Search for the Obvious

Liz Danzico is equal parts designer, educator, and editor. She is chair and co-founder of the MFA in Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts. She is an independent consultant in New York, columnist for Interactions Magazine and Core 77, serves on the boards of desigNYC, Design Ignites Change, Rosenfeld Media, and lectures widely.

Web: www.bobulate.com
Twitter: @bobulate

John Maeda is a world-renowned artist, graphic designer, computer scientist and educator whose career reflects his philosophy of humanizing technology. For more than a decade, he has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation. Maeda became president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in June 2008.

At RISD, Maeda seeks to champion the necessary role that artists and designers play in the 21st century creative economy. He sees the traditional, hand-crafted techniques that are fundamental to a RISD education as increasingly relevant in a overly-digital world, as people seek to reconnect with what is real and authentic. As President, he seeks to connect RISD to the political, economic, social, and business spheres where artists and designers will make a difference, and has prioritized fundraising for scholarships to ensure the broadest possible access to a RISD education.

A former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Maeda taught media arts and sciences there for 12 years and served as associate director of research at the MIT Media Lab. Maeda's early work redefined the use of electronic media as a tool for expression by combining skilled computer programming with sensitivity to traditional artistic concerns. He has published four books, his most recent, The Laws of Simplicity, has been translated into 14 languages. In 2008 Maeda was named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine.

A native of Seattle, Maeda earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, followed by a PhD in Design Science from the University of Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan and an MBA from Arizona State University.

Daniel is a web designer living in San Francisco. Currently, he is the director of design with a startup called Tiny Speck and for several years was the creative director at Digg. Daniel grew up in PEI, Canada, where he was one of the founders of silverorange. Aside from obsessing about interface design and css selectors, he’s a frequently-falling rock climber, a lazy cyclist, and an often out-of-bounds disc golfer.

Cindy Gallop's background is brandbuilding, marketing and advertising - she started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year. She is the founder and CEO of www.IfWeRanTheWorld.com, a web meets world platform designed to turn good intentions into action one microaction at a time, which launched in beta with a demo at TED 2010, and of www.makelovenotporn.com, launched at TED 2009. She acts as board advisor to a number of tech startups and consults, describing her consultancy approach as 'I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.' She has a reputation as a highly compelling and inspirational speaker at conferences and events around the world on a variety of topics, and recently published ‘Make Love Not Porn: Technology’s Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior’ as one of TED’s new line of TEDBooks launched this year with Amazon.

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' He's written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries.

Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. And he began a not-for-profit company dedicated to building beautiful architect designed houses around the UK and making them available to rent: www.living-architecture.co.uk

He can be contacted at: www.alaindebotton.com

Born in Usk, Monmouthshire in 1965, Rory read Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before joining Ogilvy as a Graduate Trainee in 1988. After 18 months spent as the world’s worst account handler (as a desperate remedial measure he was once booked onto a time management course, but got the date wrong) Rory became a copywriter in June 1990.

He has worked on Amex, BT, Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, BUPA, easyJet, Unilever, winning a few awards along the way. He was appointed Creative Director of OgilvyOne in 1997 and ECD in 1998. In 2005 he was appointed Vice Chairman on the Ogilvy Group in the UK in recognition of his improved timekeeping.

By an amazing stroke of luck (his brother is an academic) Rory first used the Internet in 1987. Hence he had the advantage in 1994 of knowing what it was and what it might do a few years ahead of many colleagues. Most people would have combined this knowledge of marketing and technology to make a fortune; not Rory. Instead he became the first Briton to have his credit card details stolen online, thereby losing £22.45.

In his spare time, Rory collects self-aggrandising job titles. He was President of the Direct Jury at Cannes in 2007, and was elected President of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in 2009. He is also the Technology Correspondent of the Spectator, the world’s oldest English language magazine. You can visit his blog at http://snipr.com/da9bq

Rory is married with twin daughters of 9 (Hetty and Millie) and lives in the former home of Napoleon III in Brasted in Kent. Unfortunately in the attic.