Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems

Marten Mickos builds global disruptive businesses. As CEO of MySQL AB for seven years, Mickos grew that company from a garage start-up to the second largest open source company in the world. After the acquisition by Sun Microsystems of MySQL AB for $1bn, he served as Senior Vice President of Sun's Database Group. Previously, Mickos held multi-national CEO and senior executive positions in his native Finland. He is a member of the board of RightScale, Mozilla Messaging and Electrosonic. Mickos holds a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology. In 2006 he received the Audemars Piguet "Changing Times Award: European Entrepreneur of the Year 2006" and the Nokia Foundation Award.

Juan Enriquez, Managing Partner, Excel Venture Management

Mr. Enriquez was the founding Director of the Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project. His best-selling book, As The Future Catches You, provided an early and accurate blue print of how a bio-based economy changes industries and corporations. He became an active angel investor, and then founded Biotechonomy Ventures, a successful fund that invested in highly promising life science companies such as BioTrove, a CB Health Ventures portfolio company, and Xcellerex. Throughout his career, Mr. Enriquez has successfully guided many companies - as CEO, director, investor, or president.

Most recently, he co-founded and led the financing for Drs. J. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith's new company, Synthetic Genomics, Inc. He serves on numerous boards including Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT). He is also a world authority on the economic impact of life sciences on business, working directly with the CEOs of a number of Fortune Fifty companies, as well as various heads of state, on how to adapt to a world where the dominant language is shifting from the digital towards the language of life. He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A., both with honors.

George Zachary, Partner, Charles River Ventures

George Zachary is a partner at Charles River Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and Boston. George joined CRV in 2004 and he brings more than 17 years of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. George's focus is on building great services and software technology companies. George led CRV's investments in SocialMedia, Twitter, Geni, Yammer, Millennial Media, One Season, and Metaplace. George also co-led CRV’s investment in Scribd.Previously, George led the Nintendo 64 development business at Silicon Graphics, managed sales and marketing for virtual reality pioneer VPL Research, and served as a product marketeer at CATS Software. He is a board advisor to Stanford University’s SSE Ventures, which seed fund on-campus student startups. He is also an advisor to X PRIZE. George earned a joint BS from MIT and MIT Sloan School of Business. George also leads the Stanford CRV Research Council.

Amy Novogratz, TED Prize Director

Amy Novogratz is the Director of the TED Prize, an initiative of the TED Conference. The TED Prize is awarded annually to three exceptional individuals who each receive $100,000, a wish to change the world and support in making the wish come true. Past TED Prize winners include Bono, Dr. Larry Brilliant, former President Bill Clinton, writer Dave Eggers, and religious historian Karen Armstrong.

Prior to joining TED, Amy worked in television production giving voices to youth who don't usually have a platform -- from documentaries for the Disney Channel on young people living with HIV, learning differences and body image issues to specials, sketch comedy, animation and interstitials for Nickelodeon, Noggin's The N, Oxygen, MTV and World Link. This lead to years of developing and producing Chat the Planet, a TV and web initiative that connects young people from around the world to talk about everything from politics, prejudices and war to sex, music and life in general. Amy spent the early part of her career in Washington, DC, where she helped start up the Social Policy Action Network, a nonprofit that bridges the gap between journalists, academics, policy makers and grassroots initiatives.

Jamis MacNiven, Owner, Buck's of Woodside, Author

(From Amazon Books) Breakfast at Bucks: Tales from the Pancake Guy was inspired by Buck's Restaurant in Woodside, California, the Silicon Valley enclave of rich and famous technology entrepreneurs. Buck's is legendary for being the spot where many famous deals were inked in the days leading up to and during the dot-com boom, when TV cameras flooded the restaurant, and everyone from Warren Buffett to Mike Tyson was vying for a seat and a stack of pancakes. Proprietor and Silicon Valley celebrity Jamis MacNiven provides a hilarious look at the Valley and a provocative peek into his life, too. The book is stocked with laughs and full-color photographs throughout.

Cory Ondrejka co-founder Second Life

As co-founder and CTO of Linden Lab, Cory Ondrejka has long been an evangelist for the power of virtual worlds. A relentless innovator, he led the team that collaborated in unprecedented ways to solve impossible problems—taking the power of the virtual world to an extreme by co-opting the real and the virtual. His creation, Second Life, is not a game, but a tool set to build a virtual world, populated by “residents” who can then build whatever they want. Second Life shows just how powerful virtual words can be – it has transformed the way millions of people think about community, collaboration and entrepreneurship.

Pam Omidyar, HopeLab

In 2001, Pam founded HopeLab to pursue her belief that a video game might improve the lives of young cancer patients by giving them a chance to “blast away” at their disease. In August 2006, HopeLab released Re-Mission, a breakthrough video game scientifically proven to enhance the lives of young people who play it. Building on Pam’s founding vision and the success of Re-Mission, HopeLab continues work to combine rigorous research with innovative solutions to improve the health and quality of life of young people with chronic illness. Pam remains a guiding visionary at HopeLab, serving as Chair of the Board of Directors.

Pam is also a co-founder of Omidyar Network with her husband, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar Network is a mission-based organization that funds both businesses and non-profit organizations to create opportunity for individuals around the world to improve their lives and make powerful, lasting contributions to their communities. It has funded organizations in areas such as microfinance, philanthropic markets, participatory media, and transparency in government.

Esther Dyson, Investor, EDventure Holdings

Esther is a long-time catalyst of start-ups in information technology in the US and other markets, including Russia. She has recently taken on newer challenges in private aviation and space as well as in health care (as a director of 23andMe, a consumer genetics company). Her IT investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us (both sold to Yahoo!), and Medstory (sold to Microsoft), as well as Meetup Inc., Eventful.com, Boxbe and Voxiva; She sits on the boards of the latter four companies. She is also an active investor in air and space, with holdings in Space Adventures and Zero-G Corporation, as well as XCOR Aerospace, Constellation Services International, Coastal Technologies Group, Dopplr.com, Airship Ventures and Icon Aircraft.

Neil Izenberg, M.D., Founder and Chief Executive, KidsHealth

Neil Izenberg, MD, is founder and chief executive of The Nemours Foundation’s Center for Children’s Health Media, the creator of KidsHealth.org. Izenberg – a pediatrician, author, video and web producer, and game creator – has a career-long interest in creating health information that’s engaging, impactful, and – whenever appropriate – fun. Izenberg is author of KidsHealth Guide for Parents – Pregnancy to age 5, editor-in-chief of an encyclopedia for teens, Human Diseases, and Conditions, and writer/producer of almost 200 video programs on a variety of children’s health and parenting issues.