BIOS AND VIDEOS

2009 Keynote Speakers

Yvonne Chan
Principal
Vaughn Next Century Learning Center and Member of California State Board of Education

Trusting You Have the Knowledge-Base to Create Something New

Chan pushes the limits of education and social reform with accelerated English learning, longer school day and longer school year, interagency services, career-tech education, university professional development center, teacher peer-review and performance pay systems. As the founder of the first conversion charter school in the nation, she helped turned gang territories to college prep laboratories, provided construction jobs and stimulated economic growth in a high-poverty neighborhood. In addition to being a school principal, Chan is also an adjunct professor at UCLA, a member of the California State Board of Education, and a Commissioner of the Los Angeles City Commission for Children Youth and Families.
 

Brewster Kahle
Founder
Internet Archive

Kahle, a computer engineer, internet entrepreneur, and digital librarian, founded the Internet Archive in 1996. He is focused on providing universal access to all knowledge, and developing technologies for information discovery and digital libraries. He was co-founder of Alexa Internet, which helped catalog the Web, which was later sold to Amazon.com. In 1989, Kahle invented the Internet's first publishing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) system and in 1989, founded WAIS Inc., a pioneering electronic publishing company, and was later acquired by America Online. Kahle, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a key supporter of the Open Content Alliance.
Watch video: Universal Access to All Knowledge

Mae Jemison
Astronaut, Physician, Engineer

Jemison blasted into orbit aboard the shuttle Endeavour in 1992 as the first woman of color to go into space. Now the Founder and President of two technology companies, the space flight was just one in a series of accomplishments. Most recently, Jemison developed a new business, BioSentient Corporation, a medical technology company that creates and markets mobile equipment worn to monitor the body’s vital signs and train people to respond favorably in stressful situations. Prior to joining NASA in 1987, Jemison worked in both engineering and medicine, as a General Practitioner in Los Angeles and as an Area Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa.
(Video unavailable at speaker's request)

Kevin Johnson
Mayor of Sacramento


Mayor Johnson is the first native Sacramentan and the first African American to be elected to the office. His vision is for Sacramento to become "a city that works for everyone." Johnson’s dedication to public service began long before he started his tenure as mayor. Upon retiring from the NBA after 12 seasons with the Phoenix Suns in 2000, he returned to his Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento to serve as the CEO of St. HOPE, a non-profit community development organization he founded in 1989 to revitalize inner-city communities through public education, economic development, civic leadership and the arts.
Watch video: Transforming Big Ideas into Bold Action

Alan Kay
President
Viewpoints Research Institute

Kay is one of the earliest pioneers of object-oriented programming, personal computing, and graphical user interfaces. At Viewpoints Research Institute he and his colleagues continue to explore advanced systems and programming design by aiming for a "Moore’s Law" advance in software creation of several orders of magnitude. His contributions have been recognized with the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering, the Alan M. Turing Award from the Association of Computing Machinery, and the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation "for creation of the concept of modern personal computing and contribution to its realization."
Watch video: Big Ideas Are Sometimes Powerful Ideas

Sandy Shugart
President
Valencia Community College

Shugart serves as the fourth president of Valencia Community College, one of the nation’s largest and most celebrated two-year colleges. Valencia, the second largest producer of graduates in the country, is especially well regarded for its learning centered approach to higher education, its economic development programs, and its outstanding academic programs. Shugart came to Valencia after serving as president of North Harris College in Texas and Vice President of the North Carolina Community College System. Shugart is also a published poet and songwriter.
Watch video: Can Our Institutions Accomodate to People Who Don't Believe In Them

Rapid Fire Presenters

Dr. Dennis M. Bartels
Executive Director
Exploratorium

Bartels is a nationally known science education and policy expert. His recent activities in the field of science education and policy include leadership of an external panel of experts on the National Science Foundation’s long-range planning for pre-college science education programs and for its institutional material and technology-related education program. He has been named a Fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education.
Watch video: The Other 115,632 Hours: What If Informal Learning Counted Too?

Dr. Erik Duval
Professor of Computer Science
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Duval’s research focuses on management of and access to structured and unstructured data, repositories, federated search, harvesting, content management. He also works end user oriented aspects like information visualization, mobile information devices, multi-touch displays and mash-ups. He believes in Serious Fun, the idea that what is really Fun is often also really Serious, and vice versa. He thinks learning is at the core of what it means to be human: if we get better at learning, then we get better at getting better.
Watch video: Learning From Music: Abundance As a Platform For Innovation
View slideshow: Learning From Music: Abundance As a Platform For Innovation

Garry Gaber
President
Chief Creative Officer Escape Hatch Entertainment

Gaber is the driving force behind Escape Hatch Entertainment, a game and video production company specializing in game creation, video and film effects and consulting. EHE has been involved in many creative projects, including creation of 'Immune Attack', teaching students about the world inside the human body, 'Discover Babylon', a video game that teaches ancient history, as well as work on corporate videos, motion picture special effects and computer game consulting.
Watch video: Immune Attack: A User-Centric Approach to Game Design

Tony Jackson
Vice President for Education
Asia Society

Jackson oversees a multidisciplinary approach to create Asia Society programs and influence policy to support every student graduating prepared for the 21st century global economic and civic environment. Previously at Asia Society he was the Executive Director of the International Studies Schools Network, the nation’s first network of small, effective, internationally-themed secondary schools in underserved communities across the country.
Watch video: Matching Design to Outcomes: Teaching Global Competencies in a Changing World

Ashley Nand
South San Francisco High School Sophomore
Roadtrip Nation

Nand is an active AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) student. She has taken multiple honors classes and makes her academic work a priority; she also tutors younger children on the weekends. A cheerleader since middle school, Nand is now a team captain of the award-winning SSFHS Cheerleading team.
Watch video: From the Back of the Class: What We See From Here

Neeru Paharia
Founder
Peer 2 Peer University

Paharia, a 5th-year doctoral student at Harvard Business School, is interested in finding ways for people to consume more consciously. Previously, Paharia was on the founding team at Creative Commons serving as Executive Director. During that time she founded ccmixter.org, a music remixing website, and helped build a new semantic search engine. She volunteers on related projects that leverage the internet to make education more accessible, as co-founder of Peer 2 Peer University and acawiki.org (a "Wikipedia" for academic research).
Watch video: Hacking the Social and Structural Elements of a Free Education

Deborah Quazzo
Co-Founder
NeXtAdvisors, LLC

Quazzo is a 20 year veteran of investment banking. In 2001 Quazzo co-founded ThinkEquity Partners with Michael Moe and was President and Head of Investment Banking. ThinkEquity was acquired in March 2007 by London-based Panmure Gordon where Quazzo served as a Board member until her resignation in October 2008. A longtime banker to the education sector, clients have included Franklin Covey, The Princeton Review, Plato Learning, Thompson Corporation, Reed-Elsevier, American Public Education, and K12, Inc.
Watch video: A Double Espresso for Education

Marco Torres
Social Studies Teacher
San Fernando High School

Torres has taught high school for ten years, and has been media coach and education technology director for San Fernando High School, one of the nation’s largest urban schools in Los Angeles. Torres is also a professional filmmaker and photographer who uses digital storytelling skills to add value to his curriculum. He has been recognized locally and internationally, including being honored as a California Teacher of the Year, for his accomplishments in the classroom, and for the use of technology to empower minority students.
(Video unavailable at speaker's request): Identifying Opportunities to Capture: Lessons on Observing, Engaging, and Involving Students

Dr. Joel Westheimer
Professor
University of Ottawa

Westheimer is University Research Chair in the Sociology of Education and Professor of Education at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is also co-founder and executive director of Democratic Dialogue. Westheimer teaches, researches, and writes on democratic engagement, social justice, service learning, and community in education. Prior to moving to Canada, he taught at New York University and Stanford University.
Watch video: All Children Left Thinking: What Everyone Needs to Know in a Democratic Society

David Calkins
Founder
ROBOlympics

Calkins is a widely respected robot builder and expert. He teaches robotics and computer engineering at San Francisco State University, is the president of the Robotics Society of America, Founder of the international ROBOlympics competition, Program Chair of the RoboNexus Consumer and Entertainment Expo, and co-chair of the RoboSot competition for the Federation of International Robosoccer Association. He recently co-founded a company to build competition robots and home-based consumer robots.
Watch video: Does Your Robot Play Well with Others?

Matt Fritzinger
Founder
NorCal High School Mountain Bike Racing League

Fritzinger’s Berkeley High Mountain Bike Club has been a huge success and eventually led to the creation of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike Racing League. The program has spread to Southern California and Colorado, and Fritzinger launched the National Interscholastic Cycling Association this Fall. In 2010, over 1000 kids are expected to participate in his rigorous mountain bike racing program.
Watch video: I Want to Race My Bicycle: Trailblazing Into the Mainstream of High School Culture

Cesar Gomez
South San Francisco High School Freshman
Roadtrip Nation

Gomez is a first-year AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) student and has already attended an AVID field trip to UC Santa Cruz and San Jose State to begin exploring his college options. Gomez also participates in the JV football team and has just been added to the SSFHS JV Soccer team, which was no small feat.
Watch video: From the Back of the Class: What We See From Here

Mike Marriner
Co-Founder
Roadtrip Nation

Marriner is the Director and Cofounder of Roadtrip Nation. Feeling that his education was not connected to the real world, upon graduation he hit the road in an old, green RV to interview leaders across America and learn how they got to where they are today. That roadtrip was featured in Forbes Magazine and later turned into the book, Roadtrip Nation. Roadtrip Nation has developed a new high school curriculum, which help students and educators in under-served communities connect their education to the real world.
Watch video: On the Road to Making Education Relevant to the Real World

Dr. Erin O'Connell
Associate Professor of Languages and Literature
University of Utah

O'Connell teaches Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Her scholarly interests include ancient and modern comparisons and the reception of classical literature, performance, and philosophy. Her talk on Homeric Hip Hop reflects an interest that began with the rise in popularity of rap music in the 1980s and her desire to make Homer's Iliad relevant to a wide variety of college students.
Watch video: Homeric Hip-Hop: The Ancient is Fresh

Hal Plotkin
Senior Policy Advisor
Office of the Under Secretary, United States Department of Education

Plotkin is the Senior Policy Adviser in the office of the Under Secretary of Education in the United States Department of Education. Previously, Plotkin served as president of the board of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District’s Governing Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the federal government, Plotkin was a Silicon Valley-based journalist and commentator, a founding editor of public radio’s Marketplace program and a former columnist for CNBC.com and SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Watch video: A New Model for Higher Education: Can We Meet the Demand Before They Vote with Their Feet

Dr. Myra Strober
Professor
Stanford University

Strober is a labor economist at Stanford University where she is Emerita Professor of Education and Emerita Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business. She was founding director of Stanford’s Center for Research on Women (now the Clayman Institute for Research on Women in Gender), President of the International Association for Feminist Economics and Program Officer in Higher Education for Atlantic Philanthropies. Her book on interdisciplinarity, Challenging Habits of Thought: Conversations Across the Disciplines, will be published in 2010.
Watch video: Interdisciplinarity: The Four-Wheel Drive Approach to Complex Problems

Gever Tulley
Founder
Tinkering School

A self-taught computer scientist who holds multiple technology patents, Gever's expertise is really in thinking. Gever has taught workshops and made presentations to both kids and adults, in a variety of settings, including Maker Faire, Pop!Tech, Stanford University, Google, TED. Gever's famous rule while babysitting, "If you're going to play with fire, we have to go outside."
Watch video: Turning Curriculum Design On Its Head: Engage First Then Look for Learning Within