Speakers & Panelists

Both SOLVE and the Climate CoLab conference featured keynote speakers and panelists who are leading experts on issues related to climate change and to new information technologies. They include business people, politicians, NGO leaders, scientists, academics, entreprenuers, and others.

Keynote Speaker
Solve's Opening Convocation
Monday, October 5

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Prof. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 80 countries.

Keynote Panel Crowds & Climate Tuesday, October 6
Keynote Panel Crowds & Climate Tuesday, October 6	John Sterman Director, MIT System Dynamics Group, MIT Sloan School of Management	Bina Venkataraman Carnegie Fellow, New America	Chris Knittel Director, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research	Leslie Dewan Co-founder & CEO, Transatomic Power; Member, MIT Corporation	Jason Jay (moderator) Senior Lecturer & Director, MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative

Monday Sessions

Rafael Reif, President, MIT

Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, MIT Technology Review

Phillip A. Sharp, Institute Professor, MIT; Nobel Laureate

Rodney Brooks, Professor Emeritus, MIT; Founder and Chairman, Rethink Robotics

Angela Belcher, W.M. Keck Professor of Energy; Professor, Department of Biological Engineering and Department of Material Science and Engineering, MIT
Robert Armstrong, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT

Susan Hockfield (moderator), President Emerita, MIT
Anthony Fauci, M.D., Director, NIAID, National Institutes of Health
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director, Biocon Ltd
Mark McClellan, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
David Meeker, CEO, Genzyme

Tenley Albright, Director, MIT Collaborative Initiative

Chris Shipley, Executive Producer, Solve

Larry Roberts, Creator, ARPANET
Josette Sheeran, President & CEO, The Asia Society; formerly Director, World Food Program
Marcelo Claure, CEO, Sprint

Mark Dankberg, Chairman & CEO, ViaSat
Rich DeVaul, Director of Rapid Evaluation, Google
Yael Maguire, Director, Facebook Connectivity
Will Marshall, Co-founder & CEO, Planet Labs

Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at MIT

Trish Cotter, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship at MIT

Michael Gale, Senior Program Manager, Global Giving

Tuesday Sessions

Lucia Grenna, Program manager for the Connect4Climate initiative

Dennis R. Costello, Managing Partner, Braemar Energy Ventures

Raymond S. Wood, Managing Director, Global Head of Power Utilities & Renewables, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch

Sgouris Sgouridis, Associate Professor, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology
Sarah Finnie Robinson, Founding Partner, WeSpire Inc.

Oliver Sellers-Garcia, Director of Sustainability and Environment, City of Somerville, MA

Silvia Pariente-David, former Senior Energy Specialist in the MENA region of the World Bank

Raj Pandya, Director of AGU?s Thriving Earth Exchange

Karim-Aly Kassam, International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University

Morgan Ruelle, Food Systems and Poverty Reduction IGERT, Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University

Barry Liner, Director, Water Science & Engineering Center at Water Environment Federation

Elizabeth Teague, Senior Associate for Environmental Performance, Root Capital

Jayant Sathaye, former Senior Scientist and Strategic Advisor, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

D. James Baker, former Administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and current Director, Global Carbon Measurement Program, William J. Clinton Foundation

Kofi Taha, Associate Director, IDIN Innovation Center Coordinator

Kate Mytty, Co-instructor of MIT D-Lab: Waste

Christina Chase, Entrepreneur in Residence, MIT Martin Trust Center

Jason Jay, Senior Lecturer and Director, Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan

John Sterman, Director, MIT System Dynamics Group, MIT Sloan School of Management

Bina Venkataraman, Carnegie Fellow, New America; Lecturer, MIT's Department of Science, Technology & Society; Former Senior Advisor for Climate Change Innovation, Obama Administration

Leslie Dewan, Co-founder and CEO, Transatomic Power

Chris Knittel, Director, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research

Jeffrey Warren, Research Director, Public Lab

Tunney Lee, professor Emeritus, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Josh Eichen, Planner / Pratt Cneter for Community Development

Steve Fugarazzo, Manager Facilities Engineering & Enterprise Energy at Raytheon

John Dalzell, Senior Architect, City of Boston Redevelopment Authority

David Miller, Executive Managing Director, Clean Energy Venture Group
Ryan Wright, Founder and CEO, WrightGrid, LLC

Carl Nelson, CEVG, Clean Energy Venture Group

Prabir Purohit, Director, Power & Renewables, Bank of America Merrill Lynch,

...and more.