Julia Watson: Sacred places

illustration by Peter Durand

“I am an architect and I am interested in preserving these sacred places.” Julia Watson explains why it is so important to preserve environmentally sensitive sites and ecosystems around the world while considering the interests and participation of local inhabitants.

Christina Agapakis: Toe cheese

illustration by Peter Durand

“I’m really excited about things that sometimes are a little bit gross, a little bit disgusting.” Microbiologist Christina Agapakis shows how she makes cheese from bacteria collected from the human body. Armpits. Mouths. Between toes.

Esther Wang: Measure impact

Psychologist Esther Perel is recognized as one of the world’s most original and insightful voices on couples and sexuality across cultures. Fluent in nine languages, the Belgian native is a celebrated speaker sought around the globe for her expertise in emotional and erotic intelligence, work-life balance, cross-cultural relations, conflict resolution and identity of modern marriage and family.

Zach Lieberman: Creative Teaching

“We are not sitting in front of a screen. We are trying to create a space for reimagining what is possible.” Zach Liebermann talks about teaching creativity in the information age at his School for Poetic Computation. More at: www.sfpc.io

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve: Tax Incentives

illustration by Peter Durand

“If we can make the tax form slightly less frustrating and perhaps raise compliance, we can do a lot of good.” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve shares some data that suggest some interesting ways to incentivize people to pay their taxes.

Nicole Stubbs: Lending data

illustration by Peter Durand

“How do you build real economic security in a cash economy?” Learn how Nicole Stubbs is reducing lending and borrowing costs across the developing world through cloud technology by aggregating big data and producing recommendations about products and loan sizes. www.first-access.org

Shantell Martin: Art evolutions

The work of Shantell Martin is a meditation of lines; a language of characters, creatures and messages that invite her viewers to share a role in her creative process. Part autobiographical, and part dreamlike whimsy, Martin has created her own world that bridges fine art, commercial and the everyday. Using her simple trademark – black ink on white surfaces, Martin’s illustrations transform everything from walls, found objects, ceramics, luxury goods, sneakers, and even faces into a visual narrative.

Donnel Baird: Energy financing

iPad illustration by Peter Durand

“We create jobs, energy savings, carbon emission reductions, financial returns for our investors.” Donnel Baird explains his online platform that connects investors concerned about climate change with inner city solar and energy efficiency projects. www.blocpower.org

Jessica Richman: Citizen Science

iPad illustration by Peter Durand

“Citizen science is the process of involving the public in science, and it is desperately needed.” Jessica Richman shares the importance of crowdsourcing scientific research, such as to explore the human microbiome. More at: ubiome.com

Prabhjot Singh: Mobile health

illustration by Peter Durand

“Train people in their communities to take an active part in their health care outside the walls of a hospital or clinic.” Prabhjot Singh is the co-chair of the One Million Community Health Worker Campaign, an initiative that designs and tests how community health workers can be more effective using mobile tools in the developing world. More at: 1millionhealthworkers.org

Rodney Mullen: Getting back up

Rodney Mullen is widely considered to be the most influential skateboarder in skateboarding history. Mullen is a professional skateboarder, company owner, inventor, and public speaker who practices freestyle and street skateboarding. Mullen is credited with inventing numerous skateboarding tricks, including the flatground ollie, kickflip, heelflip, impossible, and 360-flip. More at: rodneymullen.net

Jim Olson: Tumor Paint

“In a few years, surgeons will have a hard time going back to surgery as they did it in the past.” Jim Olson invented a potentially revolutionary “tumor paint” that locates and lights up tumor cells to show surgeons exactly what to excise. More at: www.fhcrc.org

PopTech 2013 Science & Social Innovation Fellows

LINKS: See digital scribing from PopTech 2013 More on the PopTech Fellows Program

Meet the Social Innovation Fellows PopTech Fellows participate in an all-expenses-paid intensive program, which will run from October 18-23, 2013, and focus on insights and tools for accelerating and scaling “big bet” innovations. Meet the Science Fellows Fellows explore branding, media relations, social media, finance, leadership, digital storytelling, design for impact and organizational development. Interactive training sessions are led by eminent innovators, scientists, journalists and acknowledged leaders in these fields.

Juan Enriquez: Reframe & rethink

Juan Enriquez is an experienced business leader, author, and academic who is recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the economic and political impacts of life sciences. He is a Managing Director in Excel Venture Management, a venture capital firm that invests in companies that apply transformative life science technologies to solve problems in healthcare and beyond. He was the founding director of Harvard Business School’s Life Sciences Project. He then founded Biotechonomy, a life sciences research and investment firm, where he remains as chairman and CEO. In July of 2005, he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, Inc., a synthetic biology company focused on developing and commercializing genomic-driven solutions to address global energy, medicine, clean water, and food challenges. He has been an active investor in early-stage private companies in the biotechnology and information sciences sectors. While at Harvard, he wrote various articles and case studies, won a McKinsey Prize, and published the best-selling “As the Future Catches You,” an analysis of the impact of genomics on business and society.

Kelly Benoit-Bird on How Sea Creatures Make a Living

Associate Professor, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University Kelly Benoit-Bird applies acoustics to the study of ecosystems in the open ocean. She has helped develop several new optical and acoustical instruments and has made fundamental acoustical measurements of species ranging from zooplankton to fish, squid, and marine mammals. people.oregonstate.edu/~benoitbk/

Steve Lansing & Julia Watson: Water temples forever

Steve Lansing, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, is helping preserve the centuries-old water-temple system in Bali that distributes water from a volcanic lake to over two hundred farming villages. Lansing and landscape architect Julia Watson are working with the people of Bali to craft a plan to enable tourists to explore the area and preserve it. Watson says the idea is to protect “the most resilient system and the most bio-diverse agro ecosystem known to man.”

Sheila Bair: Reframe & rethink

Sheila Bair served as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for a five-year term, from June 2006 through June 2011. She presided over one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the nation’s banking system, working to bolster public confidence and financial system stability. She has been a leading advocate and innovator of policies to end the doctrine of too-big-to-fail and taxpayer bailouts.

Ken Banks: Freedom from money

Ken Banks recently launched Means of Exchange to look at how everyday technologies can be used to democratize opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, rebuild local communities and promote a return to local resource use. “I think we need to remember that we are more valuable as individuals than the sum of the notes in our pocket.”

Dan Schulman: Future of retail banking

Dan Schulman joined American Express as group president, Enterprise Growth, in August 2010. Dan is responsible for the company’s global strategy to expand alternative mobile and online payment services, form new partnerships and build revenue streams beyond the traditional card and travel businesses. This includes the Serve digital payments and commerce platform, the prepaid business, Global Payment Options, Fee-Based Services, and the company’s Mergers and Acquisitions unit.

William Jack: Mobile Banking

William Jack is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Georgetown University, where he is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is co-founder and co-director of gui2de, the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation, which conducts empirical field-based research to assess the impact and effectiveness of interventions and policies aimed at empowering individuals in developing countries to improve their lives. Major research themes include governance and accountability, the promotion of agency in the delivery of health, education, and other public services, the role of mobile technology in development, and financial development and integration.