Jamshid "Jimmy" Delshad (Persian: جیمی دلشاد) is the Goodwill Ambassador and was twice elected Mayor of the City of Beverly Hills and has served on the City Council for 8 years; he is the highest ranked public official of Iranian ancestry in America. His story was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and was covered by print and electronic media worldwide. He started a technology company in 1978. In 1990 he became the first Persian Jew to be elected as president of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles' oldest and largest Conservative congregation. In 2003 he was elected to the Beverly Hills city council, and became mayor in 2007.

He also serves as the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Pacific Capital Group (PCG), an investment group based in Beverly Hills. The firm successfully raises and provides capital, strategic direction, management development and financing for companies in a broad range of industry sectors.

Andrew Papp

Talk: Health and GMOs vs. New Age Charlatanism

Andrew Papp, L.A.-based President of Tritech Research, and seasoned biotech inventor will speak about health from a science-based perspective and debunk numerous New Age claims and therapies that range from useless (such as Ear Candling) to dangerous (such as chelation, pH, and "oxygen therapy"). He will also discuss why some GMOs offer a greener alternative to an overpopulated planet and how sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are, in some ways, the perfect foods, with time left for spirited Q:A.

Andrew has a Harvard Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology for work studying genes that control the relative timing of events during development.  These genes play a critical role in shaping the adult, while mutations in these genes affect both evolution, and cancer.  Also a Computer Scientist and self-taught Engineer, Andrew currently designs lower-cost high-tech equipment to support rapid biology research, work on the HIV vaccine, and Stem Cell delivery for his international clientele of biology professors and other researchers.

John Spencer

Talk: John has an image presentation staring of his orbital super yacht “Destiny” concept and design.  He would like to really show the “big picture” of our potential future off-world from an experience perspective.

 John Spencer is a space architect/designer, founder and president of the Space Tourism Society, and author with Karen L. Rugg of the first book on space tourism published in the U.S. titled Space Tourism: Do You Want to Go?, in which he pioneers the application of yachting and cruise ship industry models to space tourism.

John is an explorer in what he calls the "Design Frontier" and is a pioneer in the growing field of immersive space themed simulation experiences for location-based entertainment and vacations including his original concept and design of Space World built in Japan and current proposals including a Mars Resort and Spa and Mars Adventure Camp. These kinds of projects can stimulate interest in space tourism, exploration, and development with people outside the space community.

In 1995 he was awarded the Space Act Award and the Certificate of Recognition from NASA for innovative architectural design on the International Space Station. He also created the first interior designs on the SpaceHab Module which has flown into orbit over a dozen times.

He has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, Space News, Popular Science, Men's Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on the Today Show, CNN, ABC, CBS News, the Discovery Channel, PBS, Japanese NHK, and The Learning Channel. He has professional and masters degrees in architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Allison Moon

Creativity for Radicals explores the politics, privileges and identity issues endemic to creating art.  In this talk, Allison will deconstruct notions of privilege, class, friv and guilt into useful components for creativity, discuss the intersection between art and social justice, and share some methods for distilling passion from conflict to turn activism into relevant art.

Jamais Cascio

Talk: Title

Jamais Cascio was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers, Jamais Cascio writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future. His work focuses on the importance of long-term, systemic thinking, emphasizing the power of openness, transparency and flexibility as catalysts for building a more resilient society.

Amy Li

Talk: Designing the Future

Amy Li is a multidisciplinary creative director and designer, founder of iheartsuperkid, a technology company that focus on developing fun educational apps for kids. She is also on the board of directors of Humanity+.  Amy has years of experience specializing in branding, creative marketing strategy, and user experience design for global brands such as Yahoo, AT&T, VW, and Sony etc. She is passionate about combining design, technology, and human factors to create state of the art products that impact our daily lives. One example of this is the iPhone app Have2P. It is a fun and creative app that addresses a universal human need in a new high-tech fashion. It was showcased as “App of the Week” in the New York Times, and also featured in Gizmodo  One of her true passions in life is to use her skills to help members of the scientific community become better communicators, one typography and one interface at a time. 

Amy's work can be seen at www.meidesign.net and she is easy to connect with on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mark Forti

Talk: Title

Mark Forti is the son of an aerospace engineer and designs radical, cutting edge, TOYS! He has helped design the X-zylo and the Air Swimmers video. The X-zylo stands to theoretically be able to break the world frisbee record for distance and the Air Swimmers a.k.a. floating fish are awe inspiring.

Damian Madray

Talk: Redesigning Heroism

Damian is a designer and entrepreneur. He founded Depthskins, a design studio he operated as Creative Director for six years working with various startups and fortune 500 companies. He recently re-launched the creative agency, TheMadray along with creating The Madray Ventures which creatively invests in start-ups. 

He also founded DesignersCouch, a creative community with over 7500 designers in various disciplines and currently receives over 500k unique hits each month. DesignersCouch is aimed at connecting entrepreneurs with designers to create better products. They're also aiming to disrupt the investment industry by creating a new breed of investors called creative investors.

Damian is also one of the key conspirators of TheGlint along with Alexandros Pagidas and Charles Lee. It's a community he founded in hopes of accelerate people, not just ideas and to shift the thinking from the old ideals of heroes from warriors to modern day heroes being creative thinkers, innovators and entrepreneurs.

He's a distinguished designer featured in various publications like Applied Arts Magazine and served as a juror on Awwwards.com. 

Jean Rintoul

Talk: Biosensors and you! 

Jean Rintoul is Engineer/Neuroscientist/Biofeedback obsessor having worked at Emotiv as a research engineer making brain computer interfaces, Gazzaley Cognitive Neuroscience Lab looking at the brains attentional networks, and more recently,  creating biosignal algorithms at an autonomic nervous system tracking start up. She also blogs for Deltaself.  Interested in the limits of non-invasive biosensors, her talk will be about what physiological functions can easily be measured, and how self-tracking can not only tell us about our health, but mental states as well. 

Alexandros Pagidas - TheGlint

Talk: Title

Alexandros Pagidas is one of the key conspirators at TheGlint, a global network of multidisciplinary live-work spaces that would serve as a rite of passage for a redesigned conception of heroism. TheGlint is a live-work community that accelerates the creation and creators of value through design, philosophy, the arts & sciences, technology and entrepreneurship. It aspires to shift the conception of heroism from historical warrior ideals to a new paradigm of creativity, collaboration and innovation. The house has seven bedrooms, four storeys and located near Twin Peaks, overlooking the city.

TheGlint would serve as a distributed home for global citizens and nomads alike. Through an ever expanding creative and entrepreneurial global network we will discover, connect and empower the next generation of heroes. TheGlint will create havens for agile minds and open hearts to interact, learn and leverage each other’s expertise to become a pervasive force of good in the world.

Alexandros has a Masters in Philosophy from The University of Reading and a Bachelors also in Philosophy from American College of Greece and he gave a talk on the University of the Future at BIL 2009.

Sophie Mihalko

Talk: Choice, Possibilities and Beyonds

Sophie Mihalko is a Filmmaker and Access Consciousness(TM) Bars Facilitator based in Pasadena, CA.  She recently hosted a video summit entitled "Blissful Living with Sophie" that exposed people to different modalities to create the Bliss that is our lives. She is currently developing a rock musical movie that promises to create more possibilites for every one. What else is possible?

Through her video and facilitation work Sophie asks "What if being you could change the world?" and "What other possibilites could you choose that if you chose them could transform your reality and the reality of other people?". 

Choice, Possibilities and Beyonds gives tools and processes to anyone ready and willing to create a life beyond the contextual reality we are living in. What if it was much easier and much more fun that we were taught it could be? What if we really had the super powers of our most awesome superheroes AND MORE? How does it get any better than this?

Douglas Campbell

Talk: Title

Douglas Campbell is a well know in LA as the curator of Mindshare and with hands in Project Fresh as well as the amazingly productive and talented boys behind Syyn Labs

Rand Simberg

Talk: Title

Rand Simberg, an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is an aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism, and Internet security. His blog, Transterrestrial Musings, can be found at www.transterrestrial.com.

Mr. Simberg is an expert on space technology and policy, particularly with regard to NASA and commercial human spaceflight.  He has published lengthy essays on these topics at The New Atlantis, and done many columns for Fox News, Popular Mechanics, AOL News, and Pajamas Media.  With over three decades of experience, including many years in aerospace engineering and project management at the Aerospace Corporation and Rockwell International Corporation in Los Angeles, he has been recognized as an expert in space transportation by the Office of Technology Assessment.

William Pomerantz

Talk: Title

At work: Will is the Vice President for Special Projects at Virgin Galactic, the world's first spaceline. Virgin Galactic, part of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, is building on the legacy of the award-winning SpaceShipOne effort by bringing a new fleet of commercial spacecraft for private, civil, and scientific passengers into service. 

At home: Will is married to Mrs. Diana Trujillo Pomerantz, a Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Will and Diana have lived in the Los Angeles area since 2008. At home, they enjoy listening to music and pretending to learn how to play the cello, clarinet, and guitars they've picked up over the years. Samson, the ~1 year old, mostly-Golden-Retriever rescued from the fantastic Glendale Humane Society, keeps them busy and fit.

Judd Weiss

Talk: Title

Judd Weiss is an entrepreneur in the purest sense of the word. The man has his hands in more things than I can list. He unleashes in a slightly muzzled manner on his blog Hustle Bear. Judd believes that you can transform yourself if you are willing and he has successfully lead real estate brokages in the extremely competitive market of Los Angeles now he has stepped into areas that include parking. He was a millionaire at 24 and lives what he earns.

His previous talk at BIL has been worth every minute with an extremely good reputation once he was done. He knows how to sell without you knowing you've been sold to.

Rachel Cherwitz and Robert Kandell

Talk: What is Slow Sex and how can it change your life? 

For nine years, OneTaste has been at the forefront of the Slow Sex movement educating men and women on how to have richer, deeper and more fulfilling relationships. Our mission: redefine the word orgasm! Whereas the world has been taught about masculine orgasm, very little is known about the other side of the coin.  We are experts in female orgasm.  

In this 45-minute, (PG-13) interactive seminar, OneTaste Senior Teachers Rachel Cherwitz and Robert Kandell will discuss the concepts of Slow Sex and its core practice of Orgasmic Meditation (OM).

OM is a simple, meditative practice where a man strokes a woman’s clitoris for 15 minutes, without any goal except to feel. It is a practice done between two people that has no goal except to feel what is happening in the moment. OM is not about more climax. It is about expanding the sweet spot of the most pleasurable part of orgasm.

Come get a taste of what’s possible in your sex life.

Rachel Cherwitz is passionate about bringing consciousness areas where people most commonly shut down - from sex and food to anger and lust. Drawing on her personal experience of addiction and recovery, she received her B.S. in rehabilitative studies, substance abuse, and addiction from University of North Texas, before coming to OneTaste in 2006. Profoundly moved by the discovery of how to live a turned- on life, she decided to pursue a career as a coach and OM trainer to give other people the same opportunity.

Co-Founder of OneTaste, Robert Kandell began studying sexuality, interpersonal relations and communication in 1999. An expert in interpersonal dynamics, Robert is committed to helping men and women uncover the behaviors they employ with each other by teaching how to shine a light on the unconscious, and bring it into a new, healthier space of awareness. He has B.S. degrees in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, and a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering and utilizes his academic and professional background to help students turn their awareness from finite games, into an infinite one.

Mathew Crawford

Talk: Justin Bieber, the Beatles, Parallel Lines, and the New Art of Education

Mathew Crawford is the founder of Gliya, a mathematics textbook author without a degree in math (or anything else), curriculum developer for classes he never took, and instructor for classes that didn't previously exist.  At the age of 12, Crawford began building online math communities during the BBS era, later built and maintained the Mathematics community at LiveJournal, then helped to establish the world's largest English speaking mathematics community at Art of Problem Solving. After working with thousands of students from those who were failing classes to those winning international math competitions, Crawford sees his next challenge as teaching machines how to teach.

Come take a class from him.

Lisa Clapier

Talk: Occupy Wall Street, America Spring 2012

Lisa Clapier (clay-pure) is the Media Producer for Occupy Wall Street in Los Angeles and an original organizer.

Occupy Los Angeles, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, began within two weeks of New York City's occupation of Zucotti Park September 17, 2011.  On October 1, 2011 over 3,000 people in Los Angeles marched onto Los Angeles City Hall to protest 'Enough!' Enough to the economic inequality in America! Of course major media would like everyone to believe the movement is just a bunch of hippies and homeless!

That's where Lisa Clapier's job comes in... to correct, report, represent, and broadcast the truth! Yes, she lived in a tent (by choice, it was the only way to be present for breaking news)!  Yes, it was amazing (a complete gift economy emerged and was brilliant to co-create, participate, and witness, and yes she has footage)!  And yes, it sucked (ever tried producing media from a tent?)!!!

LA made U.S. history, as the first occupation that ever reached solidarity with local governance, when on Day 5, Los Angeles Mayor and City Council drafted a resolution to stand in solidarity with the occupation (she has footage and a member on the police/mayor liaison team)! And yes, the Mayor did a 180 and evicted the occupation two months later (she has that footage too, its not pretty, nearly 300 people arrested in one night)!

Lisa's media expertise is in the area of emerging new media.  Specifically, live global broadcasts/streams, including multiple locations/venues, into one global broadcast.  She currently produces media content weekly, reaching over 100 million viewers.

Join Lisa, as she shares emerging film making technology the movement is using... to discussing plans for the America Spring 2012!

"I look forward to inclusion, from your bright minds, on how we can all be the change we wish to see in the world! (Yes, a cliche from Ghandi, but it's true!) Help me create some new footage of what a thriving, healed, sustainable world looks like!" ~Lisa Clapier

And footage of Occupy? Enjoy, courtesy the Occupy LA media team!

Barney Pell

Talk: Title

Dr. Barney Pell is a technology and product strategist, angel investor and advisor, and artificial intelligence (AI) researcher.

He is currently Co-founder, Vice-chairman, and Chief Technology Officer at Moon Express, a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company created to establish new avenues for commercial space activities beyond Earth orbit.  Prior to Moon Express, he has served as Co-founder and CTO of Powerset, Entrepreneur in Residence at Mayfield, and Technical Area Manager in the Computational Sciences Division at NASA Ames.

Dr. Pell received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and his B.S. degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a National Merit Scholar. Throughout his career he has helped bring advanced technology and big ideas into real applications and markets that change people's lives.

Lara Catone

Talk:  Woman Uncovered:  The Whole Truth About What's Up Down There 

Did you know?  There are parts of women's anatomy that are still missing from medical textbooks and anatomical models today?  That somehow scientists are still debating the existence of the G-spot and female ejaculate?

Lara Catone is a Los Angeles based yoga teacher and sexual wellness educator with extensive experience in women's health.  Lara offers a full spectrum approach to health, wellness and happiness through her private teaching and coaching practice and playful somatic-based workshops.  Lara is the founder of The Empowerment Circle:  Healing Practices & Revolutionary Information for Women, creator of the weekly web series, Sexual Wellness TV and author of the e-book, 31 Ways to Keep It Hot.  You can also find her appearing as a sexpert on the Playboy channel's Sextreme Makeover.  Read more of her musings on all things sexy at laracatone.com. 

Joel Grus

Talk: "Hitler Loved Patents, and other arguments against intellectual property".

Joel Grus gave the acclaimed BIL 2009 talk "Your Religion Is False" and the politely-applauded BIL 2011 talk "How to Be Funny".  He's also the author of two books, Your Religion Is False and Thinking Spreadsheet.  His hobbies include giving BIL talks, writing, grooming his daughter to take over the world, and working as Lead Data Scientist at a startup in Seattle.  He occasionally blogs and more frequently twitters. 

Sabrina Morgan

Talk: Geek Sex: How to Get into Your Body When You Live in Your Head shows geeks, introverts and self-identified Aspies how to switch gears from the analytical/verbal to feeling and understanding body language in a way that works for you, as well as how to transition from being in your head to being in your body in order to be more fully present and obtain more enjoyment from sex.

Sabrina Morgan is a sex worker, an advocate, and a sexuality educator and facilitator. Fascinated with the messy places where society and sexuality intersect, she has been practicing kink-focused sex work since 2005 and chronicling her experiences since 2006 at her blog SabrinaInStockings.com.

As an erotic professional Sabrina found that self-advocacy, sex education, relationship negotiation, and facilitation were as necessary for mutually satisfying encounters as seduction skills. Her analytical approach to sexuality then led to understanding and manipulating the underlying systems.

She presents regularly on kink, sex work, relationships, and conscious sexuality.

Kai Chang (張敦楷) 

Talk: Understanding the purpose of Jury Nullification and introducing a plan to spread that knowledge

  Kai Chang was one of the founders/curators of TEDxBerkeley and currently serves as director of marketing at TEDxSF (the very first TEDx license holder). The TEDx movement was TED's official response to the grassroots success of the BIL Conference and has spawned conferences worldwide.

He is co-founder of an auction engine startup in Palo Alto BID.IO. He is also an angel investor in Silicon Valley and volunteers as a Disaster Preparedness/First Aid Instructor for the Red Cross. 

He delivered a talk on Learned Optimism in the inaugural BIL Conference in Monterey in 2008 and will share a new plan to spread the knowledge of Jury Nullification, originally presented at SuperHappyDevHouse at Hacker Dojo in 2011. 

Like many people of East Asian decent, he has the alcohol tolerance of a 9-year-old and almost certain to lose any drinking games you challenge. Some have said this is a sneaky way for him to get strangers who read his bio to buy him drinks.

Erin Mooney

Talk: Allowing the Power of Connection to Help your Business Grow

• How do you connect with other people from a place of authenticity that cultivates connection?
• How does the power of connection help your business communicate through new media?

People today are barraged with images and agendas from advertisers. Businesses today must compete with the global market to capture an audience through authentic communication. Improving your life's message can improve your business advertising and help your dream grow BIG! My talk is about how its not always easy being authentic...but the rewards are beneficial not only to your business... but to your life.     

Erin Mooney recently coordinated, designed & presented multi-media software, telecommunication and soft skill training programs for The William Morris Endeavor Entertainment Agency, LAUSD, CompuLaw Software & Topanga Media Group. Erin joined the training world, following work in the competitive field of news journalism, covering statewide and local stories for KTVQ-CBS in Billings, MT where she covered everything from the state's unpredictable and sometimes violent weather, to Big Sky entertainment guests Cher and David Copperfield on his "Tales of the Impossible" tour. These entertainment reports led to covering stories in Los Angeles, such as Elton John's AIDS Foundation Academy Award Gala & Quincy Jones's AFI Technology Scholarship Ceremony. She is an active member of Toastmaster's International Public Speaking League and an elected Training Committee official for The Junior League of Los Angeles. In 2010 she joined the nationally recognized JLLA Public Policy Institute and in 2011 Co-Founded the league's Video Production Committee and was elected 2012 Video Production Institute Chair. An Arizona native, Erin graduated from The University of Arizona> in Tucson with a Bachelors degree in Public Communication.

Jonathan Toomim

Talk: Title

Jonathan Toomim is a neurobiologist whose goal in life is to make people smarter. His talk at BIL 2011, "A Practical Scientific Guide to Cognitive Enhancement," discussed several practical, proven, and potent chemical methods for improving human cognition, and drew enough interest that the speaker schedule was delayed by 20 minutes. This year, he intends to give two talks. Expect to learn about cognitive training programs that work (including his work on Brain Workshop, a free open-source scientifically-backed program) and ones that don't. He will also speak on the ethical issues of cognitive enhancement, the social change that will likely result from such technology, and how we can maximize benefits and minimize the damage it causes. If you're lucky, you might also catch him demoing his start-up's work, a system for cerebral blood flow neurofeedback and mind-controlled videogaming.

Monique Darling

Talk: Sensual Wonderland

Dive deep into your senses. Tune in to your body. Integrate your playful and sensuous sides. Enter a world of visual delight, delicious aroma, mouth watering pleasure, sensuous touch, and healing sound. Dive deep into your authenticity. Extend your awareness and your ability to listen to your body. Monique will be leading us through solo and paired exercises such as erotic feeding, sensation play, sound bath, fragrances to awaken your core being, the "Bossy" Massage ( ! ), and SO much more.

Monique Darling has studied with phenomenal teachers since the 1990s and offers private sessions, workshops & cuddle parties around the country spreading her love and healing. She has been featured on TLC, The Doctors, and interviewed in multiple magazines. She is the founder of Divine Interludes where she specializes in transmuting fear and repression into courage, love & freedom, helping people reclaim their voices and expressing themselves at full volume. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to come play and learn from one of the most sensual beings on the planet.

Randal A. Koene

Talk: Nuts and bolts of whole brain emulation and the projects that are putting it together.

Randal Koene is a neuroscientist, information theoretician, electrical engineer and physicist who dedicates his efforts towards the accomplishment of substrate-independent minds by uploading to a whole brain emulation, and every step from here to there. He is a founder of the carboncopies.org non-profit organization and works at nanotechnology company Halcyon Molecular. Before this, he was Director of the Department of Neuroengineering at the research center Tecnalia. Dr. Koene is a member of the Oxford working group that convened in 2007 to create the first road map toward whole brain emulation. He has spoken extensively on the topic, for example at the recent conference of H+ in Hong Kong (December 2011).

Carol Queen

Talk: 7 Billion Sexualities: Sexual Diversity Within and Outside Of Cultural Identities
One of the most pervasive notions about sex in our culture -- with often-problematic consequences -- it that there is a "normal" sexuality for men and for women. But sex as it's really experienced is diverse, complex, and individual. We'll delve into this idea and discuss its ramifications for finding appropriate partners, our self-image, getting the sex information you need, replacing shame with self-esteem, and much more.

Carol Queen is a writer and cultural sexologist with a Ph.D. in human sexuality. She is an award-winning erotic author specializing in depicting diverse sexualities, and her first book, Exhibitionism for the Shy (1995, reissued with new material in 2009) explores issues of erotic self-esteem and enhancement.

Queen co-founded and directs The Center for Sex & Culture, a San Francisco non-profit educational and community center for adults across the sexual and gender identity spectrum. It holds a library and archive and offers programming from didactic to experiential, as well as salons, literary and performance events, and more. (See www.sexandculture.org.) Queen additionally serves as staff sexologist and Chief Cultural Officer at Good Vibrations, the women-founded sex toy and bookstore in San Francisco, where she has worked since 1990, and blogs for the Good Vibrations web magazine at www.goodvibes.com.

Peter Voss

Talk: An update on his various AGI R&D efforts

Peter Voss is an entrepreneur, engineer and inventor. He has launched successful companies in electronics, business software, and artificial intelligence. Over the past 15 years he has focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI) – first by doing research in cognitive science, philosophy and theory of knowledge, psychology and computer science, and more recently by forming both research and commercial companies based on AGI. Peter often writes and presents on various philosophical topics including rational ethics, freewill and artificial minds; and is deeply involved with futurism and life-extension.

"Sex Nerd" Sandra Daugherty

Talk: I'm a Sex Nerd and So Can You!

When I took on the moniker Sex Nerd Sandra, I had no idea I'd get thousands of people saying "I'm a sex nerd, too!" I'll discuss this "sex nerd" phenomenon, who we are, what we do best, and how we can do it better! Warning: I will talk about sex. A lot. 

Sandra Daughterty is the host of the Nerdist sexuality podcast "Sex Nerd Sandra," pleasure educator does what she can to normalize sex and reduce shame wherever she goes. Even on a boat. 

isa gordon

Talk: Thinking About Thinking: Using the Mind to Retrain the Brain

A brief overview of simple strategies to effect change in brain and body, emphasizing practical techniques borrowed from systems of meta-thinking, neuro-linguistic programming and ideokinesis. The talk will include examples from guided meditations that use visual, tactile and semantic imagery to elevate mood, focus mind, heal disease, or re-pattern neuromuscular habits, and tips for writing your own and using a computer or phone as guide.  If there's interest, I'll schedule additional sessions to lead full meditations.

Isa Gordon is an artist, designer and entrepreneur whose works explore themes of transformation, technology and hybrid identities. She lectures and exhibits internationally and, much to her own surprise, is considered a leading expert in wearable technology. Isa is perhaps best known for her cyborg alter-ego performance persona, Psymbiote, and as founder of the SIGGRAPH CyberFashion Show, which she curated and produced from 2002 through 2005. She's also inventor of PodBelt, a modular personal cargo system, and is currently developing a line of "upcycled" fashions and accessories branded Entropy Reclaimation, scavenging materials out of urban detritus from discarded clothes to defunct cell phones.  Her interest in NLP and guided meditation is grown from a life-long fascination with the power of mind.

Jason Wells

Talk: Our Machines, Ourselves

Jason Wells is a San Diego-based entrepreneur, inventor, software engineer and general purpose complexity-wrangler with an academic background in philosophy. Formerly the Vice President for Special Projects at Semantic Research, Inc., he led a team of engineers and computer scientists developing petascale semantic network visualization and information retrieval technology for analysts in the US intelligence community. He has left that behind and is now preparing to pursue a doctorate in cognitive science from UCSD, and does a little social media and software consulting on the side.

Having a green thumb and a love of nature, Jason is a recreational botanist and a successful angel investor in green tech startups. Jason is also an avid devotee of snowboarding, mountain biking, photography and world travel.

Anastasia Krylov

Talk: Polyamory and Neurochemistry: Strengthening Pair Bonds Through Non-Monogamy.

Panel: What does it mean to be Kinky?

Anastasia is a Dominatrix, sex educator, sushi chef, fire dancer, and activist living and working around Venice Beach. In her precious little free time, she attends school, takes care of her two cats, and starts projects that rarely get finished in a timely fashion.

Josh Whiton

Talk: A Dietary Anti-aging Protocol — In this talk Josh suggests a protocol for reducing glycation and promoting autophagy while eating as much as you like.

Josh Whiton is an entrepreneur and explorer of the psyche with a bent for social and ecological reform. He is the founder of TransLoc, a company making mass transit easier to use, as well as co-founder of the urban farm startup Raleigh City Farm. Josh is also an avid paleo practitioner and self experimenter with a focus on dietary anti-aging and life extension technologies.

Get a sneak peak inside his head at joshwhiton.com.

Sara Tomchesson & Kristen Tribby

Talk: Strap-on, Get Off: A performance “Edutainment” Workshop

Welcome aboard F.U.C.K Airlines! Whether you are a tourist visiting for the first time or a seasoned traveler, this 45 minute flight will be sure to educate and entertain you. Your flight hosts will take you island hoping through the sometimes bumpy, yet exciting, terrain of strapping it on. We will visit such destinations as: the deep seas of gender play, the undiscovered wonders of anal, and the pleasures of both giving and receiving.

Sarah Tomchesson discovered sex-positivity and feminism while attending Reed College in Portland, OR and soon after became a trained Sex Educator. Since, her career has involved a variety of entrepreneurial endeavors, which have led her to her current role as Director of Business Development and Strategy for The Pleasure Chest.

Kristen Tribby was raised by a relatively sex-positive family, where the words “cervix” and “scrotum” were casually mentioned at the dinner table. Currently, she is the Director of Creative Development and Strategy for The Pleasure Chest where she trains sex specialists, oversees the buying and web departments, and develops marketing initiatives. Kristen can be found teaching sex-positive workshops throughout the country and is particularly excited to continue promoting Pleasure Chest’s long legacy of “making life sexy”.

Christopher Rasch

Talk: How prize markets can help end the "War on Drugs" (and maybe save your life).

Christopher Rasch was raised a “Mormon hippie” in rural Idaho.  He began his career researching whole organ cryopreservation, first for the Naval Medical Research Institute,  then for 21st Century Medicine, a small biotech startup outside of LA.  His days during that time were filled with rabbit kidney transplant surgery, and the occasional lab fire.

He’s currently a senior programmer for Marketocracy Capital Management in San Mateo. He also blogs for deltaself and his personal blog craschworks.  If you’re into cryonics, libertarian politics, and social policy bonds, he particularly wants to talk to you.  Find him on Facebook.

Hydrangea Jacqueline Darling

Talk: Communication Done Right: Helpful Tips To Salvage Your Sanity

Hydrangea Jacqueline Darling was born in one of the many territories of Los Angeles County, where she somehow developed into the self proclaimed degenerate and strangeling she is today. Ms. Darling is a transhumanist and dollmaker who has been writing, illustrating and self publishing dark, scandalous (and sometimes explicitly sexual) comic books since 2005, and doesn't plan to simmer down any time soon.

Zach Urbina

Talk: Electrodynamic tethers, space debris, and the future of low-Earth orbit

Zach Urbina spent the last two years researching solutions for the orbital debris problem.  His engineering firm Cozy Dark emerging technology has co-authored proposals under the Department of Defense's SBIR program and NASA's NIAC.

Zach plans to speak about electrodynamic tethers and will be revealing a video of StarCub, the first spacecraft design from Cozy Dark.

Personal interests include solar science, leaked music, tumblr culture, and New York City.  Zach's currently a contributing blogger for Los Angeles I'm Yours.

Domina Ravish

Panel: What does it mean to be Kinky? 

Domina Ravish has been an active member of the Los Angeles kink community since She was of legal age (and before, but we won't go into those illegalities). She has worked as a switch, a pro-Domme and fetish model, as well as organizing, promoting and performing at Her own fetish club at 18 years old. Recently, She has taken a step back in the professional kink world to concentrate on school, but is still very active privately, having trained 2 full time slaves, one of which is still serving Her, and casual play with friends and loved ones.

Ray Podder

Talk: ONE: The New Abundant Energy Revolution & The Power of You

Ray Podder is a designer, digital architect, and researcher of biomimicry, nanotechnology, cognitive science, and resilient economic systems and distributed energy generation. He has conceived and architected numerous consumer and enterprise apps, most recently in the smart energy and electric mobility space, including the integrated energy efficiency portal for California.

His new book questions a fundamental construct of our modern world. Ray asks: Is energy really scarce? More specifically, is centralized harvesting and distribution of grid based renewables necessary? What if every place was a living power plant, every vehicle the transfer and storage mechanism and and every one could be empowered to innovate a better life? Networked constructs are now shifting everything from currencies, collaboration, and even crowdfunding capital, so why not distributed and resilient energy systems? Can renewable energy be the next free platform for exponential innovation led economies? What if doing so was actually considered attractive to capital rather than disruptive or risky? He will introduce more such questions plus ideas for making off grid connected living real sooner than later.

Michael Keenan

Talk: Title

Michael Keenan is the president of The Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to building new societies in international waters. Humanity lacks a space to experiment with new social and political systems, but the ocean can be a new frontier - a startup sector for government. Previously a tech entrepreneur in New Zealand, the UK and Taiwan, Michael brings an engineering approach to political systems.

Will Ryan

Talk: Title

Will Ryan is driven to understand and optimize complex systems, such as the human body, the human mind, and human social structures.  He studied economics at Dartmouth College, worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and currently holds a position as Chief Analytical Officer at the mobile health startup Azumio.  His primary interests are metabolism, psychology, memetics, rationality, and helping everyone become the best possible versions of themselves.

Dave Asprey

Talk: Title

Dave Asprey, The Bulletproof Executive, is a Silicon Valley biohacker, security expert, and entrepreneur who spent 15 years and $250,000 to hack his own biology. He upgraded his brain by >20 IQ points, lowered his biological age, and lost 100 lbs without using calories or exercise.

The Financial Times calls him a "bio-hacker who takes self-quantification to the extreme of self-experimentation." His writing has been published by the New York Times and Fortune, and he's presented at Wharton, the University of California, and Singularity University. He runs the Silicon Valley Health Institute. a 19-year old anti-aging non-profit group.

Dave started the wildly popular, cognitive-enhancing Bulletproof Coffee trend of using grass-fed unsalted butter in coffee instead of mik. He'll bring some to share. He also authored The Better Baby Book (Wiley 2012), a complete program that uses epigenetics to create healthier, smarter babies, starting even before conception.

See Dave's BIL presentation from last year:  'The Upgraded Self: Why Biohacking Changes Everything' here.

Matt Bell

Talk: Scan the world in 3D!

 Matt is a computer vision expert and entrepreneur.   His current startup (MatterPort) creates technology that enables anyone to automatically turn the physical world into 3D models with a low-cost handheld 3D scanner.  He is passionate about bringing the physical and digital worlds closer together, allowing us to enjoy the advantages of both.  

Alex Peake

Talk: Code Is Literacy

Alex Peake is the creator of Code Hero, a game that teaches people how to make games by shooting code. Code Hero just received a major backing of $100,000 to make sure it makes it into the hands of the next generation of code cobblers. Alex founded Primer Labs to teach people how to make games that teach everything else to make all knowledge playable. Alex is also a cofounder of Hack The Future hackerspace mentoring for kids. also the creator of Tactical Corsets.

Jerry Tran

Talk: Overcoming Racial Stereotypes

Jerry Tran is the founder of the world-renown ABCs of Attraction, one of the world's first and most successful indie pick up companies. Through personal storytelling and life experience he emerged as the creator of the revolutionary Holistic approach to social coaching, transforming the lives of thousands of men. His teaching methods help bridge the gap between Asian cultural dynamics and the media's perception of Asians. He has been featured in such publications as New York Magazine and AsianWeek as well as invitations to speak at Yale, Harvard, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Wharton. He has had the opportunity to spread his ideology in features and interviews with ABC Nightline and NBC television.

http://www.abcofattraction.com

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/asiandatingcoach

John Roberts

Talk: Purpose Driven Education

John Roberts is the Founder of Heal the World, Inc. and co-Founder of The Open University of West Africa. His life changed forever when he realized that living with a purpose could dramatically affect the outcome of his existence - and the joy of living life. It all started by buying a homeless man in Santa Monica a McDonald's hamburger, many iterations later, Heal the World is providing education that will serve the world's least developed regions in ways as diverse as preventing famines, and making meaningful films. 

www.ouwa.org

@healtheworldinc

Carter Gibson

Talk: Retaining the Human Factor

At what point will our online personas define who we are beyond the digital realm? In the past our online profiles were a supplement to our actual selves. Now the same profiles have begun to dictate our real life personalities. Though not always aware of them, the pressures and expectations of digital representations threaten to overwhelm our ability to be dynamic in real life. The statements we make online are conscious and concrete enough to create a Matrix-inspired residual self image not representative of the complex human experience. Carter's talk will tackle the challenging process of creating a strong, authentic, human presence both online and off as we search for our true identity.

So who is Carter Gibson? He's a first time BIL speaker (and organizer!) who got heavily involved in social media, specifically Google+, during his time at the Ad Council. Within a few months Carter had amassed 35,000+ followers for his unique perspective on a variety of topics, most notably social media as an experiment in authenticity. He's a recent graduate of American University's Kogod School of Business in Washington, DC currently in his last semester for a second Bachelor's, this time in Film and Media Arts. He's the Community Manager for the Ad Council's United Way campaign and works as a career consultant back at his alma matter. He's looking forward to pursuing new opportunities upon (his 2nd) graduation in May.

Alex Bäcker

Talk: Getting Rid of Lines, Schedules and Appointments as We Know Them

An unconference. No schedule. FIFO. Come hear how this approach, married with mobile technology, is changing appointments, reservations and schedules across five continents and has given millions of people centuries of better life. Then again, the schedule might change and you may find yourself hearing Alex speak about any of these topics per your request.

Founder CEO of ab|inventio, the invention factory honored among North America’s Most Innovative Companies by the International Business Awards, and QLess™, named a trend defining 2012 and beyond and winner of the Stevie for Best Company, serving Fortune 500 companies and award-winning governments and universities. Alex was the keynote speaker at Tech Week, an honor previously accorded a Nobel Prize winner, the CEOs of Cisco, Adobe & Deloitte, and an astronaut. One of "40 under 40" & a Dux Medallist, Alex serves in Caltech's Information Sciences and Technology Board. Previously Adapt founder, at McKinsey & Sandia National Labs, Alex's discoveries can be read on Nature, here and there. Olympic Champion, Alex holds a degree from MIT and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he founded the Da Vinci, Kitesurf and Filmmaking Clubs. Alex has spoken at TEDxs & conferences globally. More .

Art Villa

Talk: Beyond "The Matrix" - Getting to The Next Renaissance (revisited).  A discussion of the movie THRIVE (Parts 1 and 2)

At the 2011 BIL Conference, we explored the idea of a “Matrix” of sorts that herds society toward mega-consolidations and global interdependencies with a ruling elite in control of many areas of our lives.  We also explored the idea of advancements in energy production (magnetic generators, cold fusion, splitting H from H20, etc.) that threaten the status quo by enabling communities to be self-sustaining anywhere and everywhere on the planet – thus ushering in the next renaissance.

Llewellyn Falco

Talk: Handling Failure

Why do 90% of girl in advanced placement math drop out at age 13?

Are you a dancer? Could you be?

As one basketball coach said: “You can’t teach height”

In this session we will look into the cognitive science research behind natural ability and learned skill. There has been some very interesting studies done by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck on how your perception toward learning can affect your:

• Goals
• Reactions to failure
• Belief about effort
• Attitudes toward others’ successes

I learned of this research last year, and it fundamentally changed how raise my own daughter. I hope to share it with more people who where making the same mistakes as me.

Llewellyn Falco is the creator of the open source testing tool Approval Tests, as well as a Develop Mentor Instructor and the co-founder of Teaching Kids Programming; a charity under the Mona Foundation to design courseware and educate girls & boys.

Laura Celina Hunter

Founded in 2000 by Dr. John W. Hunter. Water Station was created to stop the heat related deaths of any individuals crossing the desert areas, in the hot Summer months. Water Station is a 501c3 Non Profit all volunteer organization. Water Station has no political or religious affiliation and does not encourage illegal crossings. A small group of volunteers installs and maintains water stations in different areas of the Southern CA desert. We are the only organization with permits from the BLM and the Park Rangers.            

Dr. John W. Hunter and his wife Laura Celina Hunter founded "Citizens for the All American Canal Safety" in year 2008 urging the authorities from the IID to install safety features in the All American Canal to stop the massive drownings.

Mike Rose

Talk: "Intuitive IQ: The Four Fundamentals of Success"

Mike Rose is an accomplished Athlete, Artist & Intuition/EQ Expert. He was a professional tennis player by age 15 who won many tournaments, he has written poetry, philosophy, fiction, non-fiction and music, he has recorded songs and performed music on stage (Mike's Music), won awards as an Actor, Writer, Director & Producer of films (Mike's Films), performed theatre on stage and developed his own unique style of Digital Photography (Mike's Photography). Mike's athletic and artistic talent, training and success, combined with his journey out of a challenging life of abuse, injury and addiction, transformed him into an Intuition/EQ Expert. He started coaching in 2004 and founded Intuitive IQ in 2009. In 2011 he founded the Intuitive IQ Group on Facebook (Intuitive IQ Group), a one-of-a-kind community of intelligent respectful people who support each other while sharing great content and discussions. Mike manages this group while leading his two Intuitive IQ businesses: Coaching to help you discover, develop and utilize your unique intelligence using "The Four Fundamentals of Success", and a Collective Intelligence Network to help you create positive growth and change in the world. Mike's methods increase intelligence, performance and self-confidence, and bring you peace of mind, a healthy body, great relationships and success in everything you do. He is preparing to publish a series of books on Intuitive IQ (Blog). 

Troy Gardner

Talk: How to get *anything* you want in 4 steps.

Gain higher purpose, get more sh*t done, help more people, with the I.D.O.M. 4 step method. 

• It's fast, it can be done in minutes; by yourself, or with others.
• It's easy, you can do it in your head.
• It's versatile, works on pretty much any goal or problem, personal or business.
• It clears priorities of the most complicated problems and choatic conditions.

This will be partly hands on, so bring a goal you want to solve, paper and pen...  Read [more]

Troy Gardner is an interdisciplinarian, who loves bridging tech, art, music, design, delegation, automation, communication.  An seasoned performer, now professional introvert who almost never talks to anyone let alone presents, he's happy to help share this method he's discovered and uses sometimes hourly.   A long time fan of TED talks, this is his first BIL presentation, and second BIL attendance, despite years of friends nagging him to come.   He can be reached at troy (at) troygardner dot com.

Brad Templeton

Talk: One:  How to save Democracy is 3 easy steps.    Two:  The self-driving cars are here!

Democracy is being destroyed because politicians sell themselves to special interests to buy TV ads.  But TV is getting replaced by new media and perhaps we have a shot at changing this equation

At previous BILs I've given talks on the future of robocars and early efforts.  Now, just two years later, a dozen teams have prototype cars and Google's car has gone over 200,000 miles on California roads.   A short update on what's new and why it's going to change the world even faster than the optimists thought.

Brad is a director of and former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), chair of Networks & Computers at Singularity University, Founder of ClariNet Communications Corp. (the first dot-com), director of the Foresight Institute, and consultant on the Google Self-Driving-Car team.  He is also a photographer, Burning Man artist, software developer, and creator of rec.humor.funny

Rob Bell

Talk: Zomes: Polar Zonohedral Architecture

Zomes are polar zonohedral domes. I will explain why Zomes are superior to geodesic domes in almost every way and why Zomes are a viable construction basis for terrestrial and extraterrestrial architecture.

Rob is an Artist, Designer, Builder and Software Engineer.  In 2006 Rob started Zomadic, a design/build company that creates unique artifacts, furniture and structures using state of the art digital fabrication tools. More at www.zomadic.com

Lucien Vattel

Talk: TBD

Lucien Vattel is the CEO and founder of The GameDesk Institute located in Los Angeles. GameDesk is focused on transforming the way we teach and learn by adapting and developing digital technologies, especially games, to engage and empower students. With GameDesk, Vattel has built a collaborative and interdisciplinary association of experts across academia, K-12 education, industry, and entertainment including Bill Nye, LucasArts, and Syyn Labs. His game development and curriculum work with GameDesk has found success within struggling Los Angeles schools, has attracted funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and will be covered in an upcoming feature story in Fast Company. In addition to GameDesk, Vattel was the co-founder of the University of Southern California’s graduate and undergraduate game design programs in Computer Science, has twelve years of experience in research and design of games, and is a prolific filmmaker.

Reid Mihalko

Talk: Date Your Species

Dating, marriage and the reasons we stay in relationships have changed a lot since the days of our great grandparents. Feminism, birth control, travel, and the internet have contributed to massive shifts in relationship dynamics, sex and intimacy, but Cultural messaging hasn't re-calibrated. Duration and "don't rock the boat" are no longer the metrics to measure relationship success in the 21st Century. Depth and transparency are the new currencies for intimacy along with the idea of Dating Your Species.   

Join sex and relationship expert Reid Mihalko, curator of The Masque Sex Positive Boiler Room, for his humorous, frank conversation where he boils down more than 150,000 conversations he’s had about sex and relationships and walks BIL through his best thinking and advice on making sex, dating, relationships and mating work: Date Your Species!

Curator of The Masque Sex Positive Boiler Room for BIL 2012, sex and relationship expert Reid Mihalko of ReidAboutSex.com helps adults create more self-esteem, self-confidence and greater health in relationships and sex lives.

Reid has appeared on the Emmy award-winning talk show Montel, Fox News, in Newsweek, Seventeen, GQ, The Washington Post, and in thirteen countries and at least seven languages. His workshops have been attended by close to 30,000 men and women.

Ran Baron

Workshop: Touch, Breath and Everything in Between - A Tantric Journey

Our body is the first step to unraveling and exploring our own mystery. It is the bridge between the conscious and unconscious and the only element on the path of a mystic which is always present, always here and now. In this workshop we will be covering techniques, practices and exercises used by Tantrikas to heighten their awareness, connect deeper to their senses and to their Tantric partners. We will use practices from the worlds of ancient Tantra and Chi Kung to explore our own bodies and learn how to explore comfortable and uncomfortable intimacy, explore connecting to others and ourselves. We will begin to bring consciousness to our touch, our breath and our bodies, in order to discover a pathway towards experiencing our sensation and our sensuality in a completely new and sacred way.

Ran Baron is a spiritual seeker and public speaker in the fields of theology, eastern philosophy, and mysticism. Having ventured through various spiritual paths himself, Baron was ordained as a Hindu priest (Brahmana), certified as a Yoga and Tai Chi instructor, and has been studying and practicing Buddhism, Zen, Hinduism and Yoga in many of its different flavors since the age of 14. Baron has instructed numerous meditation workshops and yoga retreats and has given hundreds of talks and lectures about the nature of spirituality and self inquiry. He continues to share his unique view and vast experience in his talks. Baron's teachings emphasize a non-dogmatic approach that allows for personal growth through an honest thirst for truth.
To learn more of Ran's offerings and workshops visit -- http://soulbound.me/

Isaiah Frizzell

Talk: Culinary Copyright and the Future of Fine Dining

• How Underground Supper Clubs have influenced the culinary landscape
• How the modern obsession with food and cooking is indicative of a positive societal change
• How copyright is penetrating the culinary world and what that means for the future of chef's creativity 

 The way we eat and what we eat is rapidly changing via the influence of punk and DIY approaches to dining and our current cultural obsession with food and cooking. Supper clubs have disintegrated the boundaries previously segregating fine dining from the general public and engendered the concept of home cooks as star chefs. The influence is a clear expression of positive change as a society that values and dotes on what it consumes has the advantage of enjoying its sustenance which leads to a happier, more well nourished society. Also we are beginning to deal with copyright as the major chefs with lawyers are attempting to copyright recipes. Is this a positive influence or an impossible task? 

Isaiah Frizzell is chef and designer of underground supper club pHeast. A rags to dishes fighter in the culinary world and an advocate for the elevation of the dishwasher as perhaps the most important element in a functioning kitchen. He teaches classes on modernist cooking and molecular gastronomy. He plays with liquid nitrogen for people to gawk and has had it poured over him more than once. Refreshing!

Read press and stories about grapefruit here: pHeasting!

Mencius Moldbug 

Talk: How to Reboot the US Government

Is your government infected with viruses, worms, malware and spyware?  Do you keep calling tech support but end up playing phone tag?  Did your brother-in-law who's supposedly this big expert come over last year to fix it, but only make it worse?  Do you feel frustrated, confused, apathetic and annoyed?  Does your stomach cramp up every time you hear the word "change"?   

Neighbor, we have just the red pill for you.  Don't ask what's in it.  You don't want to know.  Here's a glass of water - don't think, just swallow.

Mencius Moldbug of Unqualified Reservations is your gateway to the lost world of pre-democratic thought.

Ray Padilla Mendoza Jr.

Talk: Extracting Useful Semantic Information from Large Scale Corpora

• How can we extract useful co-occurences of words from large scale corpora?
• What do these co-occurences tell us about the semantic relationships between words?
• How can we embed this information into a useful mathematical model?
• What are some applications of distributional lexical semantics?

Ray Padilla Mendoza Jr is an college instructor of engineering and linguistics courses at several Southern California colleges.  With a background in Electrical Engineering and Linguistics, he is developing new algorithms to organize and assess language-related information which may provide insight into how semantic information is encoded, and how it may be used in artificial intelligence systems.  He is completing a Ph.D. in Mathematical Behavioral Sciences.  Ray's other interests include computational linguistics, visualization techniques and data mining parallelization.

aestetix

Talk: What's In A Name?

After getting his Google+ account suspended twice because of the "real names" policy, aestetix decided to take a closer look into how and why we express ourselves within social media, and how, if at all, it differs from traditional media. How much of a role does identity really play in expression and free speech? We'll ask what identity means, why it is (or isn't) important, where it comes from, and where it's headed.

aestetix was kicked out of the Illuminati after realizing they didn't exist.

Photo by Audrey Penven

John Hunter

Talk: Title

John Hunter is a projectile researcher, who developed the 1994 "supergun" Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The ultimate aim of his research is to shoot payloads into space, at less than one tenth of the cost of unmanned rockets.John Hunter is the director of Quicklaunch.

He also mentioned being the inventor of the Zyclone Zing Ring Blaster toy.

Rick Tumlinson

Talk: Title

Rick Tumlinson is the co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation and a space activist. He has testified on space-related topics before the U.S. Congress six times since 1995. In 2004, Space News magazine recently listed Tumlinson as one of the 100 most influential people in the space industry, stating:

Robert Richards

Talk: Title

Robert D. Richards is a Canadian-born space entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, Inc., a U.S. company awarded a $10M commercial lunar contract by NASA and a competitor in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. He is also the founder and former CEO of Odyssey Moon Limited, an Isle of Man based commercial lunar enterprise and the first official contender in the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. From 2002-2009 he was the founding Director of the Space Division at Optech Incorporated, a company developing laser radar (lidar) systems for space exploration, observation and operations, participating in the 2004 XSS-11 USA-165 mission and the 2007 NASA Mars Phoenix (spacecraft) mission.

Charlie Glickman

Talk: Act Like a Man: Masculinity & Sexuality in Modern America

Panel: What is Sex Positive? 

Despite the increasing dialogue about gender roles in modern society, there’s much less discussion of how the rules of masculinity are defined, taught, and enforced. The more we explore these dynamics and how they affect sexuality, the easier it becomes to address them, find new ways of moving through the world, and bring a sense of both compassion and accountability to our lives. Charlie Glickman PhD has been talking about these topics and teaching workshops about them for over 20 years. Come explore what it means to be a man in US society and discover how we can respond to, and change these definitions.

Charlie Glickman PhD is the Education Program Manager at Good Vibrations, a teacher, blogger, writer, and occasional university professor. His areas of expertise include sex-positivity, sexual shame, communities of erotic affiliation, sexual practices and relationship structures, and adult sexuality education. Find out more about him or read his blog on his website.

Stefano Corazza

Talk: Democratization of Animation and Storytelling. How digital Art is becoming a daily experience for the general population to communicate emotions, as opposed to something exclusive for the few. What the next few years are going to unleash through groundbreaking new enabling technologies.

Fred Bourgeois

Talk: Title

Fred J. Bourgeois is the Founder and CEO of Team FREDNET - The Open Space Society, a U.S.-based company building the world's first Open Participation robotic Lunar Mission. Team FREDNET received a $10M commercial lunar contract through NASA, and is a leading contender for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Fred is recognized as a founder of the Open Space Exploration movement. With volunteers from more than 60 countries, Team FREDNET brings the power of crowd-sourcing to bear on the complexities of reaching the Final Frontier. The Team's motto is "Get to Space; Serve Clients; Have Fun".

The greateest barrier to achieving a sustainable Commercial Space economy is overcoming the costs. Team FREDNET entered the Google Lunar X PRIZE by drawing from Internet-based talents to harness the technical prowess of the world. Anyone who shares Team FREDNET's vision can participate in the program: Do you want to watch us land on the Moon, or would you rather be able to say "I helped make that happen"?

jeffrey k eliasen

Talk: Infinite Comptetition 

In Texas Hold 'em, pocket aces is the strongest hand you can be dealt, yet it loses 2/3 of the time against 9 random competitors; success in this context is about playing every hand well rather than playing strong hands perfectly. What can you learn about business and personal achievement from the poker table, the App Store, the CHP, and your front lawn?

Jeffrey Eliasen is a student of large, dynamic, chaotic systems. Whether it's navigating L.A. at rush hour, isolating an erroneous line of code in a massively distributed application, or simply finding the love of your life, Jeff has found that to grok the poetry of complexity, you must first embrace the essence of simplicity.

Destin Gerek

Talk: Orgasmic Mastery for Men (Women Welcome!)

Imagine being able to have full choice over when and even IF you ejaculate... Imagine having Full Body Orgasms that rock your body and soul... Imagine having Multiple Non-ejaculatory Orgasms coursing through your entire body, culminating in a powerful ejaculatory orgasm that far surpasses anything you ever even dreamed was possible! Learn the steps required and walk away with tools to start integrating tonight! While this workshop will have an emphasis on the male experience, women come with an expectation to learn a few things to improve the quality of your sexual experiences, as well.

Destin Gerek, the original Erotic Rockstar™, is a man living his life as art. An erotic film-maker and celebrated performer, Destin has gracefully carved out an enduring position for himself as an esteemed figure in the worlds of neo-Tantra and sexuality education. As a sought-after erotic and transformational life coach, lecturer, blogger, and educator on all aspects of sex, sacred sexuality, Tantra, and erotic empowerment, the Erotic Rockstar™ is shaking up society and helping people create transformational change in their lives in the process. Destin has made appearances on Tech TV, CurrentTV, Showtime, and his work has been featured in Details Magazine, Yoga Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and other Associates Press syndicated newspapers across the US, and more. http://EroticRockstar.com

Dr. Brian Bronk DC and Ky Primo

Talk: Advanced Muscle Reconditioning:  a definitively better way to treat muscles that provides the missing link to understanding back and body pain.

Dr. Brian Bronk DC:  is the author Advanced Muscle Reconditioning, and Disc Schmisc: A More Accurate Model of Back Pain. My expertise is fixing the toughest chronic conditions when literally all else had failed including cortisone, chiropractic, physical therapy, acupuncture, yoga, stretching, core strengthening, and various forms of deep muscle therapy.  In the process of fixing chronic conditions variously diagnosed as discs, arthritis, stenosis etc, we get the entire purpose of orthopedic neurological examination and in tests like discography.  Advanced Muscle Reconditioning is the greatest breakthrough in the history of Spine Medicine! 

Ky Primo: is a practitioner of Advanced Muscle Reconditioning.  She is also teaching the AMR workhops with Dr. Bronk.

Mike Minadeo

Talk: Creating Immersive Games

Mike Minadeo is co-founder of a creative consultancy that designs memorable bonding experiences. He examines ways to generate bridges from physical to digital landscapes.

The company’s most recent project was "Dalliance aboard the Queen Mary"- an interactive experience documenting two romances that occurred on a transatlantic voyage of the Queen Mary. Telegrams, steampunk currency, love letters, and puzzles guided players to various parts of the ship as they became involved in the plotline and experienced the rich history of the Queen Mary.

In 2011, he won the Roy Amara Prize for Participatory Foresight, an award given by the Palo Alto based Institute of The Future. In his spare time, he volunteers at the Braille Institute teaching a class called Photography for the Blind.

Jeremy Donovan Acord

Talk: What do the Social and Cognitive Sciences Tell Us About Being Sex Positive Activists? 

Jeremy Donovan Acord is a sex-positive feminist and language geek living in Venice beach, surrounded by cats and queer feminist sex workers. A computer scientist by training, programmer by trade, he Erlangs among Rubyists for a local start-up. He swears by Carl Sagan, and is likely to be found in his natural habitat, buried up to his cheekbones in a book. 

Roger Gilberson

Talk: Title

Roger Gilberson does marketing for SpaceX and was the producer of "The Revenge of the Electric Car."

Greg Gage

Talk: Title

Greg Gage is a Neuroscientist 38 robotiscits and is a TED Fellow in 2012. He is co-founder of Backyard Brains, an organization teaching kids and amateurs neuroscience through hands-on experiments to see and hear brain signals from living neurons and also via robotic control of ordinary cockroaches.

Marcin Jakubowski

Talk: Title

Marcin Jakubowski came to the U.S. from Poland as a child.  He graduated with honors from Princeton and earned his PhD in fusion physics from the University of Wisconsin before shifting direction and starting a hydroponic vegetable farm in Madison, WI. Lacking real experience in practical matters, he then began his education from scratch, and in 2003 he founded Open Source Ecology in order to make closed-loop manufacturing a reality. He began development on the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), an open source DIY tool set of 50 different industrial machines necessary to create modern civilization from scrap metal. OSE has prototyped 8 machines and intends to build everything from an induction furnace for melting metals to an open source combine.

Jonathan Vos Post

Talk: 1) Future of human space flight 2)Misconception about the big bang

 My name is Jonathan Vos Post. After Richard Feynman was my mentor, I wrote the world's first PhD dissertation in what's now called Nanotechnology, Artificial Life, and Synthetic Biology. I co-implemented the first working hypertext and hypermedia for personal computers with Ted Nelson, and demo'd it at the world's first Personal Computer Conference, before Apple, Tandy, and IBM made PCs. I have been a Professor of Mathematics at Woodbury University in Burbank, California. My first degrees in Mathematics and English Literature from Caltech in 1973. I have also been a Professor of Astronomy at Cypress College in Orange County, California; Professor of Computer Science at California State University, Los Angeles; Professor of English Composition at Pasadena City College, and recently accepted a part-time visiting professorship in Sustainable Futures at the University of Sydney, Australia.. I am a widely published author of Science Fiction, Science, Poetry, Math, Drama, and other fields. In my so-called spare time, I'd produced operas, as Secretary of Euterpe Opera Theatre. My Erdos number is 4. I have been an elected Town Councilman in two different states, was Governor Jerry Brown's Space Advisor when he ran for President of the United States, having earlier worked on Galileo to Jupiter, and as Mission Planning Engineer for the flyby of Uranus. Later I worked on the Space Station, and on NASA designs for Moon Bases, Mars Bases, and practical robotic Interstellar Spacecraft..

Luke Nosek

Talk: Title

Luke Nosek is an American entrepreneur of Polish descent.

Nosek received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During college in the summer of 1995, he cofounded SponsorNet New Media, Inc., along with fellow UIUC students Max Levchin and Scott Banister. Nosek then worked for Netscape Communications Corporation.

In 1998, with Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Ken Howery, Nosek co-founded PayPal and was its vice president of marketing. After PayPal went public and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, Nosek left PayPal to pursue travel and angel investing.

In 2005, Nosek started Founders Fund with Peter Thiel and Ken Howery, a $500m under management early stage venture fund.

In 2009, Nosek joined Halcyon Molecular, a Founders Fund portfolio company pursuing a novel approach to ultra fast complete genome sequencing, as President. He is currently chairman of Halcyon Molecular.

Luke Nosek currently sits on the boards of SpaceX, Pathway Genomics, and Halcyon Molecular.

Randa Milliron

Talk:  The New Orbital Enablers: NEPTUNE Modular Rockets & TubeSat Personal Satellite Kits

Since 1995, Randa Relich Milliron--Interorbital Systems’ CoFounder--has served as the company’s CEO. Her professional experience spans aerospace, media, and academia. Milliron holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in African Languages from Duquesne University, with additional studies in Chemistry at Cal Poly Pomona. Randa helms Interorbital Systems’ marketing efforts, and on the engineering side, specializes in the development and use of high-temperature composite materials. She is an award-winning television director and producer, video artist, and electronic musician.  For nearly two decades, she has taught television production and communication courses at colleges in Europe and America, and is currently on faculty with the University of Phoenix. Milliron is also active as an Officer of the Pacific Rocket Society, as a member of Google Lunar X PRIZE Team SYNERGY MOON, and as an announced competitor in the NASA NanoSat Challenge.

Micah Daigle

Talk: Upgrade Democracy: The future of collective decision-making and decentralized representation

Micah Daigle is the founder of Upgrade Democracy, a movement to replace our outdated governance system with one that is worthy of our participation. Our democracy should be built on the technology and behavioral science of the 21st century, not the 18th. We envision a world in which, instead of electing politicians to represent us on everything, we represent each other on the issues we know best. 

Micah will discuss many levels of this concept: from the nuts and bolts software he and his team are building to help people make decisions in groups, to the emerging meta-movement of systems-level entrepreneurs who are working toward the decentralization of nearly every aspect of our world.

Micah is an established political organizer (he led Students for Sensible Drug Policy as it expanded into a global network), and a software designer (if you were on the playa last year, you might remember his pet project BurnerMap).

Michael Hartl 

Talk: Burning Man as a Reactionary Phenomenon

Everyone knows that Burning Man is a big community festival in the desert for artists, hippies, and the generally broad-minded. Many Burner values are avowedly progressive, and most Burners would sooner lop off an ear than vote Republican. And yet, appearances are deceiving. Come find out how, by supporting Burning Man, you are actually contributing to one of the most reactionary phenomena of modern times.

Michael Hartl specializes in explaining difficult and counter-intuitive ideas. Previous efforts in this vein include a leading web development tutorial, an internationally famous anti-pi propaganda piece, and five years teaching the core physics curriculum at Caltech.

Ian and Alicia Denchasy (Freddy & Eddy) 

Talk: A Quarter Century of Hot Sex

From our whirlwind meet-cute to 25 years of our happy relationship, there’s no denying sex has played a vital role in keeping us together for the long haul. In this presentation, we’ll reveal our not-so-secret keys to keeping things steamy and defying the stereotype of being doomed to a declining sex life as time goes by. From toys, tantra, and tying each other up to porn and public sex, we’ve tried and done it all and show no signs of letting up! Let us prove that father time is your best ally to a hot and steamy marriage.

Freddy and Eddy, aka Alicia and Ian Denchasy, began their career in the sexual health industry in 2001, after innocently trying a sex toy for the first time. Their orgasmic discovery led to their now ubiquitous website - www.freddyandeddy.com - becoming one of the web's most popular destinations for couples' sexual information and education. From their success via the internet, they opened their discreet adult showroom in Los Angeles in 2005 and have been faithfully serving customers a comfortable environment in which to discuss sexual issues and find solutions to spice up their intimate sides. Ian and Alicia have been featured on CBS, Discovery Channel, the Tyra Banks Show, and numerous other radio and television outlets worldwide for their commitment to a sensual life together and their modest proposal that long-term marriage should mean ever greater sexual heights.

Desiree D. Dudley - Foresight Institute

Talk1: Space, Health, Speed, and Precision: How Nanotechnology Paves The Way to A Better Future 

 Desiree presently leads program development and connection-building at the Foresight Institute, a non-profit dedicated to advancing beneficial nanotechnology - and related transformational technologies - for over 25 years. She is passionate about innovation, expanding and actualizing potential, genuine win-win relationships, and generally "getting things done". Desiree also accepts consulting contracts, with an emphasis on business strategy, partnerships, and development; past organizations she's worked with in various capacities include: ONE Nanotechnologies LLC, Stanford University, A-Life Medical, Merrill Corp, The Princeton Review's K-12 Division, Caresoft.com's TheDailyApple, and the Personalized Life Extension Conference. Before embracing the Bay Area's futurist tech bug, Desiree studied psychology and neuropsychology in labs at Penn State, drew nudes at art studios in Manhattan, and helped a friend launch an independent charter school specializing in project-based learning in San Diego, CA. http://www.foresight.org 

Alan Minsky - KPFK Radio Los Angeles

Talk: Voices in the Wilderness: Can viable solutions to the global economic crisis get a hearing in the digital age?

The past five years have been devastating to the legacy of Milton Friedman and neo-classical economics; not only have de-regulated financial markets imploded, but the major banks and investment houses required Big Government to bail them out.  Yet the steady march of further de-regulation and greater austerity continues across the globe - from Greece to California.  Keynes, and even Marx, come in from the cold and onto op-ed pages and a million attractive websites; but nowhere has an alternative set of economic policies come close to being implemented.  Somehow the crisis happened, and yet we're still an era of Margaret Thatcher's TINA (there is no alternative).  Is it possible for sane macroeconomic alternatives to gain traction in the digital age?  After all, it requires mass support for something to become policy in a democratic society.  Or is economics simply too esoteric or boring, to capture the mass imagination of our time?  Is it possible that computer games are the key needed to open this (dead)lock.  This talk looks at the cross section of popular/digital media, politics, democracy, and economic policy.

Alan Minsky is the Program Director at KPFK Radio Los Angeles where he co-hosts a recurring series called "Building a Powerful Left in the United States."  At the end of the last millenium, he co-founded the Los Angles Independent Media Center.  Alan also oversees the estate of his father, economist Hyman Minsky; in this capacity Alan regularly attends conferences around the world on reforming the financial system.  In a previous life Alan authored four books on American Sports and Social History; his 56 game hitting streak is widely believed to be a record that will never be broken.

Daniel Quach - Howcookingworks

Talk: Fundamentals of Cooking

Cooking in today's age has almost become a lost art with the advent of busier lives and more convenient food options.  In this talk, Daniel will talk about how we got here, and 10 basic fundamentals of cooking for you to continue on your food journey.

Daniel Quach is the co-founder of Howcookingworks, a website for people to learn how to cook.  In the next month Howcookingworks will be releasing an app where you can take a picture of what you are eating, and get nutrition information returned (macro and micro nutrients)