. Born 1957, he studied philosophy, economics and architecture in Munich and Karlsruhe, Germany.

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William Drenttel is a graphic designer, editor, and currently a Partner in Winterhouse Studios and President Emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). He has enjoyed many major commissions and positions in the graphic design community. From 1985 to 1997 he was a partner in the New York design firm Drenttel Doyle Partners. He is a Partner with Jessica Helfand of Winterhouse Studios, Winterhouse Editions, and Winterhouse Institute.

Bill is the Co-Founder of Design Observer, the widely-read blog about design and visual culture. He is also Co-Editor of Below the Fold:, a new journal of visual culture published by Winterhouse, and the Founder of the Polling Place Photo Project, an online election documentation project.

In 2006, Drenttel co-founded the Winterhouse Writing Awards: this $5000 prize for innovation in design writing seeks to develop new writers interested in design and cultural criticism. In 2008, Drenttel became a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management. Drenttel received a BA in European Cultural Studies from Princeton University.

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Dr. Stuart Harshbarger is the program manager and system integrator for the Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. His primary research focuses on collaborative transdisciplinary challenges at the intersection of engineering, science, and medicine. Stuart and his project teams have been recognized with several awards and sponsor commendations for their efforts, including a 2007 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award and nomination for the DARPATech 2007 award for Significant Technical Achievement.

Stuart is also a part-time instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering graduate program for engineering professionals. There, he teaches neural prosthetics and digital telephony for the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Applied Biomedical Engineering programs. In prior positions and in recent assignments, he led a range of multi-disciplinary system integration efforts, including avionics subsystem developments, autonomous remote sensing and distributed networking applications, and medical monitoring systems.

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Kigge Hvid is the founding CEO of INDEX:, an organization created by Denmark to promote Design to Improve Life. INDEX: collects, advocates, and discusses Design to Improve Life through the world's largest monetary design award, a world-touring exhibition, a summer camp, conferences, and publications. In leading the government's mandate to advance the humanist tenets of Danish design, Kigge is a frequent panelist and theme-setter at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos and is a member of the Forum's Global Agenda Council on Design.

The recipient of an honorary doctorate in 2006 by the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Kigge brings to her direction of INDEX: a fluency in the related languages of designers and of social entrepreneurs. This is reflected in her frequent international appearances as one of the main proponents today of Design to Improve Life.

Kigge is a visual artist by profession. Prior to founding INDEX:, she was the first Director of Øksnehallen, an exhibition centre for the arts, commerce and culture in the heart of Copenhagen.

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Emeka Okafor promotes the development of technology and enterprise in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is Principal of the Makeda Fund, a private equity fund focused on African women-owned enterprises; Co-Founder of the International Private Enterprise Group, which promotes private enterprise in emerging markets; and Senior Advisor to the X-Prize Foundation's Global Development prize.

In 2007, he directed the TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania, and continues his role as TED Africa Director. In 2009, he directed the Maker Faire Africa in Accra, Ghana, to bring together grass-roots innovators throughout sub-Saharan Africa and discuss the role of technology in development. Passionately committed to sharing the issues and ideas guiding Africa's future, Emeka is the author Timbuktu Chronicles, a blog on African entrepreneurship, science, and technology, and Africa Unchained, a blog on African policy, education, culture and governance.

Emeka was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in Canada and Nigeria, earning a degree in Architecture from the University of Nigeria.

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Emily Pilloton is the Founder and Executive Director of Project H Design, a nonprofit that enables product design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness. Trained in architecture and product design, she started Project H to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based product design that empowers individuals, communities, and economies globally and locally. Current Project H initiatives include water transport and filtration systems, a grid-based math playground for active elementary education, and concepts for foster care therapy. She is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, which will be published by Metropolis Books in September 2009.

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Nathan Shedroff is the Chair of the ground-breaking MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts, which melds the unique principles that design offers business strategy with a vision of the future of business as sustainable, meaningful, and truly innovative—as well as profitable. He is one of the pioneers in Experience Design, an approach to design that explores common characteristics in all media that make experiences successful.

In latest book, Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must Be Sustainable, Nathan examines how the endemic culture of design often creates unsustainable solutions, and shows how designers can bake sustainability into their design processes in order to produce more sustainable solutions. It has been called "the definitive guidebook to the future of design practice" by Core77.

Nathan holds a BS in Industrial Design from the Art Center College of Design and an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Presidio School of Management.

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