Keynote Speaker

Ashton Eaton

Gold Medalist, Olympic Decathlon
World Record Holder, Decathlon and Heptathlon

Ashton Eaton won the gold medal in decathlon at the 2012 London Olympics, earning the traditional title of “world’s greatest athlete.” Just 24, he already holds the world record in both of the combined track and field events—the ultimate tests of speed, strength, and endurance. While a student at the University of Oregon, Eaton won five NCAA Championship titles, including three consecutive decathlon titles, and broke Dan O’Brien’s longstanding world record in the heptathlon. (He has since broken his own record twice.) In 2010 he received the Bowerman Award as the top male collegiate track athlete in the country. After graduating, he took gold at the 2011 USA Championships and silvered at the World Championships in South Korea. Earlier this year he won the World Indoor Championships and broke the world decathlon record at the US Olympic trials in June.

Keynote Speaker

Michael Graves

Founding Partner, Michael Graves & Associates/Michael Graves Design Group

Michael Graves is one of the most influential and celebrated architects of our era. His firm, Michael Graves & Associates, has designed more than 350 landmark structures worldwide, changing the direction of public architecture in the process. Michael Graves Design Group has created numerous iconic consumer products and is credited with democratizing design through its popular housewares for Target. MGDG is currently working with Stryker Medical to improve the health care experience for patients through innovative hospital furnishings and home care products. Graves taught for four decades at Princeton University, where he remains professoremeritus. In 1999 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton, and in 2001 he received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal, the field’s highest honor. In 2010 the Center for Health Design named him one of the 25 most influential people in health care design. He is the 2012Driehaus Prize laureate.

Keynote Speaker

Craig venter

Founder, Chairman & President, J. Craig Venter Institute;
CEO & President, Synthetic Genomics

J. Craig Venter is a world-renowned scientist. He founded the Institute for Genomic Research (now part of the J. Craig Venter Institute), where in 1995 he and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism. A few years later he founded Celera Genomics to sequence the complete human genome, work that culminated in a landmark 2001 publication in Science. Today the J. Craig Venter Institute, employing around 300 scientists and staff, continues to blaze new trails. In 2010, JCVI researchers created the first self-replicating bacterial cell constructed entirely with synthetic DNA. Venter also heads Synthetic Genomics, a private company dedicated to commercializing genomic solutions to global needs in energy, nutrition, and medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize.

Keynote Speaker

Stephen Wolfram

President & CEO, Wolfram Research

Stephen Wolfram is a scientist, inventor, and business leader. He created the software program Mathematica, widely used by researchers and engineers, as well as the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine. He founded Wolfram Research in 1987 and has served as CEO from the beginning, while remaining deeply involved in research and development. The company has long been a leader in technical software and a pioneer in the application of computational methods to new fields. A physicist by training, Wolfram earned his PhD from the California Institute of Technology at age 20. He is the author of A New Kind of Science (2002), which laid out a radically new scientific paradigm based on computational principles.

Basit Chaudhry

Medical Scientist & Lead Research Clinician for Watson, IBM

Basit Chaudhry is a medical scientist at IBM Research and a national leader in the effort to modernize health care through information technology. One of the initiatives he’s involved with is the application of IBM’s natural-language computing system, Watson—famous for its victories on the quiz show Jeopardy!—to clinical practice. After completing his medical training and earning a PhD in biomedical informatics and health services research, Chaudhry joined the Internal Medicine department at UCLA and worked as a research scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has provided expertise to the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine and recently served on a working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, coauthoring its 2010 policy report, “Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology.”

Nicholas Christakis

Professor, Harvard Medical School;
Director, Human Nature Laboratory, Harvard University

As director of Harvard’s Human Nature Lab, Nicholas Christakis leads a diverse group of scholars integrating biological, social, and computational approaches to understanding human health. A physician and social scientist, he holds professorships in the Departments of Medicine and Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Sociology in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His research applies network science and mathematical modeling to study the dynamics of health in evolving social networks. Together with James Fowler, he coauthored the celebrated book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (2011). Christakis has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Rhonda Cornum

Director of Health Strategy, TechWerks;
Former Director, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Initiative, US Army

Rhonda Cornum joined TechWerks as director of health strategy in 2012. Before that, as a brigadier general in the US Army, she was the first director of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, the model for universal promotion of physical and psychological health within the Department of Defense. She previously served as assistant surgeon general for force projection, responsible for preparing soldiers and units for deployment, and commanded the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the evacuation hub for Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and Europe. During that assignment, she spearheaded development of the Joint Patient Tracking Application, an innovative electronic health-records system. Cornum is also a professor of military and operational medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Nicholas Felton

Graphic Designer, Feltron.com

Nicholas Felton is renowned for his work in data visualization. In 2005 he began publishing the Feltron Personal Annual Reports, obsessively and elegantly charting the minutiae of his own daily life in deadpan infographics—number of emails sent, types of beer consumed, subway trips, mood swings, dates, and so on. His work has been widely profiled (and imitated) in the media and has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and Walker Art Center. In 2008 he cofounded Daytum, a web service—and now an iPhone app—that lets anyone track and graph their own personal data. Felton recently joined Facebook as a product designer and was a key contributor to the social network’s new Timeline interface. He has been named one of the 50 most influential designers in America by Fast Company.

Anind K. Dey

Associate Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Anind Dey conducts research on human-computer interaction, machine learning, and ubiquitous computing at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also directs the Ubicomp Lab. He’s currently working on the use of sensing systems for outpatient health and behavior monitoring. Dey began his career in 2001 as a senior researcher at Intel Research Berkeley and adjunct professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, where he was a member of the Group for User Interface Research. As part of his doctoral work, he developed a software toolkit that facilitates the creation of context-aware applications. He serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals, including IEEE Pervasive Computing and Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

Tim Ferriss

Author/Guinea Pig, The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body

Called "the world's best human guinea pig" by Newsweek, Tim Ferriss has parlayed his self-experimentation into a pair of blockbuster self-help books. His first was The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. His second, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, chronicles his efforts to maximize his physical potential. Ferriss holds the world record for executing the most tango spins in a minute, a feat he performed on the TV show Live with Regis and Kelly. He is a guest lecturer at Princeton University and a faculty member at Singularity University.

Alan Greene

Chief Medical Officer, Scanadu

Alan Greene is the chief medical officer of the Silicon Valley startup Scanadu. As a physician, Greene has long sought ways to help people better manage their own health. In 1995 he launched DrGreene.com, cited by the AMA as a pioneering physician website, and he is a founder and chairman of the Society for Participatory Medicine. The author of several popular parenting books, he has served as a pediatric expert and columnist for numerous web and print publications. He was named the Children’s Health Hero of the Internet by Intel and has been recognized as one of the Top Influencers in Healthcare IT by Advance for Health Information Executives.

Andy Grove

Former Chairman & CEO, Intel

Andy Grove is one of the great business leaders and visionaries of the past century. In 26 years as—successively—president, CEO, and chairman of Intel, he built the Santa Clara chipmaker into one of the world’s largest companies and helped make Silicon Valley the epicenter of the digital revolution. In 1997, Time magazine named him Man of the Year. A native of Hungary, Grove (né András Gróf) survived the Holocaust as a child and emigrated to the US in 1956. After earning a PhD from UC Berkeley, he began his career at Fairchild Semiconductor, then helped launch Intel in 1968. Taking over as president in 1979 and CEO in 1987, he transformed the company into the dominant supplier of microprocessors in the PC era. Grove retired as chairman in 2005 but remains a senior advisor. The author of six books, he has taught at Stanford Business School for more than two decades and recently helped establish a master’s degree in translational medicine at UC San Francisco.

Gigi Hirsch

Executive Director, Center for Biomedical Innovation, MIT

Gigi Hirsch is executive director of MIT’s interdisciplinary Center for Biomedical Innovation. She also leads the center’s New Drug Development Paradigms program, which brings together pharmaceutical companies, regulators, care providers, and insurers to explore ways of accelerating the development of new medications. Before joining CBI in 2006, sheserved as director of academic and professional relations at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Trained in internal medicine and psychiatry, Hirsch practiced emergency medicine for nearly five years at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 1992, while on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, she founded the Center for Physician Development, a nonprofit research and consulting firm. In 1997 she launched MD IntelliNet, a human-capital-management consultancy for physicians.

Charlie Huiner

Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, inTouch Health

Charlie Huiner is vice president of marketing and business development at InTouch Health, a leading provider of telemedicine systems. He previously served as vice president of Enterprise Solutions at InTouch, where he conceived of and launched the company’s surgical collaboration franchise. Before that, he was vice president of corporate development at biotech startup Isolagen and senior director of corporate development and strategy at medical device maker Inamed Corporation. He has also held senior operating positions at Bordeaux Capital, Security Capital Group, PhatPipe, and ProLogis. Huiner began his career as a financial analyst for NatWest Bancorp, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. 

Kevin Kelly

Cofounder, Quantified Self; Senior Maverick, WIRED

Kevin Kelly cofounded WIRED in 1993 and served as executive editor of the magazine from its inception until 1999. He currently holds the unique title of senior maverick. Kelly’s most recent book is What Technology Wants (2010), about long-term trends in what he calls the technium. He is also editor and publisher of the Cool Tools website, which gets half a million unique visitors per month. From 1984 to 1990, Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He cofounded the Quantified Self movement and the ongoing Hackers’ Conference, and he helped launch the pioneering online service the WELL in 1985. He is the author of the best-selling book New Rules for the New Economy and the classic 1994 work on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control.

Jennifer Kurkoski

Manager, People & Innovation Lab, Google

Jennifer Kurkoski directs Google’s People & Innovation Lab (PiLab). Part of Google’s People Operations (aka Human Resources) department, PiLab members conduct research aimed at improving the company’s organizational practices. Recent studies have focused on developing managerial skills, encouraging healthy choices among employees, and helping new hires become productive quickly. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company, as well as on the BBC and ABC’s Nightline. Before joining Google, Jennifer was a senior community manager at Excite@Home and consulted with nonprofit organizations on leadership development.

Sue Siegel

CEO, GE Healthymagination

Sue Siegel is a corporate officer of GE and CEO of Healthymagination, GE’s $6 billion initiative to improve health care through innovations that increase quality of care, access, and affordability. Prior to joining GE in June 2012, she was a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures in Silicon Valley, where she led investments in personalized medicine, molecular diagnostics, and digital service-delivery models for health care. Before that, she served as president and director of Affymetrix, leading the genomics company’s rapid growth to a multibillion-dollar market cap. Siegel has served on several advisory boards and councils, including the President’s Circle of the National Academies and the Advisory Council of the Gladstone Institutes at UC San Francisco. She was also selected as a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Rick Smolan

CEO, Against All Odds Productions

Rick Smolan is a former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer. In 1987 he cofounded Against All Odds Productions, which specializes in large-scale documentary projects. Many of his picture books have become cultural touchstones, starting with the best-selling Day in the Life series in the 1980s. For America 24/7, images were contributed by 1,000 photojournalists and more than 25,000 volunteer stringers and amateurs across the country. His current project, The Human Face of Big Data (to be released this fall) looks at how the explosion of real-time data from satellites, sensors, and wireless devices touches our lives in fascinating ways. Other titles include America at Home, One Digital Day, The Obama Time Capsule, 24 Hours in Cyberspace: Paintings on the Walls of the Digital Cave, and From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback. Against All Odds was named by Fortune as “one of the 25 coolest companies in America.”

Eric Topol

Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute;
Professor of Genomics, The Scripps Research Institute

Eric Topol is a practicing physician and one of the world’s foremost medical researchers. As head of cardiology, he led the Cleveland Clinic to become the number one heart care center in the US and in 2002 founded the clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine. In 2006 he became director of the new Scripps Translational Science Institute, devoted to advancing gene-based individualized medicine and real-time digital health monitoring. He also serves as chief academic officer of Scripps Health. Topol has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was voted the most influential physician-executive in the US in a 2012 Modern Healthcare poll. GQ magazine has named him one of 12 “Rock Stars of Science.” His book The Creative Destruction of Medicine was published this year.

Yulun Wang

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, inTouch Health

Yulun Wang founded InTouch Health in 2002. Named one of the top 100 health companies in the US by Inc. magazine, InTouch develops telemedicine systems that let physicians diagnose and consult with patients from remote locations. Wang has long been a pioneer in medical technology, with over 100 patents in his name. After earning his PhD in electrical engineering, he founded Computer Motion and invented the first FDA-approved surgical robot, known as Aesop, which was widely used in minimally invasive surgery. Computer Motion went public in 1997 and later merged with Intuitive Surgical. Wang has received numerous entrepreneurship and leadership awards and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2011. He is on the board of directors at Hoag Memorial Hospital and the American Telemedicine Association and is a member of the Engineering Advisory Board at UC Santa Barbara.

Brian Welle

People Analytics Manager, Google

Brian Welle has been a member of Google’s People Analytics team since its founding in 2006, directing research and designingprograms to help the company cultivate its human resources. He currently leads a team of analysts, whose research has helped to improve managerial effectiveness, encourage employees to make healthier decisions about their physical and financial well-being, and foster innovation. Prior to joining Google, Brian was a research director at Catalyst, a nonprofit consulting organization specializing in diversity.

Gary Wolf

Cofounder, Quantified Self; Contributing Editor, WIRED

Gary Wolf cofounded the Quantified Self, a global collaboration among users and makers of self-tracking tools exploring “self-knowledge through numbers.” The subject of news coverage in The New York Times, The Economist, Forbes, and many other media outlets, Quantified Self is a touchstone for new ideas in health, sensing, and wearable and ubiquitous computing. Wolf is a widely published journalist and a contributing editor at WIRED. His work has appeared in The Best American Science Writing and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He has been a Knight Fellow at Stanford University, and in 2010 he was awarded the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism prize. He is the author of two books, Dumb Money: Adventures of a Day Trader (with Joey Anuff) and Wired: A Romance.