Michael Ben Eli

An international management consultant, Michael pioneered applications of Systems Thinking and Cybernetics in management and organization. Over the years he worked on synthesizing strategy issues in many parts of the world and in diverse institutional settings, ranging from small high technology firms to multinational enterprises, manufacturing companies, financial institutions, health care and educational organizations, government agencies, NGOs, and international multilateral organizations.

In recent years, he has focused primarily on issues related to sustainability and sustainable development, and has been working to help inspire leaders in business, government, community, and youth accelerate a peaceful transition to a sustainable future.

Dr. Ben-Eli graduated from the Architectural Association in London and later received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Cybernetics at Brunel University, where he studied under Gordon Pask. He was a close associate of R. Buckminster Fuller, with whom he collaborated on projects involving research on advanced structural systems and exploration of issues related to the management of technology and world resources for the advantage of all.


Sustainability Labs

Casey consults with start-ups, governments, and companies all over the world on challenges ranging from creating new products and services, to transforming organizational processes and behaviors. Industry leaders like Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, and Johnson & Johnson, among others, have sought out her expertise to tackle their design and innovation challenges.

Before starting her own practice, Casey held executive leadership positions at the most respected design companies in the world. At IDEO, she led the digital experience group, focusing on maximizing the effects and opportunities of networked culture. Before that, she was the Executive Creative Director at frog design, where she led the design research and design strategy practices worldwide. Casey was also an Associate Partner at Pentagram Design, where she started the interaction design group.

Casey is the founder of the Designers Accord, the global design coalition of designers, educators, and business leaders focused on creating positive social and environmental impact. Casey founded the non-profit in 2007, and through her leadership, it has grown to be one of the most influential organizations in the design world. Fast Company writes that Casey's vision around design thinking and impact is "on a path to change the culture of the creative community from bottom to top, and with it, the way everything is made, from toothbrushes to airplanes."

Casey speaks globally on systems thinking, cultural change, and sustainability, and is an Adjunct Professor in the graduate design program at CCA. She holds a master's degree in cultural theory and design from Yale University and a BA from Swarthmore College.

Designers Accord

His career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of seven books and co-editor of three others. His first book, Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992), was described as a “true classic” by Garrett Hardin. A second book, Earth in Mind (1994/2004) is praised by people as diverse as biologist E. O. Wilson and writer, poet, and farmer, Wendell Berry. Both are widely read and used in hundreds of colleges and universities. Hope is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr (Island Press, 2010) is a collection of his writings from 1985 to 2010.

In 1987 he organized studies of energy, water, and materials use on several college campuses that helped to launch the green campus movement. In 1989 Orr organized the first ever conference on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry. Co-sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton, the conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists including Stephen Schneider and George Woodwell.

In 1996 he organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” and by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings. The Lewis Center purifies all of its wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. But most important it became a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems. The story of that building is told in two books, The Nature of Design (Oxford, 2002) that Fritjof Capra called “brilliant,” and a second, Design on the Edge (MIT, 2006), that architect Sim van der Ryn describes as “powerful and inspiring.”

Orr’s political writings appear in, The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror (Island Press, 2004), and articles such as “The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party” (www.commondreams.org) written in January of 2005.

In an influential article in the Chronicle of Higher Education 2000 Orr proposed the goal of carbon neutrality for colleges and universities and subsequently organized and funded an effort to define a carbon neutral plan for his own campus at Oberlin. Seven years later hundreds of colleges and universities, including Oberlin, have made that pledge.

Recent projects include a two year $1.2 million collaborative project to define a 100 days climate action plan for the Obama administration (www.climateactionproject.com ), and a project with prominent legal scholars across the U.S. to define the legal rights of posterity in cases where the actions of the present generation might deprive posterity of “life, liberty, and property.” He is also active in efforts to stop mountaintop removal in Appalachia and develop a new economy based on ecological restoration and wind energy. He is the author of Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford University Press, 2009).

David Orr, Environmental Studies, Oberlin College

His early results in reversing land degradation in a manner that made, rather than cost, money were impressive. But, as he often states, his failures were equally impressive! Finally, in the mid 1980s the last of some key missing pieces fell into place. Since then thousands of land, livestock and wildlife managers have been able to demonstrate consistent results following the methodology he called Holistic Management.

Savory served as a Member of Parliament in the latter days of Zimbabwe’s civil war and leader of the opposition to the ruling party headed by Ian Smith. Exiled in 1979, as a result of his opposition, he emigrated to the United States where he co-founded the non-profit organization Holistic Management International with his wife, Jody Butterfield. In 1992 they formed a second non-profit (social welfare) organization near Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, the Africa Centre for Holistic Management, donating a ranch that would serve as a learning site for people all over Africa. Savory and the five local Chiefs are permanent Trustees of the Africa Centre. Savory and his wife divide their time between Zimbabwe and New Mexico.

In 2003, Savory was awarded the Banksia International Award for the person or organization doing the most for the environment on a global scale. His current work in Africa is receiving much praise and recognition and has just moved the Africa Centre For Holistic Management into the finalist round for the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Award.

Savory Institute, Africa Center for Holistic Management

A recent New York Times profile writes, “Long before sustainability became the buzzword du jour, there was Sim Van der Ryn, the intrepid pioneer on the eco-frontier”. The 70-year-old architect is part of a generation of visionaries who are more interested in the long term value of their their work than in self promotion. Sim emphasizes, “We are engaged in an Ecological Revolution , every bit as profound as the preceding Industrial Revolution.” While addressing an assembly of architects, Sim states, “The worst thing you can do is keep making no changes. That’s where the risk lies.”


Sim Van der Ryn Website

As PopTech’s Curator, Andrew develops the program, theme, speakers, content and the structure of PopTech’s conferences, and has co-led the development of PopTech’s social-innovation-related programs.

Andrew also serves as a Fellow of the National Geographic Society. His work and ideas have appeared in a wide array of media outlets, including PBS, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Fast Company, American Demographics, Popular Science, and many others.

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