Home

Heidi Zak is the Co-Founder and CEO of ThirdLove, the third largest online bra and underwear company in America. Zak left her job at Google with the dream of offering a better option, a “ThirdLove” where women don’t have to choose between comfort and beauty. ThirdLove is the only brand to offer half-cup bras and more than 80 bra sizes, and the Company is proud to have donated over $40 million worth of products to women in need. Zak has been recognized as Fortune's 40 Under 40, EY Entrepreneur of the Year, National Retail Federation's Disruptors, Fast Company’s Most Creative People and Goldman Sachs' 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. In addition to contributing a weekly column to Inc.com, Zak is committed to advancing more women in tech and is an active angel investor in female-founded companies. She graduated from Duke University and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan. Prior to launching ThirdLove, Zak held a variety of roles at Google, Aeropostale, McKinsey and Bank of America. In her spare time you can find her working out, or chasing after her two kids.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working as a software engineer at CERN, the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. Sir Tim understood the unrealized potential of millions of computers connected together through the Internet and envisioned the Web as a global information sharing space. Sir Tim proposed what was to become the World Wide Web with a proposal specifying a set of technologies that would make the Internet truly accessible and useful to the world.. Despite initial setbacks and with perseverance, by October of 1990, he had specified the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s Web : HTML, URL, and HTTP. He also wrote the first Web page editor/browser (“WorldWideWeb”) and the first Web server (“?httpd“). By the end of 1990, the first Web page was available. By 1991, people outside of CERN joined the new Web community, and in April 1993, from much encouragement from Sir Tim and his colleagues, CERN announced that the World Wide Web technology would be available for anyone to use on a royalty-free basis. Since that time, the Web has changed the world, arguably becoming the most powerful communication medium the world has ever known. Whereas only just over one half of the people on the planet are currently using the Web the Web has fundamentally altered the way we teach and learn, buy and sell, inform and are informed, agree and disagree, share and collaborate, meet and love, and tackle problems ranging from putting food on our tables to curing diseases. In 2009, Sir Tim recognized that the Web’s potential to empower people to bring about positive change remained unrealized by billions around the world. Announcing the formation of the World Wide Web Foundation, he once again confirmed his commitment to ensuring an open, free Web accessible and to all where people can share knowledge, access services, conduct commerce, participate in good governance and communicate in creative ways. In 2012 Sir Tim co-founded the Open Data Institute with Sir Nigel Shadbolt, which seeks to show the value of open data, and to advocate for the innovative use of open data to affect positive change across the globe. A graduate of Oxford University, Sir Tim is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) andin the Computer Science Department at Oxford University.

James Gosling received a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, Canada in 1977. He received a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983. The title of his thesis was "The Algebraic Manipulation of Constraints". He has built satellite data acquisition systems, a multiprocessor version of Unix, several compilers, mail systems and window managers. He has also built a WYSIWYG text editor, a constraint based drawing editor and a text editor called `Emacs' for Unix systems. He spent many years as a VP & Fellow at Sun Microsystems. At Sun his early activity was as lead engineer of the NeWS window system. He did the original design of the Java programming language and implemented its original compiler and virtual machine. He has been a contributor to the Real-Time Specification for Java, and a researcher at Sun labs where his primary interest was software development tools. He then was the Chief Technology Officer of Sun's Developer Products Group and the CTO of Sun's Client Software Group. He briefly worked for Oracle after the acquisition of Sun in 2010. After a brief stint at Google, he became the chief software architect at Liquid Robotics where he spent his time writing software for the Waveglider, an autonomous ocean-going robot. In May of 2017 he became a Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services. Awards: The Economist Innovation Award, The Flame Award USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award, Officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, and a long list of patents.

Alex Younger was a career intelligence officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 for over 30 years. While working in intelligence operations he served in Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan. He was appointed as Director of Counter Terrorism in 2009. He became Chief in 2014, a post he held for six years. During this time, he focused on the digital transformation of the Service and, as an attendee of the National Security Council, advised the UK Government during a period of significant geopolitical change. Prior to SIS, Alex served in the British Army as an infantry officer. He attended St Andrews’ University.

The CEO and Co-Founder of Endel, Oleg Stavitsky innovates at the intersection of technology, art, and wellness. In 2018 he founded Endel to make AI-powered mindfulness accessible to all. The company’s core technology Endel Pacific creates personalized, adaptive soundscapes to reduce stress, improve sleep, and boost productivity — all backed by neuroscience and the science of the circadian rhythm. Endel is the Apple Watch App of the Year 2020. Prior to Endel, in 2013 Stavitsky co-founded BUBL, a brand that applies digital art methods to kids apps, BUBL was featured by Apple and acquired by Fox&Sheep, one of top-three biggest kids apps publishers. Along with an elite design and coding team, Stavitsky has built seven BUBL apps, all of which have received an App Store Editor's Choice award, and many of which were selected to Best of App Store lists. Before BUBL, Stavitsky was a Features Editor at Igromania, Russia's biggest gaming magazine, and a producer at KranX Production, a videogame producing center founded by the creators of cult-classic PC titles like Vangers and Perimeter. Oleg also founded the award-winning V3 Agency, which he grew to 40 people and sold in 2016 to Berlin-based fintech company Aureum. V3 built apps for some of the biggest Berlin startups, including Kitchen Stories (acquired by Bosch) and Memorado, and also won numerous awards, including the Google Design Award, iF Design Award, and German Design Award. Leveraging his diverse experiences in the confluence of gaming, digital and mobile technology, art, design, science, and consumer trends, Stavitsky continues to create unique businesses that impact millions of people and open the doors to meaningful experiences and further innovation.

Cassie De Pecol, is the CEO of Expedition 196 LLC and the Founder of Her International Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding female-driven businesses that address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Considered the most prolific traveler of her time, Cassie holds two Guinness World Records for traveling to every country in the world alone (196+ countries), is recognized in the National Women’s History Museum, and has been invited to travel into space with Virgin Galactic. She is a keynote speaker, brand ambassador, Ironman athlete, author of 'Expedition 196: A Personal Journal from the First Woman on Record to Travel Every Country', app CEO of 'World Fitness by Cassie', and content creator. From August of 2015 on, Cassie has spoken in front of over 16,000 university and high school students as well as corporate and non-profit industry professionals during her 196 country Expedition and thereafter. From the TED stage, to WDS in front of 3,500 individuals, to NYU to Yale to UCONN and many other prominent universities both in the US and around the world, Cassie has become a highly requested speaker for motivation, entrepreneurialism, sustainability, women’s achievement and making history. Visit her website at www.cassiedepecol.com to learn more.

Located in the mighty Pacific Northwest, the Draplin Design Co. proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the Print, Identity and Illustration categories. We make stuff for Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Esquire, Nike, Wired, Dinosaur Jr, Timberline, Chunklet, Eaux Claires Music Festival, Poler, Incase, Sub Pop Records, Fender, Marc Maron, Cobra Dogs, Jill Soloway, Sasquatch Music Festival, Rhett Miller, Old 97s, Jason Isbell, Nixon Watches, Bernie Sanders, Patagonia, Target, Chris Stapleton, NASA/JPL, John Hodgman, Timex, Ford Motor Company, Woolrich and even the Obama Administration, if you can believe that. We’ve traveled the world telling our story, with over 450 speaking fiascos under our belt and counting! We co-created Field Notes with our older brother Jim Coudal, and our memo books are sold in over 2,500 stores worldwide, with limited-edition special editions shipped quarterly to a booming subscriber list. Our six Skillshare classes are raging along, teaching kids all over the world. Our first book titled Pretty Much Everything came out on May 17, 2016 on Abrams Books, which incredibly, is in its eighth printing. Our roster of DDC Merch is up to 260 products and growing! You’ll see those goodies at DDC merch tables from coast to coast or in our online shop. We pride ourselves on a high level of craftsmanship and quality that keeps us up late into the wet Portland night.