Zann Gill worked as a researcher for Buckminster Fuller while completing her M. Arch. at Harvard. Early interest in Fuller's concepts of design science and World Game to achieve environmental sustainability sparked her focus on cross-disciplinary innovation networks. Her entry to the international competition Kawasaki: Information City of the 21st Century, sponsored by the Japan Association for Planning Administration and Mainichi Newspapers, with cooperation of ten ministries and three agencies of the Japanese government, tied with Matsushita Corp. for first place and won the Award of the Mayor of Kawasaki. She proposed a networked system of sixteen initiatives — a framework comprised of diverse interlinked components for urban innovation as a complex adaptive system. More recently at NASA she developed program plans for an Institute for Advanced Space Concepts (IASC), a collaboratory BEACON (Bio-Evolutionary Advanced Concepts) and an astrobiology program for NASA University. Through DESYN lab she consults on projects ranging from the Smart Systems–Eco-Cities initiative of Australia’s ICT Center of Excellence to decision support for sustainable remediation. She writes on the implications of the origin and evolution of life for eco-sustainability as a complex, adaptive system. Her recently completed book, If Microbes begat Mind, proposes the A-PR Hypothesis. A sequel, What Daedalus told Darwin, argues that Darwin has been misinterpreted, drawing evidence from his writings, others of his day and current debate. She maintains that self-organizing complex systems, and recent findings about the mechanisms of evolution, are the basis for defining the new field of collaborative intelligence and developing an associated new paradigm for collaborative computing.

David Dunkley Gyimah started in Applied Chemistry before translating his scientific interests to explore synthesis in new emergent media. Winner of a Knight Batten Award (US) and Global Video Journalism Award (Berlin), he’s been described by APPLE as a “one-man hurricane,” breaking boundaries between art and journalism, production and post-production, present and future. On the cutting edge of new technology, redefining the possible, David became part of the Channel One team defining video-journalism in the mid-nineties. He had previously worked for BBC’s flagship news analysis programme Newsnight, and  the innovative cult youth current affairs show BBC Reportage (on-screen), and as a presenter/producer on BBC’s radio show, BBC GLR, where he interviewed a range of thought leaders. In 1992 he relocated to South Africa, freelancing as a radio journalist for the BBC World Service, ABC News, as an Associate Producer and BBC Radio 4 documentaries, where he made First Time Voters, tracking four youngsters voting in their first election. The documentary was repeated on the BBC World Service, bought by South Africa Broadcasting and aired one day before the election. He later worked for Channel 4 News, WTN and dotcoms (he's been on the net since 1995). He also worked as a Television Producer/Director for local indies and ABC News, making "Through the Eyes of a Child." At the other extreme, he produced a video report on South African Dirk Coetzee, leader of a secret death squad, and made a number of reports from trouble-spot townships, such as Katlehong, designated then the "murder capital of the world." Dunkley Gyimah set broadcast precedent, co-producing/directing a joint venture of African broadcasters, which led to meeting Nelson Mandela. Based in London, but often overseas, he produces the award-winning online magazine viewmagazine.tv and teaches digital journalism at a range of universities, from London to China and Egypt. He is an Artist in Residence at London's cultural hub, The Southbank Centre, a director of the UK's governing body linking universities and broadcast institutions, and has been a member of London's foreign policy think tank, Chatham House, since 1994. Dunkley Gyimah, a juror for the UK equivalent of the EMMY's, the RTS, is pioneering the new methods we’ll use in the future when everyone’s video hyperlinks to a knowledge network, redefining the microbes-mind metaphor. Dunkley Gyimah is developing his concept of the Outernet, an experiment in defining the future of media networks and our networked "collaborative intelligence," which new technologies will enable.

Christopher P. McKay received his Ph.D. in Astro-Geophysics from the University of Colorado and is a research scientist with the NASA Ames Research Center studying planetary atmospheres, astrobiology, and terraforming and terrestrial analogs as vehicles to understand ecosystem sustainability. McKay has done extensive research on planetary atmospheres, particularly the atmospheres of Titan and Mars, and on the origin and evolution of life. He is a co-investigator on the Huygens probe, the Mars Phoenix lander, and the Mars Science Laboratory. He has also performed field research on extremophiles, in such locations as Death Valley, the Atacama Desert, Axel Heiberg Island, and ice-covered lakes in Antarctica. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Planetary Society and also works with the Mars Society and has written and spoken extensively on space exploration and terraforming. Chris McKay’s current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He’s also actively involved in planning for future Mars missions, including human settlements, and has conducted polar research since 1980, traveling to the Antarctic dry valleys and more recently to the Siberian and Canadian Arctic to conduct research in these Mars-like environments. He won a 2004 NASA Exceptional Leadership Medal, a 2004 NASA Group Achievement Award for the ARES project, a 2005 NASA Ames Honor Award, was named in 2005 a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of the Origin Life, and in 2006 named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. As a world authority on terraforming Mars, Chris views this thought–simulation experiment as an ideal intellectual challenge in the synthesis of complex systems — a chance to learn about the intricacy of our co-dependent Earth ecosystems via this Mars analog and to recognize that shipping Earth civilization off to space will be, well, . . . not so easy.

Perparim Rama has conducted extensive research on spontaneous settlements and self-organisation, focusing on Generative Architecture. With a Masters Degree with Distinction in Computing & Architecture, he has focused on lessons from biology for the built environment. As founding director of 4M Group, responsible for overall project management and development planning of the practice, his projects range from residential to commercial, from hotels to mixed use development, airport and urban planning. He currently works as a London team project leader on ENK Complex Mixed Use development in Prishtina and as specialist on developing Tools for Spatial Planning and Architecture for Newham Council and Tower Hamlets in London UK. He is project leader in designing the urban regulating plan for the capital city of Prishtina, Kosova. His architectural practice has spanned many countries: New York, USA; Turks and Caicos Islands; Prishtina, Kosova; London, UK; Udine, Italy; and Kotor, Montenegro. Through collaborating on large scheme projects he has developed a creative thinking method for the design of new enterprises. Rama has taught at Nottingham University School of Architecture and co-supervises PhDs in the area of 3d Generative Architecture & SMART building design at MA and PHD program at SmartLab Digital Media Institute. He is also a visiting tutor/critic at University of East London on Degree, Diploma and MSc in Computing & Design and Visiting Critic at the Architectural Association. 

Sheridan Tatsuno is principal of Dreamscape Global, a Silicon Valley market research and corporate strategy consultancy and venture accelerator, which has developed breakthrough strategies for high-tech companies in the U.S., Japan, Europe and Asia since 1989.  A graduate of Yale and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Tatsuno worked at Bechtel in civil infrastructure planning, international project financing, and environmental assessment, co-founded Dataquest’s Japan and Asian semiconductor groups and served as industry liaison manager at Stanford University’s U.S.-Japan Technology Management Center, and advised and introduced Dataquest's high-tech clients to regional development agencies, including Holland, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Austria, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Sheridan Tatsuno is the author of two books produced for television:  The Technopolis Strategy (Prentice-Hall, 1986, produced as "Japan Dreaming" by Central Independent Television in 1991) and Created in Japan  (HarperCollins, 1990; used for the Kyoto scenes in the 4-hour "The Creative Spirit" PBS series, funded by IBM's Center of Excellence). He has written 14 screenplays and is working on three new scripts for independent production. He speaks Japanese, Spanish and French.  

Peter Douglas Ward, a paleontologist and professor of Biology and of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, also a scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute, has written a series of “big ideas” books presenting provocative hypotheses to be explored in the Microbes Mind Forum. Ward’s field research specializes in the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, mass extinctions generally, and what the fossil record indicates about biodiversity and a potential future mass extinction event, which he characterizes as The Medea Hypothesis, which was named one of the 100 most important ideas of 2009 by the New York Times. He contends that multicellular life, understood as a superorganism, is suicidal. According to Ward's 2007 book, Under a Green Sky, all but one of the major extinction events in history have been brought on by climate change — the same global warming that occurs today. The author argues that events in the past can give valuable information about the future of our planet. Reviewer Doug Brown goes further, stating "this is how the world ends." Scientists at the Universities of York and Leeds also warn that the fossil record supports evidence of impending mass extinction. Ward’s best-selling book on the origin of life, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (co-authored with Donald Brownlee, 2000) characterizes the unique attributes that make Earth a habitable planet and remains the most widely read astrobiology book ever written. It was featured in an episode of ABC Nightline and named by Discover Magazine one of the ten most important science books of 2001. While astronomers searching for habitable extra-solar planets (super-Earths) contest the Rare Earth Hypothesis, Ward and Brownlee put forth a compelling argument for treating Earth as rare and exceptional until proven otherwise. Ward’s latest book, The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps (2010) examines the future implications of global climate change. In 2008 he was the main speaker at TED; in 2010 he was named Faculty Lecturer at the University of Washington, the University's highest annual academic honor.