Ti Chang: Products for women, by women

Ti Chang is the Co-Founder and VP of Design of CRAVE, a San Francisco-based company specializing in discreet and beautifully designed luxury sex toys. The DUET, Ti’s first design at CRAVE, debuted through a crowd-funding project, which ultimately secured over $100K from over 900 donors and become the world's first crowdfunded sex toy. Since then, Ti has continued to lead the concept and design for the company’s full line of products, including its celebrated foreplay jewelry. 

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Erika Hall: Asking "why?"

Erika Hall is the author of Just Enough Research. In 2001, she co-founded Mule Design Studio in San Francisco where she is the Director of Strategy. Erika speaks and writes frequently about cross-disciplinary collaboration and the importance of natural language in user interfaces. In her spare time, she battles empty corporate jargon at Unsuck It.

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George Arriola: Mashing it up

George Arriola is an entrepreneur, craftsman, product guy, (a)rchitect, type designer, nerd, otaku, sous chef, and epiphany engineer. He is currently founder and CEO at a skunk_works product design boutique known as Minimalisms, and is a Founder, President & Chief Product Officer at Monohm Inc. Monohm exists to create New Necessities™ crafted on core values: heirloom, connection, control, ecosystem - Heirloom Electronics™. Previously, as Founder / CXO at zeroº (zero360, inc.) a stealth wearable hardware and platform company. 

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Phil Gilbert: Transforming "companies of a certain age"

As General Manager of IBM Design, Phil Gilbert sets the strategy for and leads the transformation of product design at IBM. His team is focused on three things: recruiting & retaining top designers, scaling the consistent practice of great design across IBM, and simplifying access to IBM’s broad portfolio of capabilities. Previously, Phil led the Business Process Management segment for IBM, where he drove the simplification of its portfolio and the ease-of-use of its products.

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Ben Fry: Design as the last line of defense

Ben Fry is Founder and Principal of Fathom Information Design, a design and software consultancy located in Boston. He holds a Ph.D. in Aesthetics and Computation from MIT. Fry has authored and co-authored multiple books on data visualization and develops "Processing" -- the programming environment he co-created with artist Casey Reas used by designers and developers all over the world. Fast Company includes Ben on its lists of “The 50 Most Influential Designers in America” and “The Most Creative People in Business 1000.”

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Eddie Opara: The art of spectacle

Eddie Opara studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and Yale University, where he received his MFA in 1997. He began his career as a designer at ATG and Imaginary Forces and worked as an art director at 2x4 before establishing his own studio, The Map Office, in 2005. Opara and The Map Office team joined Pentagram’s New York office in 2010. Opara is a multi-faceted designer whose work encompasses strategy, design and technology. 

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Anab Jain: Designing the Future

Anab Jain is a designer, filmmaker, founder and director of the London-and-India-based design studio Superflux, which runs in partnership with Jon Ardern. The studio consistently produces inventive and critical work exploring the limits of emerging technologies and their implications on society and culture.

Kevin Slavin: Debunking Luck

Kevin Slavin

Pioneering gamer Kevin Slavin takes the PopTech audience on a colorful tour of the history of luck in America, games of chance, gambling and mathematical formulas.

“That’s amazing, the idea that anything that seems to be built out of chance or instinct or luck can yield to a computational assault.”

As an entrepreneur, Slavin has successfully integrated digital media, game development, technology and design.

He is a pioneer in rethinking game design and development around new technologies (like GPS) and new platforms (like Facebook).

Simonetta Carbonaro: Liquid societies

Simonetta Carbonaro

Simonetta Carbonaro, a consumer psychologist, encourages us to think differently about consumption. She reminds us that a consumer-hungry outlook for cheaper and faster is outdated, and that we now know that consuming and producing less, in fact, creates more jobs, more free time, and more happiness.

Rebuilding After Nature Strikes

Tom Darden, Make It Right

Tom Darden is the Executive Director of the Make It Right Foundation, an organization founded by actor Brad Pitt to build 150 green, high design homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Darden said he wants to take what has been a local conversation about green construction to the national level.

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Emotionally vague with Orlagh O'Brien

Orlagh O'Brien - PopTech 2010 - Camden, MaineDesigner Orlagh O’Brien gave a simple emotion-specific quiz to a group of 250 people. Asking respondents to describe five emotions – anger, joy, fear, sadness, and love – in drawings, colors, and words, O’Brien ended up with a set of media she used to create Emotionally}Vague, an online graphic interpretation of the project’s results.

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Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow Emily Pilloton on Colbert

Way to hold your own, Em!

The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Emily Pilloton
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Emily Pilloton wants to create things that aren't just well designed, but have a positive social impact.

Learn more about Project H and the Design Revolution Road Show taking social innovation to schools across the US.

Oh, did we mention the airstream trailer-slash-design gallery?

peterdurand

Peter Durand is an artist, educator & visual facilitator based in Houston, Texas.

He is the founder of Alphachimp LLC, a visual facilitation company that helps clients understand and communicate complex systems visually. He is a leader in graphic facilitation and a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.