Career:  Bestselling author, strategic advisor, innovation activist dubbed “Mr. Creativity” by The Economist; Chairmen & CEO EdgeMakers; Chairman ILSI
Interests: Jazz, Film & Theater (actively!). Unpeeling the onion, reinvention of education, innovation at societal scale.
Hometown: San Francisco, USA

John Kao was born in 1950 to Chinese immigrant parents. An accomplished jazz pianist, he spent the summer of 1969 playing keyboards for Frank Zappa. Kao studied philosophy at Yale College, received an MD from Yale Medical School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He taught at Harvard Business School from 1982-96, where he specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship and created executive and MBA programs on innovation. He has also held faculty appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, Yale College, and the Naval Postgraduate School.

John is a leader in creating and delivering high end innovation leadership executive programs for both public and private sectors. He is chairman of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, whose i20 group is an association of 30 national ‘Chief Innovation Officers.’  John coined the term “large scale innovation” to refer to innovation as a societal agenda.  He has advised numerous nations and regions on innovation strategy and execution, including Finland, Singapore, the City of San Francisco, Abu Dhabi and elements of the US government as well as the European Union innovation policy team.

His advisory work for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was described in The New York Times as “out of the box”

More:
www.johnkao.com
John Kao on Wikipedia
John on Twitter
www.edgemakers.com

Key publications:
Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity (1996; still reprinted and available in 16 languages)
Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back (2007) 

Career: Artist, Writer, Photographer, Book & Exhibition “DIGNITY” for Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary
Interests: Indigenous People, Tribes, Human Rights
Hometown: Los Angeles (CA), USA

Dana Gluckstein is a celebrated, award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in countless campaigns, newspapers & magazines. Gluckstein graduated from Stanford University, where she studied psychology, painting & photography.In her 30-year career, she has captured cultural luminaries from Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Ali, but perhaps her most important work has been her personal mission, photographing indigenous communities around the globe- a work collected in the book, Dignity: In Honor of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Her portraits are held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles Countys Museum of Art and Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Dignity: In Honour of The Rights of Indigenous People honors Indigenous Peoples worldwide and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Amnesty International, the Nobel Prize-winning human rights organization. Gluckstein, whether photographing a Haitian healer or a San Bushman elder, succeeds in distilling the universality of experience that links us all without diminishing the dignity of the individual. Dignity includes more than 90 of Gluckstein´s  black-and-white duotone portraits, made over three decades. The photographs express the theme of tribes in transition by capturing the fleeting period of world history where traditional and contemporary cultures collide.

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty started campaigning in 1961, and has worked around the globe to stop the abuse of human rights. Currently, they have more than 2.2 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories, in every region of the world. Their vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. They  are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. In the context that U.S. government along with Canada (only two countries in U.N.) have not accepted the Declaration, there is a petition through Amnesty International for the adoption of the declaration.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly in September 2007. The Declaration is the most comprehensive statement of the rights of indigenous peoples ever developed, giving prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law. It is a culmination of over twenty years of work, that began in earnest at the Working Group which began the drafting of the declaration in 1985. The first draft was completed in 1993, and in 1995, the Commission on Human Rights set up its own working group to review the draft adopted by the human rights experts of the Working Group and the Sub-Commission. More than 100 indigenous organizations participated in the Working Group of the Commission annually.

More:
www.danagluckstein.com
www.amnesty.org
www.un.org

Dignity on
Facebook: http://en-gb.facebook.com/dignitybook
Twitter: @DIGNITYbook

Other articles/links/videos:
Culture/Movies-TV-Music-Books/True-Grace" target="_blank">Elle: True Grace (2010/11)
Planet-mag: dignity-dana-gluckstein (2010/10)
Huffington Post: International Day of  Indigenous Peoples: Are We Listening To Their Wisdom? (2010/08)
The Daily Beast: Portraits From the Corner of the Earth.

Video: Desmond Tutu and Hugh Maskela unite for Dignity
Video: Dana Gluckstein Interview Part 1

Career: Film Director and Producer (i.e.”Elizabeth”, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”, “Bandit Queen”) but simply calls himself “Adventurer”
Interests: Water, Nature, Social Business, Humanity, Future of our Planet
Hometown: Mumbai, India; born Lahore, British India (nowadays Pakistan);lived many years in New York City, USA

Shekhar Kapur, born 6 December 1945 in British India (in an area which became part of Pakistan) is a renowned filmmaker from India. His works include Elizabeth (1998), a semi-historical account of the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I; it was nominated for 8 Oscars. In 2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri. Some scenes of the movie Joshilaay (1989) which starred Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Meenakshi Sheshadari were directed by Kapur. He was accused of being Anti-British by British tabloids, by the way he portrayed the British Army and the Empire in the movie The Four Feathers. Kapur also executive produced the Hollywood film The Guru and Bollywood-themed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Bombay Dreams, which has been running in the West End, London since 2002, and on Broadway in New York City since 2004. Projects include Long Walk to Freedom, Water, The Last Full Measure, and Golden Age, a sequel to Elizabeth.

In June 2005, Kapur and his friend, guru Deepak Chopra launched a discussion blog with a select group of their friends and family. The purpose of the blog is to promote original discussion by voices from South Asia, and especially India. Kapur posts regularly on the blog, often writing short personal poems. Shortly after, Kapur also started his own personal blog on his official website. In January 2006, it was reported that Kapur and Chopra would be collaborating with Richard Branson on a Bangalore-based animated film company.

His most recent projekt is PAANI (which means ‘water’ in Hindu) which aims to ring the alarm bell for the global water crisis. In November 2010, when the above interview was taped, Shekhar Kapur signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Grameen Creative Lab to create an investment fund for water-related social businesses in India. Being passionate about water-related issues he will act as ambassador for the fund. Kapur signed the MOU together with Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

More:
www.shekharkapur.com
Shekhar on Facebook

Wikipedia: Movie “Elizabeth”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth”

Wikipedia: “Elizabeth – The Golden Age”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

Other articles/links/videos:
YouTube: Business of Cinema: Shekhar Kapur raises alarm bell for water conservation (10/2010)
Global water crisis gets Bollywood Sci-Fi treatment
Realbollywood News Shekhar Kapur rings the alarm bell for water conservation (09/2010)
DNA: The water divide, Shekhar Kapur’s magnificent obsession (05/2010)
Indian Express: Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Paani’ to seek solution for water shortage (05/2010)
YouTube: I’m not a professional filmmaker: Shekhar Kapoor (07/2010)
Vimeo: Paolo Coelho: Social Business – An issue close to society’s heart?

Career: Orchestra Conductor, Opera Director and Producer
Interests: Literature, Philosophy, Cinema, Sports
Hometown: * South Germany, based in Berlin; temp. Vermont, USA&Ecuador

Opera director Christoph Hagel is known for his modern adaptations of classical operas, his mixing of genres and performances in unusual venues. Former performances include Mozart’s The Magic Flute in an underground station, Cos fan Tutte at a former electrical substation and techno club as well as Flying Bach at the Neue Nationalgalerie.

His latest project is the Berlin premiere of Mozarts 1791 opera Titus at the Bode Museum. The tragic triangle of love and death is Hagel’s third opera staging at the Bode Museum. The three main characters are interpreted simultaneously by a singer and an actor respectivley, and spoken theatre scenes are added. Solo dancer Martin Buczko from the Staatsballett Berlin ensemble dances the part of Sesto. The music is provided by the Berlin Symphoniker.

Beside his Berlin events he conducts several south American symphonic orchestras and is engaged in musical education projects in different South American towns. Starting 2010 he is the director of the opera singing program at Middelbury College in Vermont/USA.
In September 2010 Christoph received the ECHO Klassik award in the category “Special Award of the Jury”.

Articles / Links / Videos:

Video: Deutsche Welle: Mozart in unusual settings (Cosi fan Tutte, 11/2009)
Video: Arte (in German): Mozart (Titus, 10/2010)
Video: ITN News: New platform for experimental opera (The Magic Flute, 04/2008)
Video: Deutsche Welle: Mozart in unusual settings (Cosi fan Tutte, 11/2009)
Photos: The Economist / Intelligent Life: “The Magic Flute” (07/2008)
www.tocc-concept.de

Career: Orchestral Conducter, Maestro, Leadership Coach
Interests: Art (from ancient to contemporary), Haiku Poetry and Literature in general, People – in particular, how we exchange important messages …
Hometowns: Tel-Aviv, Israel; Amsterdam, Netherlands; temp. Transsilvania, Romania

Itay Talgam is one of the leading figures in the Israeli music scene. He is a champion of contemporary music, and in particular music of contemporary Israeli composers. He is internationally renowned for developing the ‘Maestro program’, that explores the relationship between conductor, musician and audience to achieve inspiring new insights into leadership, management, and team work. Using a range of innovative techniques, these energetic and thought-provoking programmes challenge standard thinking and offer participants a fresh perspective on a range of organisational issues and work styles.

More:
www.talgam.com
Wikipedia: Itay Talgam
Twitter: @itaytalgam

Other articles/links/videos:
Video: TEDtalks – Itay Talgam at TED (10/2009; 23 min.)
Video: Itay Talgam – Zeitgeist Europe 2009 (11/2010; 31min.)
Conducting Collaborative Creativity: Understanding collaboration through the lens of Itay Talgam and a collection of the worlds foremost conductors (02/09)
Video: Itay Talgam at PICNIC08 – Conducting Creativity (2009)