MICHAEL SCHRAGE, our Opening Keynote Speaker, is the Co-director of the MIT Media Lab's eMarkets Initiative. Schrage writes, consults and actively collaborates on the design and deployment of digital innovations, collaborative design, and new media. As Executive Director of Merrill Lynch's Innovation Grants Competition he calls attention to and rewarding creative approaches in academic research. Schrage is also the co-creator of the Rockefeller Foundation's Science for Development Prize. His book, Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, 2000), explored the economics and ethology of prototyping and design. In addition to this and other monographs, Schrage has been a columnist for Fortune ("Brave New Work"), the Los Angeles Times ("Innovation"), WIRED, and ComputerWorld ("Counter-information"). He also has written for the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor, Esquire, Science and other publications. Schrage is co-inventor of Mattel's line of Catz and Dogz virtual pets, inventor of the QuestioNet conference technology, and he has a patent pending for a networked point-of-sale paperless coupon.

TRACY KIDDER, this year's recipient of the NELINET Award, is the author of The Soul of A New Machine, Among Schoolchildren, House, Old Friends, and Home Town. Mr. Kidder is a distinguished author who has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. For over two decades, he has written non-fiction that explores the mysteries of the world through seemingly everyday events. His exploration of the development of a new technology, The Soul of a New Machine, was described by The Atlantic as "a touchstone against which other books on the technology industry are measured." Mr. Kidder often explores his subjects with a strong sense of social conscience, ranging from schools in Massachusetts to the work of a dedicated doctor in Haiti. A long time resident of Massachusetts, many of his books explore life in New England, with his most recent book, Home Town, providing keen insights into New England small towns by documenting the individuals and institutions within Northampton, Massachusetts.