PopTech Audio: PopCasts

An eminent roboticist and Ph.D. at MIT’s Media Lab, Dobson is exploring “machine therapy” – a personal, societal and psychoanalytical study of machine design and its effects on peoples’ everyday lives. Watch as she exhibits Screambody, Blendie and Omo, three fascinating robots that respond to – and influence – their users in provocative ways.

Last year regenerative medicine expert Dr. Badylak shocked the medical world when two of his patients re-grew severed fingertips in just six weeks. Learn how he and his colleagues are applying this breakthrough solution to help Iraqi war veterans re-grow tissue and body parts lost in battle.

2008 PopTech Fellow Heather Fleming is the founder of Catapult Design, which helps foundations and non-profits apply design thinking to global development. Hear her discuss breakthrough design projects, including a low-cost wind turbine that can charge a cell phone or power LED lighting.

2008 PopTech Fellow Ken Banks is the founder of kiwanja.net, which helps non-profits put mobiles to work through innovative offerings like FrontlineSMS – free software enabling coordinated, many-to-many, two-way text messaging. Ken’s solutions are being used worldwide to improve communications in a variety of critical situations.

Inventor, engineer and MacArthur Genius Grant-winner, Saul Griffith thought he was an eco-prude until he audited his total power consumption and learned he burns three times the energy as the average European. So, he developed Wattzon.com, a free, online tool we can use to gauge our energy footprints and learn how to reduce our roles in climate change.

Imogen Heap is an ethereal, Grammy-nominated, electronic chanteuse. Bear witness to her powers of improvisation and see her perform the global smash hit “Hide and Seek” live on the Pop!Tech stage.

Chandler Burr was the New York Times’ first-ever fragrance critic. His knowledge of the history, culture, emotion, economics, science and global geography of scent may be unrivaled. Come along with Chandler as he leads the Camden Opera House on an interactive, hyper-articulate and hilarious olfactory journey.

You might think that genetically engineered agriculture and organic farming are diametrically opposed, but Pamela Ronald – chair of the Plant Genomics Program at UC Davis – argues the two go together like peanut butter and chocolate. In this informative Pop!Tech talk, Ronald describes how marrying organic farming techniques with G.E. crops holds the potential to help solve the impending global food crisis.

Internet guru Clay Shirky presents the chaos of the Web in stunningly clear terms, documenting what a “spontaneously, self-assembling, online philanthropic venture” tells us about human motivation. He explains “designing for generosity,” and what we can learn about it from the Josh Groban Foundation, Napster and a top online mobile phone forum.

Author of the striking book “The Big Sort: Why the clustering of like-minded America is tearing us apart,” Bishop is ringing an alarm bell on the country’s self-imposed “way-of-life segregation.” Here he details the increasing polarization of American communities and the corresponding impact on American culture, politics, economy and potential.

Rapidly-rising, uncategorizeable cellist Rufus Cappadocia performs on the PopTech stage.

The only conductor to ever lead the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Zander is a prophet of human potential and an unrivaled champion of joie de vivre. Watch as he helps unlock the boundless potential of a 15 year old cellist and teaches the entire PopTech audience what it means to live in a world of possibility.

The legendary Stefan Sagmeister calls Bantjes "one of the most innovative typographers working today,” but on the PopTech stage she eclipsed that lofty praise, marrying poignant personal stories with visually stunning design. Prepare to be wowed as Marian holds forth on the infinity of inspiration and the inherent wonder in cathedrals, neurons, love letters…and cake.

A signature program of the PopTech Accelerator, Project Masiluleke, harnesses the power of mobile devices to help reverse South Africa’s crippling HIV/AIDS and TB crises. Partners from frog design, iTeach and the Praekelt Foundation discuss the program’s breakthrough approach, which endeavors to connect millions to testing and care.

Journalist, author and former pirate radio DJ Matt Mason argues that if you can’t stop the pirates – and you can’t – you should figure out how to out-compete them (like Apple did). Mason is an ardent believer that where there’s piracy, there’s market failure – and a big opportunity for organizations smart enough to understand that “you should talk to marketing before you talk to legal.”