Caroline Baron is a New York–based film and television producer, humanitarian, entrepreneur, and university professor. She is currently producing the critically acclaimed Amazon original series, Mozart in the Jungle, for which she recently won a Golden Globe. Baron received a Best Picture Academy Award nomination for Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Her many credits include the cross-cultural hit Monsoon Wedding, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and numerous awards worldwide.

Baron and her filmmaker husband Anthony Weintraub are partners in A-Line Pictures and cofounders of children’s media company yummico. A-Line is producing a film adaptation of the bestselling novel Bel Canto, among others.

In 1999, motivated by reports of families who fled their homes in Kosovo to seek refuge in crowded camps in Macedonia, Baron founded the non-profit organization FilmAid International. FilmAid’s programs foster understanding, engage the mind, and provide life-saving information on HIV/AIDS, landmine awareness, health and hygiene, women’s rights, and conflict resolution. FilmAid currently reaches hundreds of thousands of refugees and other vulnerable populations in Africa, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and Haiti. Baron has traveled to Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan, and Haiti, and has worked with several branches of the UN and the U.S. Department of State as well as numerous NGOs in the field.

Baron is currently an adjunct professor at NYU’s Tisch School of Undergraduate Film and Television, teaching classes on producing. She has received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Chapman University and the 2008 Alumni Achievement award from Brandeis University.

Jamie Bennett is the executive director of ArtPlace America, a partnership among 16 foundations, 8 federal agencies, and 6 financial institutions working to position art and culture as a core sector of community planning and development by investing in, researching, and supporting those who lead and execute creative placemaking projects. To date, ArtPlace has invested $85 million in 233 projects in communities of all sizes. Previously, Jamie worked at the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Columbia University, the Agnes Gund Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Philharmonic.

Michael Berkowitz joined the Rockefeller Foundation in August 2013 to shape and oversee 100 Resilient Cities. Previously, he worked at Deutsche Bank, most recently as the deputy global head of Operational Risk Management (ORM). In that capacity he oversaw the firm’s OR capital planning efforts, served as a primary regulatory contact, and connected the myriad operational risk management efforts group-wide.

He held multiple other positions at DB, including Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Security, Business Continuity (CSBC), and Operational Risk Management, where he had responsibility for budgeting, operations, and global coordination across the group’s six workstreams. During this time, he also served as the head of the Bank’s Protective Intelligence unit, designed to assess and analyze security and geo-political threats to the bank, its staff, processes, and information.

Until January 2005, he was Deputy Commissioner at the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in New York City. In this position he worked on major planning initiatives, including the New York City Coastal Storm, Biological Terrorism, and Transit Strike contingency plans. He also led an initiative to create OEM’s Public-Private Emergency Planning Initiative and its Ready New York citizen preparedness campaign and responded to incidents including the 1999 outbreak of West Nile, Tropical Storm Floyd, major flooding in Southern Queens, the crashes of SwissAir 111 and American Airlines 587, the 2003 Northeast blackout, as well as the 2001 anthrax incidents and the World Trade Center disaster.

Michael R. Bloomberg is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who served as mayor of New York City from 2002–2013 after leading the company he started in 1981 for 20 years. Since leaving City Hall, he has resumed leadership of Bloomberg LP.

Bloomberg was elected mayor less than two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Under his leadership, the city rebounded faster and stronger than expected on issues ranging from education to health to economic development.

A lifelong philanthropist, Bloomberg founded Bloomberg Philanthropies, which focuses on five main areas: public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation. He also leads a number of bi-partisan coalitions on urgent issues, including climate change, illegal guns, immigration reform, and infrastructure investment.

Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.

With his signature mellow voice that can be heard on over 80 million records, Andrea Bocelli is recognized worldwide for continuing the highest Italian vocal tradition.

Bocelli found fame at an early age when he won the Newcomers section of the Sanremo Music Festival in 1994. After studying under Franco Corelli, his dazzling classical career took off with memorable onstage performances directed by Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, and Zubin Mehta in various lyrical repertoires, from Macbeth and Il Trovatore to Madame Butterfly, La Bohème, and Tosca, as well as French masterpieces, including Werther, Carmen, Roméo et Juliette.

Over the course of his career, Bocelli has performed for four U.S. presidents, three popes, the British Royal Family, several prime ministers, and at ceremonies for the Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo, and Expo Milan 2015, and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2011, Bocelli founded the Andrea Bocelli Foundation (ABF) in an effort to empower poverty-stricken people and communities. At the opening of the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos, he was given the prestigious Crystal Award, recognizing both his work as an artist and as a philanthropist.

Dana Caspersen is a conflict specialist, author, and performing artist. Her work focuses on empowering individuals and organizations to create positive change in destructive systems.

In her nearly three decades as a leading artist with the Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company, Caspersen worked as a primary collaborator of choreographer William Forsythe, writing the theatrical texts and performing as a principal artist in Forsythe’s most celebrated works. Their collaborations ranged from the creation of the world’s largest bouncy castle for Artangel in London to the development of internationally acclaimed stage works such as Eidos: Telos and I Don’t Believe in Outer Space.

Caspersen holds a Master of Science in Conflict Studies and Mediation and an MFA in Dance. She is the author of Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution (Penguin 2015, A Joost Elffers Book), which offers effective tools for turning conflict into a place of possibility. Caspersen uses choreographic thinking to create large-scale international public dialogue projects on topics ranging from immigration to violence. These projects have brought together thousands of people from diverse communities across the world. Caspersen teaches, coaches, and mediates in situations of conflict. She has been nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Dance Achievement and received the Bessie Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement.

Vin Cipolla is the past President and Chief Executive of the Municipal Art Society of New York, past citizen Chairman, President and Chief Executive of the National Park Foundation, a Presidential appointment, and the former Chairman and President of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, where he led efforts to build and open the first new museum in Boston in 100 years. He has served on the boards of over thirty public and private organizations, and is currently with the Municipal Art Society, the Public Art Fund, Ballet Hispanico and the Arts Arena, where he is Chairman. With a parallel career in business leadership, Mr. Cipolla was a President and Chief Executive with Fidelity Capital, and the founder of six companies.

Stephen Daldry started his career at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre and directed extensively in Britain’s regional theaters. In London, he was Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre, where he headed the £26 million redevelopment. He has also directed at London’s National Theatre, the Public Theater in New York, and transferred many productions both to Broadway and the West End. Billy Elliot the Musical recently commenced its first U.K. and Ireland tour, having just completed a hugely successful and highly acclaimed multi-award-winning twelve-year run in London. It previously played on Broadway, as well as in Holland, Seoul, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, Toronto, and across the U.S. In 2009, the production won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, more than any other British show in Broadway history. It will open in Japan in 2017. Daldry’s first four films, Billy Elliot, The Hours, The Reader, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, together received nineteen Academy Award nominations and two wins. His most recent film, Trash, set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, was nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 2015 BAFTAs. Daldry has previously directed for BBC Radio and Television and is currently directing the new Netflix series The Crown, written by Peter Morgan. He is Director of the Pier 55 Performance Park in New York and was Creative Executive Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

As Senior Managing Director of Tishman Speyer responsible for the Brazil and China businesses and Global Corporate Marketing, Katherine Farley has recently retired after a 32-year career at the company. Farley currently serves as Chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She has been involved at Lincoln Center since 1999, having served on the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Board from 1999 to 2005 and on the Lincoln Center Theater Board from 2002– to 2005. She was Chairman of the Lincoln Center Redevelopment Project from 2006 to 2010, a $1.2 billion comprehensive renovation of the campus. Farley was recently appointed Co-Chair of the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit organization that focuses on emergency relief and resettlement for refugees, after having served on their Board of Trustees from 1998 to 2009 and their Board of Overseers from 2009 to 2015. She also serves as a Trustee of The Rockefeller University, The Andrew J. Mellon Foundation, and Lang Lang International Music Foundation. She served on the Board of Trustees of Brown University from 2004 to 2010 and on the Board of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 2001 to2010. She also served as a Member of The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Conservation Council from 2011 to 2014. Farley was Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Brearley School in New York City from 1999 to 2007 and is Chairman Emerita of Women In Need. She received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and MFA in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Donna Ferrato is a documentary photographer from Lorain, Ohio. She has published four books, including Living with the Enemy and Love & Lust, and also participated in over 500 one-woman shows internationally. Ferrato has received numerous awards such as the W. Eugene Smith Grant (1986), the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Humanistic Photography (1987), and the LOOK3 Insightful Artist of the Year (2013). She currently lives in New York and photographs the neighborhood of Tribeca, to culminate in a new book published in 2016.

Mina Girgis, of the Nile Project, is an ethnomusicologist with a background in hospitality experience design. His work explores new ways to cultivate environments conducive to learning, making, and experiencing music. He specializes in curating and producing innovative musical collaborations across diverse styles. Girgis earned his bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Administration from Florida State University.

Russell Granet is internationally known for his work in arts education. He oversees LCE, founded in 1975 as the educational cornerstone of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Lincoln Center International.

An enthusiastic, respected advocate for arts education for more than 25 years, Granet joined Lincoln Center after running his own international consulting group, Arts Education Resource (AER). Prior to founding AER, Granet held leadership positions at The Center for Arts Education—The NYC Annenberg Challenge; The American Place Theatre; and was a senior teaching artist at the Creative Arts Team. From 1995 to 2015 he was on the faculty at New York University, where he taught and created the course Drama with Special Populations.

He currently serves or has served on the boards of The Association of Teaching Artists, The American Alliance of Theatre Education, The American Place Theatre, The Maktaba Project, Hilary Easton + Company Dance, Mayor’s Children’s Cabinet Advisory, and was a founding board member of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and the Chair of Arts Education for the Columbia County (NY) Arts Council.

Granet has worked on projects abroad and throughout the U.S. He was granted the Founder’s Award from The Bronx Charter School for the Arts for his work in Arts Education, and the Arts and Culture Award from the Turkish Cultural Center.

Justin Guariglia is a contemporary artist whose work explores the production of images of our planet in the Anthropocene. Positioning his work in the post-image tradition that has occupied a lot of media and inter-media art in the previous decades, Guariglia has attempted to reconfigure our gaze at both photography and the built environment, confronting us with a new paradigm of seeing in which we alternate between the visual and the visible. His work occupies a privileged place in the current debate about the future of our planet, embodying many of the material and intellectual challenges of the Anthropocene, bridging a gap between artistic production, technological imagination, and the scientific configuration of reality under which we have lived since the 18th century.

In 2015, Guariglia began a groundbreaking collaboration with NASA, partaking in flight missions over Greenland, documenting the residual transformations of the ice sheet, and incorporating these images into his work. The images perform a double-entendre: While they are a metaphor for the change at work in our world today, they are also a troubling reminder of the irreversibility of this change and the implications in the future of our endangered life-world. Guariglia coined and recently trademarked the term “Plasticene printing” to refer to his unique multilayered printing process with a plastic-like acrylic monomer ink, inaugurating a new era of visual archaeologies and creating in his work optical and aesthetic singularities that force us to rethink the structures that underlie our history.

Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose prolific and varied work is characterized by its ingenuity, inventiveness, and originality. He founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994 to bring design, architecture, and urban planning together in a single workspace. Based in London, the studio is currently working in four continents on projects valued at over £2 billion.

Joi Ito is the director of the MIT Media Lab. He is chairman of the board of PureTech Health and a board member of Sony Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, and the New York Times Company. He is the cofounder and a board member of Digital Garage, an Internet company in Japan. He has created numerous Internet companies, including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage, and Infoseek Japan. He was an early-stage investor in Formlabs, Flickr, Kickstarter, littleBits, Path, Twitter, Wikia, and other companies.

In 2008, Ito was named by Businessweek as one of the “25 Most Influential People on the Web. In 2011, Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” Also in 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute in recognition of his role as one of the world’s leading advocates of Internet freedom. In 2011 and 2012, Nikkei Business selected him as one of the “100 Most Influential People for the Future of Japan.”

In 2013, Ito was awarded a Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, from The New School. In 2014, he was inducted into the SXSW Interactive Festival Hall of Fame and was awarded the Golden Plate Award by the Academy of Achievement. In 2015, Ito was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Tufts University.

Born and raised in Ephrata, Washington, Dr. Sara Kass received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from Pacific Lutheran University and her medical degree from George Washington University. She returned to Washington State to complete her internship and residency in Family Medicine at the Puget Sound Family Medicine Residency at Naval Hospital Bremerton. Sara is board certified in Family Medicine and is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Prior to retiring at the rank of Captain in March of 2015, Sara served as Deputy Chief of Wounded, Ill and Injured (WII) at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) August, 2008 through December, 2011 and as Deputy Commander, National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, MD August 2011 to February 2015. Since retirement, Sara has remained committed to improving the lives of Wounded Warriors and their families. She currently is consulting with the National Endowment for the Arts to expand the Military Healing Arts Partnership to 10 new locations by February 2017. Sara also serves as the Chief of Staff for Warrior Canine Connection and is instrumental in helping WCC serves and support 48,000 Veterans through placement of Service Dogs and delivery of Mission Based Trauma Recovery therapy by 2025.

Dr. Arnoldo Matus Kramer brings more than nine years of professional experience on climate change policy to the role of Mexico City’s Chief Resilience Officer. In 2012, he co-founded Ithaca Environmental, a consulting firm providing counsel in climate change, sustainability, environmental finance, and clean technology topics. His work included acting as project leader for IDB in the design of the climate change adaptation plan, land use planning, and integrated management of the Grijalva and Usumacinta river basins in southern Mexico.

In 2009, Kramer worked at the OECD in Paris, where he contributed to the work on climate change adaptation. He also coordinated at the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) the study “Adaptation to Climate Change in Mexico: Vision, Elements, and Criteria for the Decision-Making,” worked as an advisor at INECC, and led the development of the Mexican government’s official web-based presence with information about emissions and energy efficiency from passenger cars and light trucks.

Kramer holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Environment from the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford; a masters of science in Renewable Energy and Environment from Reading University in the U.K.; and a master of science in Environment and Resource Management from BTU-Cottbus in Germany.

Mitch Landrieu was sworn in as the 61st Mayor of New Orleans on May 3, 2010. On February 1, 2014, Mayor Landrieu was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term and is continuing to deliver major victories. Under Landrieu, New Orleans has become one of the fastest growing major cities in America. Since 2010, it has been ranked as the best metropolitan area for overall economic recovery by the Brookings Institution, thanks in part to the first ever public-private partnership for economic development, the NOLA Business Alliance. The city has seen private sector job growth, major new retailers, new private investment, and encouraging entrepreneurship. Landrieu also committed to make the city safer by reforming the New Orleans Police Department and launching NOLA For Life, a comprehensive strategy to tackle the city’s historically high murder rate with a focus on prevention, intervention, enforcement and rehabilitation. There are early signs of progress—violent crime is trending down, and 2014 saw the lowest number of murders in forty-three years.

Prior to being mayor, Landrieu served as Louisiana’s lieutenant governor and launched the Cultural Economy Initiative to grow jobs in Louisiana’s culture, music, food, film, and art industries. During his tenure, the city has also leveraged over $100 million in private, philanthropic, and federal grant funds for key priorities. Both as lieutenant governor and mayor, Landrieu made great gains in homeland security and emergency preparedness efforts, securing over $1 billion from FEMA for critical infrastructure and capital improvements, including new funds for road and drainage projects, park and playground renovations, and new criminal justice facilities.

Kate D. Levin is a Principal at Bloomberg Associates in Cultural Assets Management. Client cities include Athens, Kansas City, London, Los Angeles, and Rio de Janeiro. She also oversees the Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts Program, supporting a range of organizations and activities in the U.S. and around the world. Current initiatives include management training, public art, and digital technology. From 2002 to 2013, Levin served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Managing the largest single arts funder in the U.S., she increased support for cultural organizations and expanded creative sector participation in economic development, tourism, human service, and education initiatives. The inaugural Fellow at the National Center for Arts Research and a former professor of English at City College/CUNY, Levin also served in the administration of New York City Mayor Ed Koch.

Tod Machover has been called a “musical visionary” by The New York Times, “America’s most wired composer” by The Los Angeles Times. He is a co-founding member of the MIT Media Lab where he is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media and also directs the Opera of the Future Group. Before coming to MIT, Machover studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions at The Juilliard School and was the first Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris. Tod Machover’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by many of the world’s most prestigious ensembles and soloists, and his work has been awarded numerous prizes and honors worldwide, including a “Chevalier” of Arts and Letters from the French government to the inaugural Arts Advocacy Award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Most recently, he was named 2016 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Tod Machover is also recognized for designing new technologies for music performance and creation, such as Hyperinstruments, “smart” performance systems that extend expression for virtuosi, from Yo-Yo Ma to Prince, and also for the general public, such as Guitar Hero which grew out of his Lab. Machover is also known for his visionary operas – the most recent being the “robotic” Death and the Powers which was Finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize – and for musical projects that build community and promote collaboration, such as his City Symphonies which have been created around the world since 2013 (from Perth to Lucerne to Detroit and beyond). He is currently working on his next opera, Schoenberg in Hollywood, commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera for premiere in November 2018.

David Miliband is the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. He oversees the agency’s relief and development operations in over thirty countries, its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States, and the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people.

Miliband had a distinguished political career in the United Kingdom for over fifteen years. From 2007 to 2010, he served as the youngest foreign secretary in three decades, driving advancements in human rights and representing the U.K. throughout the world. As Secretary of State for the Environment in 2005–2006, he pioneered the world’s first legally binding emissions reduction requirements. His accomplishments have earned him a reputation, in former President Bill Clinton’s words, as “one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time.”

Miliband was previously Minister for Schools (2002–2004) and Head of Downing Street’s Number 10 Policy Unit (1997–2001). He has also been a Member of Parliament representing South Shields. He is Co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission.

Miliband graduated from Oxford University in 1987 with a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and received his master’s degree in Political Science in 1989 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he attended as a Kennedy Scholar.

Miliband’s parents were refugees from Belgium and Poland to the UK in the 1940s. As the son of refugees, he brings a personal commitment to the IRC’s work.

Tatsuo Miyajima (b.1957, Tokyo, Japan) lives and works in Ibaraki, Japan. After receiving a MFA at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1986, he began experiments in performance art before moving onto light-based installation. He often uses LED counters that flash in continual and repetitious cycles between 1 and 9 to represent a never-ending cycle of life and death. His theory derives partially from humanist ideas, the teachings of Buddhism, as well as from his core artistic concepts of ‘Keep Changing’, ‘Connect with All’ and ‘Goes on Forever.’

Miyajima has held solo exhibitions internationally, including; ‘‘House Lives with Time’ in Seoul, South Korea (2012); ‘ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST’ at The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2011), ‘Art in You’ at Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan (2008), ‘Counter Ground’ at Dallas Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1997), ‘Counter Line’ at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1997), amongst others.

He was also presented in numerous international biennales including the 43rd Venice Biennale (1988) and 48th Venice Biennale (1999). His works are placed in the permanent collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Kunstmuseum Bern.

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Sydney) will hold Miyajima’s mid-career retrospective exhibition this November, and his forthcoming exhibition at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE will be scheduled in March, 2017.

Renee Montagne one of the of the best known names in public radio, currently co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news magazine in the U.S.

Since beginning as a freelancer in the early ’80s, Montagne has worked with virtually every desk at NPR News: National, Foreign, Science, and Arts. In the late ‘80s she was named co-hosted of All Things Considered along with Robert Siegel.

In 1990, Montagne traveled to South Africa to cover Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and continued to report from South Africa for the next three years. In 1994, she and a team of NPR reporters won a prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, for coverage of South Africa’s historic parliamentary elections, and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela.

Since 9/11, Montagne has made ten extended reporting trips to Afghanistan. She has traveled to every city and many rural areas, from Kandahar to Bamian; peaceful areas, and places at the center of conflict. She has profiled both Presidents Ghani and Karzai, along Afghans at the heart of that complicated country: school girls, farmers, mullahs, poll workers, soldiers, women’s rights activist, midwives, and warlords – the list is long – at times, at great risk to herself.

In addition to the duPont Columbia Award, Montagne has been honored for her coverage of Afghanistan by the Overseas Press Club, the Feminist Majority, and the Gracies. In the 80’s, she was honored by the National Association of Black Journalists for a series she co-produced on Black musicians marching to the wars of the 20th century.

Montagne graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa. Her career includes a fellowship at the University of Southern California with the “National Arts Journalism Program,” and teaching broadcast writing at New York University’s Graduate Department of Journalism.

Luis Alberto Moreno was first elected president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2005 and re-elected in 2010 and 2015. The IDB Group, which also includes the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), is the leading source of long-term lending for Latin America and the Caribbean, providing around $12 billion a year in financing to public and private sector clients.

Before joining the IDB, Moreno served as Colombia’s Ambassador to the United States for seven years. Diplomatic relations between Washington and Bogotá improved notably during his tenure, leading to major bilateral assistance programs to bolster security and economic growth.

Previously, he was Colombia’s minister of economic development and president of the state enterprise holding company. In the private sector, he advised leading Colombian companies and foreign investors, and was executive producer of a top-rated television news program.

Moreno holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics from Florida Atlantic University and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In 1990 Harvard University awarded him a Neiman Fellowship.

A frequent participant in international forums on global aid, business, and philanthropy, Moreno was recently appointed a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Pete Muller is an American photographer and researcher based in Nairobi, Kenya. His work focuses on masculinity, national identity, and conflict in postcolonial states. He works on a mix of editorial assignments and long-term personal projects. His ongoing work, A Tale of Two Wolves, examines the interplay between concepts of masculinity, male experience, and violence. He has worked in South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere. He contributes to publications such as National Geographic, TIME Magazine, and the Washington Post and has received awards from World Press Photo, the Overseas Press Club, Pictures of the Year International, the Open Society Institute, and others. He is member of the photo collective Prime.

Dr. Dava Newman was nominated by President Barack Obama in January 2015 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2015 to serve as the Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She began her duties with the agency on May 18, 2015.

Prior to her tenure with NASA, Newman was the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. Her expertise is in multidisciplinary research that encompasses aerospace biomedical engineering.

Newman’s research studies were carried out through space flight experiments, ground-based simulations, and mathematical modeling. Her latest research efforts included: advanced space suit design, dynamics and control of astronaut motion, socio-technical systems analysis and space policy. She also had ongoing efforts in assistive and wearable technologies to augment human locomotion here on Earth.

Newman is the author of Interactive Aerospace Engineering and Design, an introductory engineering textbook published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. in 2002. She also has published more than 250 papers in journals and refereed conferences. She has served on numerous National Academies’ studies and panels on human spaceflight, human-robotic interaction and active learning for engineering and design education.

As a student at MIT, Newman earned her Ph.D. in aerospace biomedical engineering in 1992 and Master of Science degrees in aerospace engineering and technology and policy in 1989. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1986.

The Nile Project is transforming the Nile conflict by inspiring, educating, and empowering an international network of university students to cultivate the sustainability of their ecosystem. The project’s model integrates programs in music, education, dialogue, leadership, and innovation to engage students across disciplines and geographies.

The Nile Project brings together artists from the 11 Nile countries to make music that combines the region’s diverse instruments, languages and traditions. The concert experience aims to inspire cultural curiosity, highlight regional connections, and showcase the potential of trans-boundary cooperation.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy Award– and Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker. Her films include Saving Face, Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret, and Pakistan’s Taliban Generation, which have aired on channels around the world, including HBO, CNN, PBS, Channel 4, CBC, SBS, and Arte. Her recent film, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, won Best Documentary Short at the 88th Academy Awards.

Sharmeen has made over a dozen multi-award-winning films in over ten countries around the world. Her work centers on human rights and women’s issues, and she has worked with refugees and marginalized communities from Saudi Arabia to Syria and from Timor-Leste to the Philippines. By sharing their voices with the rest of the world, she has often helped them bring about critical change in their community.

In 2012, Time Magazine named her as one of the “100 Most Influential People.” Sharmeen has been the recipient of a dozen international awards, including the Livingston Award, One World Media Award, The Alfred duPont Award, The Overseas Press Club Award, The Abu Dhabi Audience Choice Award, Juliane-Bartel Award: The American Women in Radio and Television Award, AIB Award, The Cine Golden Eagle Award Crystal Award, Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Glamour Woman of the Year, and the Banff Rockie Award.

Born in Rio de Janeiro on November 14, 1969, Mayor Eduardo Paes is a law school graduate from PUC-Rio University. He has dedicated his entire career to public service, beginning in 1993, when he was appointed Deputy Mayor of the Jacarepaguá and Barra districts in Rio at the age of 23. In 1996, he was elected alderman and went on to be elected to the Federal Chamber of Deputies in 1998. In 2000, he was appointed Rio’s Municipal Environmental Secretary where he refined his knowledge of environmental issues.

Following his second consecutive mandate as a representative in Congress in 2007, Paes was named Secretary of State for Tourism, Sport, and Leisure and helped organize the Pan American Games that were held in Rio. In October 2008, Paes was elected Mayor of Rio de Janeiro for a four-year term, beginning on January 1, 2009, and on October 7, 2012, he was reelected in the first round for a second term.

Mayor Paes has led a comprehensive transformation of Rio de Janeiro, addressing many structural and social challenges. His administration was able to achieve significant results on education based on the permanent monitoring and evaluation of students’ learning progress. The program Schools of Tomorrow has shown consistent evolution, targeting stronger education in low-income areas of the city and providing full-time education among other initiatives. The Knowledge Ships program promotes digital inclusion in low-income communities.

Ambassador Samantha Power is the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet. At the United Nations, Ambassador Power works to advance U.S. interests, promote and defend universal values, and address pressing global challenges to global peace, security, and prosperity. Prior to serving as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Power served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Staff at the White House. In this role she focused on issues including UN reform; LGBT and women’s rights; the promotion of religious freedom and the protection of religious minorities; human trafficking; and democracy and human rights.

Before joining the U.S. government, Power was the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, teaching courses on U.S. foreign policy, human rights, and UN reform. She was also the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Ambassador Power is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (2002) and Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (2008), the basis for the award-winning HBO documentary, Sergio. She is also the recent coeditor of The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World (2011). Power began her career as a journalist, reporting from places such as Bosnia, Timor-Leste, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, and contributed regularly to The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the New Yorker.

Power immigrated to the United States from Ireland at the age of nine. She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

David M. Rubenstein is a cofounder and co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. Since its founding in 1987, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing nearly $200 billion from thirty-five offices around the world.

Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. in 1973 from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

After practicing law in New York, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments as well as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and of Duke University, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, Co-chairman of the Brookings Institution, Vice-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, and President of the Economic Club of Washington.

Rubenstein is on the boards of directors or trustees of numerous prestigious institutions, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

Rubenstein is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Business Council (Vice-Chairman), Visiting Committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors, the Board of Trustees of the Young Global Leaders Foundation, and the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, among others.

John Michael Schert is an artist, producer, and social entrepreneur working in multiple sectors and translating across many platforms. Originally from South Georgia, Schert began his career as a ballet dancer with American Ballet Theatre and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. In 2004 he cofounded Trey McIntyre Project (TMP), serving as the company’s executive director, and a dancer, for nine years. During this time he gained a unique insight into the process and product of art-making. In fall 2014 Schert served as an inaugural associate fellow at the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts and became an executive producer of Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho. In 2013, he was appointed the first Visiting Artist and Social Entrepreneur at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Through his current work at Chicago Booth, Schert now studies and lectures on the utility of the creative process and how the skills and behaviors of creatives can be of relevance and value to other sectors.

Piers Sellers is currently Deputy Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate and Acting Director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA/GSFC.

He was born and educated in the United Kingdom and moved to the U.S. in 1982 to carry out climate research at NASA/GSFC. From 1982 to 1996, he worked on global climate problems, particularly those involving interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and was involved in constructing computer models of the global climate system, satellite data interpretation and conducting large-scale field experiments in the USA, Canada, Africa, and Brazil.

He served as project scientist for the first large Earth Observing System platform, Terra, launched in 1998.

He has published over 70 papers, 30 of them as first author. His H-index is 49.

He joined the NASA astronaut corps in 1996 and flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2002, 2006, and 2010, carrying out six spacewalks and working on ISS assembly tasks.

He returned to GSFC in June, 2011.

Jean Taylor is a teaching artist for Lincoln Center Education, working extensively with local programs and international consultancies, and most recently cocreating and guiding LCE’s Teaching Artist Development Labs. She received Lincoln Center’s Directors Emeriti Award in 2012 and presented at the International Teaching Artist Conferences in Oslo (2012), Brisbane (2014), and Edinburgh (2016). Taylor is also a cocreator, with Marit Ulvund, of The Teaching Artist Global Exchange Program, which was launched in 2016 between LCE (NYC) and Seanse (Norway). Taylor also teaches Theatrical Clown for The Barrow Group Theatre and for The New School for Drama’s BFA and MFA programs.

Taylor and director Eric Nightengale recently completed a month-long run of their devised theater work, The Basement Plays, at The Barrow Group in New York City. The three plays, True Hazards of Childhood, Pants and Skirts, and Elsinore or Bust, were developed over the past five years in a process that combines community-based workshops and rehearsal-based improvisational research. Taylor’s current project, Stop/Slow, will premiere in 2017.

Taylor studied clown/fool/movement with Philippe Gaulier, Ronlin Foreman, David Shiner, and Merry Conway, among others. Her approach to theatrical clown has been published in Movement for Actors (Allworth Press). She is a board member for The Maxine Greene Center for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination.

Melissa Walker, a Creative Arts Therapist at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, a directorate of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, works with active duty service members suffering from traumatic brain injury and psychological health conditions. Dedicated to helping recovering service members safely express their deep thoughts and emotions in a creative environment, Walker designed the Healing Arts Program at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence in 2010, where she engages her patients in mask-making, a powerful mechanism for helping them express their invisible wounds. Walker received her master’s degree in Art Therapy from New York University.

Jacob Ward is an American journalist and television correspondent. The former editor-in-chief of Popular Science magazine, Ward joined Al Jazeera America as its science and technology correspondent in 2013, and continues to report for Al Jazeera English on the collision of social and scientific change. Ward is currently at work on a four-hour special about the science of bias and irrationality in the human mind, due to air on public television in 2018, and is finishing a 10-part podcast about seemingly unsolvable problems for release later this year.

Mr. Liang is one of the founders of Fosun Group. Mr. Liang has been Vice Chairman of Fosun High Tech since its establishment in November 1994. Mr. Liang is also a Non-Executive Director and Vice Chairman of Zhaojin Mining.

Mr. Liang was a Director of Yuyuan and an Independent Director of Shanghai Oriental Pearl (Group) Co., Ltd. Mr. Liang is Member of the 12th Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People’ s Political Consultative Conference, Executive Council Chairman of Shanghai League of TMT Industry Service, Vice Chairman of the China Young Entrepreneurs Association, Executive Vice Council Chairman of China Science and Technology Private Entrepreneurs Association, Chairman of the Taizhou Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, Chairman of the Shanghai Fudan University Alumni Association, Executive Vice Council Chairman of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business Alumni Association, and a Member of China Industrial and Commerce Council and Management Committee of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), etc.

Mr. Liang received a bachelor’s degree in genetic engineering in 1991 from Fudan University, a master’s degree in business administration in 2007 from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and a Doctor’ s degree in Business Administration from Arizona State University in 2015.