Kevin Carr of National Basketball Association

Kevin Carr joined the National Basketball Association in 2001 and currently serves as the Vice President of Community and Player Programs for the National Basketball Association. Kevin is responsible for managing the team player development relationship for several NBA teams, overseeing all corporate social responsibility efforts and player programs for the NBA D-League.

From 1997 to 2001 Kevin served as Associate Director of Student-Athlete Support Services and Director of Life Skills at Michigan State University. Prior to working at MSU, Kevin was the Corporate Services Manager for INROADS of Central Florida, Inc. in 1996. From 1993 until his appointment to INROADS, Kevin served as Academic and Life Skills coordinator at Florida State University.

A native of Orlando, Florida, Kevin earned both his undergraduate degree in 1990 and his master’s in Public Administration and Policy with an emphasis Human Resources and Diversity Leadership in 1993 from Florida State University.

Currently Kevin is active in the community serving as a board member for the R&B artist and actor “NeYo’s” Compound Foundation, a member of the American Public University Industry Advisory Council for Sport Management and Health Sciences, a national board member for the FSU Black Alumni Association, and is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporate. Kevin also volunteers his time coaching and mentoring emerging professionals across the nation in a wide range of industries. Kevin is supported by his loving family and lives in New York.

Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co

Raised in the Michigan Northwoods, schooled at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and currently hunkered down in the mighty Pacific Northwest, the Draplin Design Co. proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the Print, Identity, Web Development, Illustration and Gocco Muscle categories. We make stuff for Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Field Notes, Richmond Fontaine, Nike, Wired, Timberline, Ford Motor Co., Viva Voce, Hutchco, Patagonia, Chunklet, Incase, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Burton Snowboards, Hughes Entertainment, Megafaun and even the Obama Administration, if you can believe that. We pride ourselves on a high level of craftsmanship and quality that keeps us up late into the wet Portland night.

Shailfali Puri of Scientists Without Borders

Shaifali Puri is the Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, a global partnership that aims to improve the quality of life in the developing world by linking, mobilizing, and coordinating science-based activities, initiatives, and resources. Prior to being named Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, Shaifali was the Senior Advisor to the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Empire State Development Corporation, the economic and development arm of the State of New York, and a journalist at Fortune magazine.

ELEW of Rockjazz Pianist

A modern day pop artist and musical revolutionary, piano iconoclast ELEW is making a substantial impression on the music world with a thunderous new style of playing: an inspired melding of ragtime, rock and pop that he calls Rockjazz. ELEW has toured the world, recorded, and performed continuously with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Elvin Jones, Roy Hargrove, and Cassandra Wilson, among others. He won the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, his mesmerizing piano theatrics even then hinting at the new musical paradigm he would one day create.

Adam Leipzig of National Geographic Films & Disney

Adam Leipzig’s background, as former President of National Geographic Films and Senior VP at Walt Disney Studios, makes him uniquely suited to talk about American creativity and the creative economy – because he has worked in our culture and influenced it for over thirty years. Adam has been involved as a producer, distributor or supervising executive on films as diverse as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Dead Poets Society, Titus and March of the Penguins. He has launched more than 300 theatre productions and performance events, has written for The New York Times and other publications, designed and built four successful businesses, and consulted with dozens more. Today, he publishes the popular online magazine Cultural Weekly, which examines how our creative culture intersects media, money, technology and entertainment.

Ash Huang of Pinterest

Ash is a Communication Designer at Pinterest. Her pixelled past includes time at Twitter and Code and Theory. An ardent believer in stories and magic, she’s nestled herself in Silicon Valley to prepare for its next design renaissance: the humanization of tech brands.

riCardo Crespo of 20th Century Fox

riCardo Crespo is an ambassador of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, and serves as SVP, Global Creative. riCardo is best known in the creative+branding industries as a prominent creative ronin; and driven by the simple ethos of intelligently provoking and delivering against a brand’s promise. Prior to joining 20th Century Fox, he held several leadership positions including executive creative posts at Mattel Inc. and notable advertising icons such as McCANN ERICKSON, Saatchi & Saatchi and Bozell Worldwide.

Ellen McGirt of Fast Company

Ellen McGirt is a senior writer with Fast Company Magazine, where she writes the type of long form profiles that everyone says will soon go the way of the dodo. She hopes everyone is wrong on this one. During the past five years, she’s had the time to explore and explain the people, technology and companies who are shaping the world: Mark Zuckerberg, Al Gore, Jack Dorsey, Chloe Sladden, Chris Hughes, Ursula Burns, and Nike’s Mark Parker, to name a few. Her love of digital remains strong, however, and she started Fast Company’s 30 Second MBA series in 2009. She has been a frequent guest on CNN, CNBC and Good Morning America. She’s also written for Fortune, Time and Money, which rings more like a Dickensian law firm than magazines she loved. Previously, when the web was young, she was the founder of a financial website for women called Cassandra’s Revenge, and established similar sites for AOL and Oxygen Media.

Dave Brown of Holiday Matinee & MKG

Dave Brown is committed to making this world more awesome. In 1999, he founded Holiday Matinee, a creative agency and blog that spreads positive vibes to the masses. He authored the book, “I Swear To Good You Are God At This” and coined the motto, “Love your work. Work your love.” Having worked with companies such as Zappos, Ford, Apple, Toms and bands Death Cab For Cutie, Sigur Ros, The Album Leaf, Bright Eyes and Jimmy Eat World, he’s an expert in creative marketing, trendspotting and social media strategy. When Dave isn’t inspiring the creative community, he serves as Director of Digital Strategy at MKG, where he helps brands such as Delta Air Lines, NBCU and Evian make lasting connections with their consumers through innovative campaigns that live at the intersection of digital and physical.

Nate Utesch of Ferocious Quarterly

Nate Utesch makes his living designing and illustrating, and loses his mind publishing and song-writing. He spends his days as art director for the Midwest shop, One Lucky Guitar, Inc. Any conscious hours left in his week are spent accumulating side-projects: publisher/curator of the art and fiction mag, Ferocious Quarterly; member/basement producer of the electronic quartet, Metavari; and as the newly minted art director of the design journal, The Manual. He’d almost always rather talk to you about David Lynch, 80′s music production and freestyle swimming efficiencies.

Rod Arnold of The Frontier Agency

Rod Arnold has more than 20 years of experience successfully driving aggressive growth for cause-driven organizations. Under Rod’s leadership, charity: water experienced 61% per annum revenue growth and emerged as a premier non-profit brand and social media leader. As Chief Operating Officer/Director of Special Projects, Rod was responsible for leading and scaling the organization, including a strategic approach to growing, leveraging and monetizing their online communities. He also led Teen Mania as an early-stage non-profit and drove growth from $3 million to $30 million in annual revenue, employing a multi-platform strategy of digital, direct mail and events.

Peter Buchanan-Smith of Best Made Co

Peter Buchanan-Smith is a New York–based designer, author, and entrepreneur whose career has included designing book jackets for Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux; art direction of the New York Times Op-Ed page; creative direction for Paper magazine; and work for fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi, musical legends David Byrne, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, and the band Wilco. He is the author of several books, including The Wilco Book, and he has collaborated on many others, including Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style with illustrator Maira Kalman, and Muhammad Ali by Magnum Photographers. His first tome, Speck: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things—which originated as a thesis project at the School of Visual Arts—explores the fascinating lives of ordinary people and commonplace objects. The connection between people, objects, and the outdoors is at the heart of Buchanan-Smith’s biggest venture to date, Best Made Company.

Ben Henretig of Micro-Documentaries

Ben Henretig is the Creative Director & Founder of Micro-Documentaries, a for-benefit company dedicated to helping world-changing organizations leverage the power of documentary film to drive social change. A graduate of Stanford University Film and Media Studies, he uses his background in art, music, communications and filmmaking to produce beautiful, powerful short-format documentaries for nonprofits and purposeful businesses making positive change in the world. Currently, Ben is working on two feature length documentary films and is a regular contributor to the Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, whose research and innovative applications have created insight into how technology can be designed to inspire people to take positive action and have personal impact in the world.

Karina van Schaardenburg of Foursquare

Karina works at Foursquare as a user experience researcher and an anthropologist of online communities. Her interests center on the ways new technologies shape and are shaped by contemporary culture. She previously worked as a User Researcher at Twitter, where she lead research for the 2010-11 website redesigns, and as a Research Analyst at Meetup, where she designed and implemented a usability lab for all user-facing projects.

Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise

Adam Braun is the Founder and Executive Director of Pencils of Promise, the nonprofit organization that has opened more than 50 schools around the world and delivered over 1.5 million educational hours in just over three years. PoP was founded with just $25 and a birthday party in October 2008 using what Braun describes as a “For-Purpose” approach to blending nonprofit idealism with for-profit business principles.

19th Street Band of Eclectic Quintet

The 19th Street Band is a Washington D.C. based group best known for their enthusiasm and ability to entertain any crowd! Whether you’re young or maybe just young-at-heart, The 19th Street Band serves up an eclectic mix of both modern and classic tunes that is sure to please the masses! Their style can best be described as an acoustic mix of popular Rock, Country, Celtic, and Bluegrass songs. Moreover, each member of the band is classically trained in music and offers their vocal talents to create a great mix of styles and perfectly blended harmonies!