Interaction12 :: Dublin, Feb 01-04

Kars is ‘Chief Agent’ of Hubbub, a networked design studio for applied pervasive games. Hubbub works with organizations to create games that take place in public space, engage people physically, and are socially relevant. Amongst other things, these games are used to encourage good citizenship and to facilitate cultural participation.

In addition, Kars teaches at the Utrecht School of the Arts, where he mentors students pursuing a master of arts in interaction design or game design & development.

He's also the initiator and co-organizer of ‘This Happened’ – Utrecht, a series of lectures dedicated to the stories behind interaction design.

Stephen P. Anderson is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He created the Mental Notes card deck, a tool that's widely used by product teams to apply psychology to interaction design. He’s also of the author of the book “Seductive Interaction Design,” which explores this topic of psychology and design in more detail.

Between public speaking and project work, Stephen offers workshops and training to help organizations manage creative teams, make use of visual thinking, and design better customer experiences.

Chris Avore is a product strategist and designer in New York City. After organizing the first UX Show and Tell workshop in Washington DC in 2009, Chris has since led or helped organize workshops across the globe, including Interaction 10 and 11, the IA Summit, and UX Russia.

Fred Beecher is a Lead User Experience Consultant & Business Analyst with Evantage Consulting. He has been passionately engaged in the User Experience Design field for the past 13 years. A recognized expert in rapid prototyping and user experience design process, Fred speaks frequently on these topics at national and international conferences and local user experience group meetings. In 2007, Fred developed the official training program for the Axure RP Pro rapid prototyping tool at the request of its makers. He has since trained additional consultants to give the courses and currently leads a broader Axure training program for Evantage.

Ryan Betts is an interaction designer at Nitobi Software, creators of PhoneGap. He holds a BSc in Interaction Design from Simon Fraser University, where he is still involved as a guest lecturer and mentor. Presently focused on designing and developing for mobile phones and tablets, he is very excited about the future of urban computing. He is also a regular contributor to UX Mag and co-coordinator of the mapping work group for the Vancouver Public Space Network.

In his spare time, he really loves to drum; his favorite groove is the Purdie shuffle.

Jason Brush teaches at UCLA and Art Center College of Design, and is EVP of User Experience Design at Possible Worldwide, an Emmy and IDEA award-winning marketing and design firm. His recent work includes leading the interaction design of Google's Cannes Lions Gold–winning Google Art Project, Sony’s Xperia X10, interactive installations for the BIll & Melinda Gates Foundation, and interfaces for BMW, Comcast and Disney. He holds an MFA in Film Directing from UCLA.

I've worked for top interactive companies in financial services, e-commerce, advertising, healthcare, and media, but I began with an interest in designing software for learning music and language. I look to understand the underlying issues and goals of a project to develop a point of view, and then design straightforward, practical, and innovative solutions. Information displays should reveal and illuminate, and software should be responsive and empowering. Currently I'm a freelance IxD in New York, as well as musician and occasional linguist.

Giles is author of ‘Simple and usable web mobile and interaction design’ published by New Riders. He has been working in usability and user centred design since 1991. He formed cxpartners with Richard Caddick in 2004 and works with companies all over the world to create web and mobile user experiences that make a measurable difference to their bottom line and their customers’ lives.

Giles is a former President of the UK Usability Professionals’ Association and has worked with British Standards Institute in developing guidance on web accessibility.

David Cronin is the Director of Interaction Design at GE, where he’s working to bring a human focus to the next generation of digital experiences across GE’s portfolio of products & services from healthcare to transportation. Before GE, David spent 15 years at design firms, including as Director at Smart Design and Managing Director at Cooper. He has a deep background in healthcare user experience and couldn’t be more excited about the topic of the Interaction12 GE Design Challenge.

Andrew Crow designs products and services that delight people and exceed business expectation. Nearly 20 years of experience in visual, interaction and product design have given him a deep perspective on creating meaningful experiences for consumers.

Andrew is the Director of Visual Design at GE where he is a part of the UX Center of Excellence. He is focused on visual and interaction design for projects involving robots and jet engines. His past lives were spent as Vice President of Experience Design at Razorfish and a Lead Experience Designer at Adaptive Path.

I am a designer, anthropologist and bricoleur. I work as Director of Design Strategy at Involution Studios, founded MidwestUX Conference, help lead the local Columbus IxDA, and enjoy taking pictures of people in their side view mirrors.

Designer, writer, and educator, August de los Reyes spent nearly eight years at Microsoft where, among other roles, he was Director of User Experience for Microsoft Surface. August holds an MDesS with Distinction from Harvard, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and sits on the national board of the Industrial Design Society of America. He divides his time between Puget Sound and the Bay Area.

I am a “designer.” I have a degree in Graphic Design and worked as a visual designer for about 10 years and moved slowly into User Interface and User experience design. Currently I do rapid prototyping for Intel Labs. I am a senior user Experience designer developing products. I am involved with all early aspects of the process from evaluating user needs, through technical development, user interface, visual design and finally user testing. In the past I have followed the product into development. Right now I deliver the PRD and move to the next exciting adventure.

Sebastian Deterding is a designer and researcher working on persuasive, gameful, and playful interactions.

Before designing independently for startups, game companies and large brands, he was UX designer at magazine publisher Gruner+Jahr, and Program Manager Multimedia at the German Federal Agency for Civic Education.

As a PhD researcher at Hamburg University, he looks into motivating behavior with game design elements, and currently organizes the Gamification Research Network. He publishes and speaks internationally at venues like CHI, Google, reboot, Web Directions, Playful, or The Gamification Summit, and has been covered by the Guardian, LA Times, New Scientist and others.

Dustin DiTommaso has spent nearly a decade chasing the perfect blend of form, function and meaning while designing mobile and social applications, multi-channel experiences, games, game layers and customer engagement models. He currently tackles wicked problems as an Experience Design Director at Mad*Pow.

Dustin’s work has been recognized by Yahoo!, Macworld, MITX, New York Festivals and the Boston Phoenix. He has also taught advanced typography and publication design at the Chamberlayne School of Design and is an active member and lecturer in a number of industry communities.

Christian is a design expert with in-depth expertise in planning, executing and using qualitative research to shape strategies that focus on mobile innovation. He combines an outstanding analytical ability to gain comprehensive understanding of people´s needs with the sensibility and empathy of a designer to form meaningful, holistic user experiences. In 2008 Christian joined iconmobile where he is responsible for launching and accelerating international user-centered research programs for well known companies, such as Nokia, Samsung and BMW. 

Anthony Dunne is professor and head of the Design Interactions programme at the Royal College of Art in London. He is also a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby. He studied Industrial Design at the RCA before working at Sony Design in Tokyo. On returning to London he completed a PhD in Computer Related Design at the RCA. He was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio where he worked as a Senior Research Fellow leading industry and EU funded research projects.

His work with Fiona Raby uses products and services as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of emerging technologies.

Projects include Hertzian Tales, a combination of essays and design proposals exploring aesthetic and critical possibilities for electronic products (MIT Press 2005); Placebo, a collection of electronic objects exploring mental well-being in relation to domestic electromagnetic fields; Technological Dreams Series, no.1: Robots for Z33; and Foragers for the St Etienne International Design Biennale. Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects was published by Birkhauser in 2001. His work with Fiona Raby has been exhibited and published internationally and is in private and permanent collections including MoMA, the Victoria & Albert Museum and Frac Ile-de-France.

Anthony was awarded the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education in 2009.

John Finley thinks about the different ways in which interaction design manifests itself in our world.

In 2011, he graduated as part of the inaugural class of the MFA in Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. At one point in his life he was a college radio DJ, but now he is a freelance developer and designer of web software.

Jeff Gothelf has spent a 14 year career as an interaction designer, Agile practitioner, user experience team leader and blogger. He is one of the leading voices on the topic of Agile UX and Lean UX. In addition, Jeff is the author of the upcoming O’Reilly book (2012), Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business. He is a highly sought-after international speaker having presented at EuroIA, SXSW, IA Summit, the Agile conference and Startup Lessons Learned. Jeff has led cross-functional product design teams at TheLadders, Publicis Modem, WebTrends, Fidelity, and AOL while maintaining a strong advisory and mentorship presence in the startup communities of New York City and Silicon Valley. He has recently launched Proof, a product design and innovation studio that combines lean processes with strategy, design and technology.

Jeff Harrison is a senior user experience consultant with Evantage Consulting. He blends superb analytical ability, creative thinking, and experience solving real-world business problems to translate business requirements and user research into simple, efficient interactions. Most design problems don’t have a perfect solution, but Jeff can usually come up with a number of good options, explain the pros and cons of each, and suggest a way of testing them to arrive at the best. Jeff has become recognized within the user experience community for his expertise with the Axure RP Pro prototyping tool, and his willingness to solve thorny problems.

As the leader of the Mad*Pow Experience Design team, Michael leverages 15 years experience in the software industry and expertise in UX research, usability and information architecture to deliver value to clients such as Fidelity, GE, Autodesk and Monster. Michael holds his MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University, and a BA from the University of Michigan. Have an unique take on a design research or collaborative design method? Find Mike and tell him about it. He's a proponent of creative approaches to the user-centered design process and is a frequent presenter on alternative techniques.

Fabian Hemmert is a design researcher born and raised in Germany. During his studies towards an M.A. degree in Interface Design, he worked for Nintendo Europe and Marvel Comics. He is currently finishing his PhD at the Berlin University of the Arts, in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, where his thesis focuses on new ways of interacting with technology. His theoretical work, concerned mainly with the concepts of ‘Thinghood’ and ‘Embodiment,’ is much inspired by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and his account of the ‘coming into the world’ of things.

Fabian is considered one of the leading experts for new ways of mobile telecommunication, and has presented his work at multiple events, including TED Global, CeBIT, TEDxBerlin, TEDxSalzburg, Lift Conference, the EuroVision TV Summit and the Chaos Communication Congress. You can view his talks, projects and papers at www.fabianhemmert.com.

Andrew Hinton is Principal User Experience Architect at Macquarium, a user-experience consulting firm based in Atlanta, GA. Andrew has designed information systems and interfaces for Fortune 100s, small businesses and non-profits alike, as both an internal employee and an external consultant. Andrew has served as a co-founder and past board member of the IA Institute, and is a long-time member & supporter of IxDA.

Greg Hoy leads Design Recruiting at Facebook. His previous position involved recruiting creative talent for Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Ad Age's Ad Agency of the Decade. Before a career shift to talent wranglin’, he spent a decade in NYC as a pixel pusher for such companies as Digitas and Kenneth Cole. He's also an accomplished musician with several of his songs having been heard on HBO, the CW and MTV's reality programming.

Jonathan Kahn is a web developer, user experience designer, and content strategist. He’s an advocate of user-centered design, web governance, and content strategy. He founded Together London in 2008. He's also organizing the Content Strategy Forum 2011 in London.

Jonathan blogs at lucidplot.com, and he writes for the illustrious A List Apart magazine (“Strategic Content Management”, “You Are Not a Robot”). Recent speaking appearances include Content Strategy Forum 2010 in Paris, Confab 2011 in Minneapolis, and several London events including Ignite London, the UK UPA, and Lightning UX.

As the EHR implementation expert for Weill Cornell Medical College and UBMD, a 500-physician practice group, Akshay Kapur transitioned 17 individual medical practices from paper to electronic systems in the last 6 years. He increased efficiency in all aspects of the medical practice using the EHR, enhanced physician interaction with patients in and out of the office, and improved quality of care through data trending and medical error alerts. Akshay’s implementation and managerial expertise led to revenue increases upwards of $2-$4 million per practice, reduced physician documentation time by 32%, and improved patient satisfaction ratings from 70% to over 90%.

Dirk Knemeyer is a design entrepreneur overseeing three companies: Sprout, Inc., a consumer software start-up that helps people better understand themselves and their friends; Involution Studios, a software design consultancy with clients including Apple, Oracle and President Barack Obama; and Conquistador Games, a game design and production studio.

Over the last decade Dirk has published over 100 articles on design and business, spoken at more than 50 conferences – including keynotes in the U.S. and Europe – and has served on 13 different Board for corporations and design-based non-profit organizations.

Jon Kolko is the Founder and Director of Austin Center for Design, a progressive educational institution teaching interaction design and social entrepreneurship. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and large-scale industry disruption. He has worked extensively with both startups and Fortune 500 clients, and he has a breadth of experience in consumer electronics, mobility, web services, supply chain management, demand planning, and customer-relationship management. He has worked with big-brand clients such as AT&T, HP, Nielsen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, IBM, Palm and other leaders of the Global 2000, as well as with startups like Socialware, Spredfast, Vast, Attivio, and more.

Jon has held positions of Executive Director of Design Strategy at Thinktiv, a venture accelerator in Austin, Texas, and both Principal Designer and Associate Creative Director roles at frog design, a global innovation firm. He was also a Professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was instrumental in building both the Interaction and Industrial Design undergraduate and graduate programs. Jon has also held the role of Director for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), and Editor-in-Chief of interactions magazine, published by the ACM.

Jon is the author of the book Thoughts on Interaction Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann, and Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis, published by Oxford University Press.

Thomas is obsessed with humanizing technology ever since he got his hands on his first computer. After working his way through HCI research and design consulting for business applications he joint iconmobile in 2009. During daylight he focuses on helping fortune 500 organizations to embed successful mobile strategies and bring valuable service propositions to the mobile market. When the office lights go out he is leading Berlin‘s interaction design community IxDA Berlin and co-organizes the UXcamp Europe, a free user experience conference that attracts over 400 people every year.

Mike is passionate about helping brands meet the needs of people through meaningful digital products and services. He has worked across industries in entertainment, technology, health and communications for companies such as Intel, Wacom, SiriusXM, Research in Motion, TDK, Proctor & Gamble, and Microsoft. A native Northwesterner, he lives in Portland, Oregon.

Dan specialises in design for behaviour change—influencing behaviour for social and environmental benefit, through the design of products, services and environments. The Design with Intent toolkit, arising from his PhD at Brunel, is an interaction design pattern library bringing together behavioural insights and examples into a form (hopefully) useful for designers.

At present Dan's a research fellow at WMG, University of Warwick, on Empower, a collaboraton with More Associates which aims to reduce workplace energy use through connecting people with energy and behavioural data in engaging ways. He teaches environmentally sensitive design on Brunel's product design courses, and also does consultancy as Requisite Variety.

In the past, Dan's worked in R&D for Sir Clive Sinclair, built some unusual folding bikes, and written a book on the Reliant Motor Company.

Francis Luu works at Facebook as a designer for its mobile products. Prior to that he worked on Ticker, the latest revision of News Feed, and Facebook's social plugins. Francis came from Pioneer Studios, one of Microsoft's product incubation studios, where he worked on brand communications for Courier. He graduated from the Univeristy of Washington's Visual Communication Design program in 2009 and attended the Adobe Design Achievement Awards in Beijing as a finalist and honorable mention. Cycling and photography are amongst his interests.

Jonas Löwgren is a professor of interaction design and co-founder of the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University in Sweden. He specializes in cross-media products, interactive visualization and the design theory of the digital materials.

Jonas has taught interaction design in university courses and in companies since the early 1990’s, initiating the influential two-year master’s program in interaction design at Malmö University in 1998. He has published some 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and three books, including Thoughtful Interaction Design (with Erik Stolterman, published by MIT Press), and a vast range of general-interest and pedagogical material. His design portfolio comprises some 50 projects from explorative research and professional contexts.

Dave Malouf is currently the Professor of Interaction Design in the Industrial Design department of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Dave has been doing IxD for close to 20yrs with most experience in enterprise software & hardware systems. His work as a professor centers on exploring the boundaries of design education in the contemporary age of transdisciplinary design centering on issues of criticism, collaboration and rich theories.

Jason is Head of User Experience at RMA Consulting, a design-driven organisation that focuses on delivering rich, engaging and effective solutions for users to interact with ‘Day-In, Day-Out’.

Over the past 12 years, Jason has had experience working with a range of organisations including: PA Consulting, Yell.com, Flow Interactive, Oyster/Framfab/LBi and The Team. This has seen him working among some of the best people in the UK User Experience industry, and with some of the trickiest of clients and team members imaginable.

Jason isn't shy of his opinions and likes to stir up critical discourse in User Experience and design.

Matt Morphett is a user experience consultant and interaction designer with strong management consulting experience. Matt has designed solutions for deployment within complex organisations and as part of sophisticated IT programs. Matt works in the analysis, design and evaluation of various forms of interaction between people and technology – including web-based systems, GUI applications, mobile devices and media rich solutions.

Matt’s clients have included Accenture, IBM, Cochlear, The National Film And Sound Archive, Eli Lilly, Scholastic and The Queensland Departments of Child Safety & Communities.

Shane Morris is one of Australia’s most respected user experience professionals. Through consulting, mentoring and training he has helped organisations create compelling digital experiences since 1991. He has worked on desktop applications, internet applications, mobile user interfaces, physical devices and web sites. Shane has taught user experience topics around the world and is a key contributor to “101 Things I Learned in Interaction Design School” at ixd101.com. Shane has worked with companies like Tennis Australia, Microsoft, Lonely Planet, M&C Saatchi, Cochlear, Amnesia Razorfish and Qantas – helping creative and technical professionals collaborate to create services that empower, inspire and reward.

Søren is a co-founder of FatDUX along with Thomas Snitker and Eric Reiss, focusing entirely on designing, developing, and deploying great user experiences for clients in both Europe and North America.

Søren began his career in the mid-eighties as an Art Director in various agencies, where he specialized in brand development. From the mid-nineties he has practiced interaction design, both on and offline. Today he is Chief Creative Director at FatDUX Copenhagen.

Søren is active in the IxD community, is a founding member of European Centre for User Experience, and a member of IAI, UPA, and UX Group Denmark.

I am an interaction and media designer with a deep and abiding interest in science fiction and itsinfluence over popular expectations of the technologies surrounding humancomputer interaction. Subsequently, the deterministic aspects of both cultural perception as well as the technical and infrastructural innovations that ground technology's path to market are of great interest to me.

Most recently to joining the frog team in mid-2007, I was a Principal UX Researcher at the Sun Labs in Menlo Park and received an MFA (Media Design) from the Art Center College of Design.

Sami Niemelä is the creative director and one of the founding partners of Nordkapp, a Helsinki-based group of experienced designers, strategists and technologists. He has worked on all things internet since 1997 between Helsinki and London designing products and services used by millions of people.

In his work, Sami is always looking for ways to make the world a bit more meaningful by combining the bleeding edge with business viability and good design for real people to use and enjoy.

Apart from directing and doing design work, he lectures at the Aalto University School of Economics about design thinking, synthesis, and execution and is an emerging public speaker on the topic of behavior and future of connected objects and environments—most recently in Cognitive Cities Berlin, Ubisummit in Helsinki and Playful 11 in London. On his spare time, he’s also one of the founders and organizers at IxDA Helsinki, the local interaction design community.

Matt Nish-Lapidus is a senior designer at Normative Design in Toronto. Matt’s background in new media art, music, and design has enabled him to practice interaction design and related disciplines for over 10 years across a number of industries. He has worked for large clients such as Coca-Cola, as well as helped start-ups design and launch new products. Matt is currently serving on the board of directors for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and was a founder of IxDA Toronto.

I have a background in Product Design. Working in this field I became very interested in how people experienced our products and projects and how they remembered their experiences. For 10 years I designed and produced furniture and lighting with exhibitions in NY, London and Paris. I worked with workshops throughout Europe to deliver high quality projects for a wide range of demanding clients. I enjoyed realizing concepts in complex environments. In 2008 I started a project exploring imagination and identity. The Leprechaun Museum opened in March 2010.

Researcher, president of the Information Architecture Institute, FatDUX associate, co-author of “Pervasive Information Architecture” for Morgan Kauffman.

Teaching interaction design, game design and information architecture and the University of Borås and Gothenburg, and at Jönköping International Business School.

Jonathan is a cross-disciplinary designer who develops engaging, user-friendly experiences and services within digital and built environments. Recently, he has been focusing on designing for mixed-reality experiences. A keen advocate for user centred design, he is interested in the interplay between design and cognitive psychology. Jonathan holds an MA in Narrative Environments Design. He is also a sessional lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia where he wrote the course Visual Identity in the Built Environment.

Interaction Designer and Author of Designing for Interaction and Designing Gestural Interfaces.

Canadian designer Joshua Sin started his design career at Ontario College of Art and Design studying Industrial design and Sustainability. His passion in nature-inspired design led him to becoming a top ten finalist at the 2010 Toronto Green Innovation Awards where he presented his design theory and product: Morph. Since then, he joined Crispin Porter & Bogusky as an Experience Designer. Working with clients such as Domino’s Pizza and Microsoft, he hopes to fuse his knowledge in Biomimcry and design together to create future smart systems and ecosystems

Kel Smith is a longtime speaker, author and practitioner on digital accessibility. His articles and papers appear in the Pentagon Library, American Law Institute, American Bar Association, International Journal of E-Politics, Kent State’s Knowledge Management Program, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, E-Access Bulletin and UX Magazine. Kel’s presentations include three appearances at the CSUN Conference for Persons with Disabilities (San Diego), two stints at World Future Society (Boston and Vancouver), the Royal National Institute of the Blind (London), the Interaction Design Association (Savannah), the Unitech ICT Network (Oslo), the Society for Technical Communications (Sacramento) and the Universitat Autònoma (Barcelona).

I work for RMA Consulting as a UX Consultant. We build “day in, day out” (DIDO) applications – apps that allow users to master complex data and harness it for action as part of their daily working lives. Prior to RMA I spent 10 years working in design/UX roles, at agencies (including the Team, Freestyle Interactive and Digitas) and client-side (Rightmove.co.uk and The University of Birmingham). When I'm not filling sketchbooks with ideas, I'm up to my elbows in clay (sculpting) or reflecting on how lucky I am that I get to do a job that I love.

Michael Smyth is a Reader in the Centre for Interaction Design, Edinburgh Napier University, UK. He has worked in the fields of Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design since 1987 and during that period has published over 50 academic papers in refereed journals, books and conferences. In addition he has had interactive installations exhibited at both UK and international conferences and arts & design festivals. He is co-editor of the book entitled Digital Blur: creative practice at the boundaries of architecture, design and art, Libri Publishing.

I'm an experienced interaction designer, with a passion for designing delightful web software. While working with Contrast, I designed web applications for many start-ups and have seen all possible outcomes from profitable businesses to crash and burns.

I write regularly about the challenges of being a UX designer in a start-up world, and my posts can be found on the Intercom blog, which succeeded the Contrast blog. I speak regularly at start-up an design events, about topics ranging from customer acquisition through to info-graphic design.

Prior to working as a consultant I spent 3 years lecturing software engineering and publishing papers in the area of computer science education.

Frederick van Amstel is cofounder of the first Brazilian Interaction Design Institute. At Faber-Ludens, he conducted research on designing for social interactions, co-creation and collaborative design. He lead consultancy teams for clients like Electrolux, O Globo, Coca-Cola. Frederick is currently doing a PhD on Participatory Design at the University of Twente, Netherlands.

Jeroen van Geel is the founder and chief kahuna of Johnny Holland. During the day he works as a senior interaction designer at Fabrique [brands, design & interaction]. He has over 8 years of experience in the field and works for clients in many different branches, ranging from retail to cultural heritage, education and travel.

Adrian is a founding member and director of Vitamins, a multidisciplinary design and invention studio.

His work combines his background in electronics and training as a professional magician in the field of design. In 2007 he patented the Magic Light, a system to magically move spotlight beams using nothing but hand gestures. Adrian has an MEng in Electronic Engineering from Bristol University along with an MA in Industrial Design, from the Royal College of Art. He has worked with artists collective Greyworld and consulted for the BBC as well for consumer electronics brands including Samsung and Nokia.

Luke Williams is an internationally-recognised authority on Disruptive Thinking and Innovation Leadership. He is a Fellow at frog, one of the world’s most influential innovation companies, and Professor of Innovation & Design at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He has worked with industry leaders like American Express, GE, Sony, Crocs, Virgin, Disney, and Hewlett-Packard, to create breakthrough product, service and business model solutions. Williams is invited to speak at events worldwide, and his views have been featured in BusinessWeek, Fast Company, The Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal.

He is also the author of Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business (FT Press, 2011).

Virgil Wong founded the interactive media division for New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College. Over 15 years, he led the design and development of over 200 web sites in patient care, research, and education. He was co-chair of the CTSC Web Portal Group, which was dedicated to leveraging new technologies in the rapid development of advanced biomedical research. Over the last 10 years, he has also exhibited art works exploring the future of medicine and technology at major venues around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Luke P. Woods joined the product design team at Facebook in 2011 coming from his role as an interaction designer and project leader at IDEO. Luke's work spans campaigns for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, service design for PNC Bank and in-car experience design for Ford. He has an MFA in interaction design from the University of Washington and a BS in digital design from the University of Cincinnati. Outside of work, Luke enjoys climbing hills on his bicycle, analog photography, foraging at the farmers market and cooking with friends.