ANDREA SAVERI. Former Research Director at Institute for the Future.

ANDREW SLACK. Executive Director, The Harry Potter Alliance.

THE STRENGTH OF A STORY – (Harry Potter Alliance) doing good for the World –

Andrew is creator, co-founder, and Executive Director of the Harry Potter Alliance which takes a creative approach to activism by mobilizing thousands of kids to spread love and fight for justice in the spirit of the Harry Potter novels. The HP Alliance has been featured in over 200 US publications including Time Magazine, the LA Times, and the front covers of both the Chicago Tribune Business Section and Politico Newspaper. In his prior career, Andrew performed comedy at hundreds of venues across the US and produced four videos that have been viewed close to eight million times. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brandeis University, Andrew is dedicated to learning and extrapolating how modern myth and new media can transform our lives both personally and collectively. He lives in both Honolulu and Boston. http://thehpalliance.org/ tweets andrewslack

BRUNO FELIX. Co-founder / Managing director, Submarine.

CONTEMPORARY SPINE-CHILLERS non-linear suspense to help create awareness -

Bruno is Executive Director of Holland’s leading transmedia production outfit, Submarine, which he co-founded with Femke Wolting in 2000. Spanning film, animation, non-fiction and interactive genres, Submarine boasts a roster of award-winning productions created in collaboration with an extensive network of international creatives. Bruno Felix seeks to push the boundaries of visual culture with projects that exploit new forms of storytelling, such as the ground-breaking animated documentary My Second Life or the game series A Split Second, developed in collaboration the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Previously, Bruno was responsible for developing a new media strategy for Dutch Public broadcaster VPRO and was Director of VPRO Digital, a media research lab exploring the influence of digital technology on production and consumption of diverse media formats. http://www.submarinechannel.com/

CHRISTIAN WIKANDER. Head of Drama & Entertainment (SVT).

ENGAGING THE DISTRIBUTORS – reaching a broader audience -

Christian has 25 years experience as a drama originator, film director and producer in several TV-series, productions and co-productions like Three Crowns, Hotel Caesar (Hotel Caesar is still running in Norway and celebrates it’s 13th anniversary this year) High Sea, Big City Life, The truth about Marika (I-emmy award, Cannes 2008). http://svt.se/ tweets cwikander

DELIA COHEN. Vision Architect, Extraordinary Projects LLC.

TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES – see the world through someone else’s eyes-

Delia specializes in turning extraordinary ideas — involving the arts, cutting-edge technology and new media–into reality. The common theme is that they all attempt to make the world a better place. Current projects include leading the strategy to make the TED Conference video content available–for free– to television broadcasters globally and managing Nokia’s $1million investment challenge for the most innovative plan using mobile technology in the developing world. She previously was executive director of Goldie Hawn’s education foundation. Before then, Delia was the executive director of Pangea Day, the world’s first global campfire of storytelling. She built the organization from the ground up in 15 months — from a staff of one to several hundred all over the world and raised a budget of $10 million. By May 10, 2008 — Pangea Day — millions of people in 180 countries participated in the event. Prior jobs have included running the communications department for the Clinton Global Initiative, and an 11‐office department in the White House handling public communications for President Clinton. She also worked with UNICEF on the Girls Education campaign, the NYC Department of Education to establish a US‐China cultural exchange scholarship program for high school students, built a communications campaign for Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus using the first online subtitling tool, and produced a photo‐essay on democracy with Richard Avedon for The New Yorker. http.//www.ted.com tweets DeliaCohen

FRANK ROSE. Writer, authour, journalist.

RESHAPING STORYTELLING – changing the way we tell stories -

Frank is the author of The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories, recently published in the U.S. and the U.K. As a contributing editor at Wired for more than a decade, he has written extensively about media and technology, from the making of Avatar to Sony’s enormous gamble on the PlayStation 3 to the posthumous career of Philip K. Dick in Hollywood. He started to formulate the ideas that went into The Art of Immersion in 2008, shortly after completing a piece on Trent Reznor and his Year Zero alternate reality game. Earlier, he worked as a contributing editor at Esquire, documenting the tribal rites of ‘80s subcultures—New Wave in New York, Christian surfers in Southern California, entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. This led to his 1989 best-seller West of Eden, about the cult of Macintosh and the ouster of Steve Jobs from Apple. During the ‘90s he turned his attention to Hollywood, working as a contributing writer for Premiere and writing The Agency, an unauthorized account of the rise and near-collapse of what was once the most successful talent agency in show business. He then became a contributing writer at Fortune, focusing on the rise of the global media corporations. He lives in the East Village of Manhattan, where he got his start covering the punk scene at CBGB for The Village Voice. http://www.frankrose.com/ tweets frankrose

IAN GINN. Creative Producer and Educationist.

P0WER 200seconds – Ian has with 20 years experience in the entertainment and digital media industries. He started to research multi-platform storytelling in 2004, working with students from 2007 in various medialabs on transmedia prototypes and production models. He founded Hubbub Media in 2008 to develop original transmedia properties and formats, recently entering into partnership on SALIGIA-7 with leading Los Angeles producers whose credits include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Where the Wild Things Are, 300, Se7en. http://www.ianginn.net/ tweets ianginn

JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER. General Manager Een (VRT).

LOOKING FORWARD – why Socially Responsible Media is a mission -

For more than 10 years the Belgian public broadcaster VRT remains the market leader in a highly competitive media environment. Under the leadership of Jean Philip De Tender, general manager of Eén, the market share of VRT’s main channel has grown to a dazzling 33 per cent in 2010. Jean Philip is convinced that media have power and that public service media should turn this power into a positive impact on society. In doing so dialogue through social media is crucial. Jean Philip has been controller of Eén since 2007 and previously worked for the channel as an advisor, and as programme and content manager for several years. Jean Philip began his media carreer in the 1980s as a radio and television reporter and steadily grew to become one of VRT’s key position-holders. Last year he published a book “Everything is a story” because storytelling is the most important drive in life. http://detender.wordpress.com/about-myself/ tweets jeanphilip

JEM BENDELL. Professor and Consultant in Strategy and Business Development on Global Challenges.

THE MONEY MYTH what media can do – Jem is a professor and the owner-director of Lifeworth Consulting, providing solutions for systemic change towards sustainable development. For 16 years he has consulted with business, United Nations (UN) and civil society, while writing over 100 publications on the social responsibility of organisations. In 1996 he helped conceive the Marine Stewardship Council, which now covers over 6% of the world’s wild catch in its sustainable fisheries system. His 1997 book on strategic sustainability collaboration helped inspire the then head of the UN Secretary General’s office to launch what is now the largest CSR initiative in the world. He then moved to Geneva to help seven UN agencies better understand engagement with the private sector. More recently, he has been recognized in the Financial Times as sparking greater engagement with sustainability by the luxury industry, through writing the ground-breaking WWF report Deeper Luxury. Schooled at the University of Cambridge and University of Bristol, he has lived and worked in 7 countries, within Central America, Africa, South Asia and East Asia. During these years, Jem began to realise it was impossible to change the way business does business without changing the way money makes money. Therefore in 2007 at WWF he proposed the Finance Innovation Lab, to promote policy innovation for sustainable finance. Since 2009 he has been working with Community Forge to deliver free open source software for communities to run their own currencies. http://jembendell.wordpress.com tweets jembendell

JOI ITO (video contribution). Director M.I.T. Media Lab.

WHAT NEXT – leading the way with COURAGE-PASSION-MAGIC -

Joi is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Director of the MIT Media Lab.[1] He has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He maintains a blog, a wiki and an IRC channel. Ito is the Chairman of Creative Commons, and General Partner of Neoteny Labs http://joi.ito.com/ tweets Joi

JON OLA SAND. Executive Supervisor, Eurovision Song Contest.

P0WER 200seconds – Jon Ola is a Norwegian television executive, and works for the Norwegian public broadcaster Norsk Rikskringkasting. Jon Ola has 15 years’ of experience working with major productions and co-productions at NRK and TV 2 as well as independent production companies. He’s a member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and has produced and directed a variety of programmes, such as the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. the Norwegian Film Awards and the Norwegian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodi Grand Prix. In 2010, Jon Ola was appointed as the Executive Producer of the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, held in the Oslo, and on January 2011 ha became Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest and Junior Eurovision Song Contest. http://www.eurovision.tv

KATZ KEILY. Event Curator, ITU/b.TWEEN.

SMASHING THE SILOS – co-creating with communities – Katz is a catalyst, curator, commissioner, connector and an expert in co-creation. She is currently giving a 40 year old ITU event a much needed facelift, and is the brains behind the b.TWEEN phenomenon: where digital disruptors from companies big and small congregate to figure out what they can do together that they can’t do on their own. She judges for various awards including SXSW Accelerator, BIMA interactive, British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur Award and the Big Chip Awards. In previous lives she made music, wrote screen plays, built installations, delivered international cultural festivals and made screen based products look nice. http://btween.co.uk/users/katzkiely tweets katzy

LINA SRIVASTAVA. Transmedia Activist.

TRANSACTIVISM crossing media platforms to create effective social change -

Three years ago, Lina started to invest in transmedia storytelling as a means of creating social impact. She formed her own business dedicated to organization and design using art, media, culture and technology as the tools of social innovation and positive transformation in communities in which social conditions create inequality, or the opportunity for economic and cultural growth. Transmedia design is a cornerstone of this work. Lina is a first-mover in transmedia for social issue content– coining the phrase “transmedia activism” and creating the eponymous framework — and has been involved in successful cross-media campaigns for several documentaries, including Oscar-winning “Born into Brothels,” the Emmy-nominated “The Devil Came on Horseback,” and the forthcoming “Who Is Dayani Cristal?”. Prior to founding her strategic consulting business, Lina, an attorney by training from New York University School of Law, practiced intellectual property law, and subsequently went on to become the Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, and Interim Executive Director of the Association of Video and Filmmakers. She is currently the strategist for Three Generations, the organizational strategist for VODO, and Director of the social engagement strategy team for “Who Is Dayani Cristal?,” from the Resist Network. Lina has provided strategic planning support to a group of organizations dedicated to social impact, ranging from UNESCO to BYkids. http://linasrivastava.blogspot.com/ tweets lksriv

LIZ ROSENTHAL. Founder and CEO, Power to the Pixel.

BEYOND FINANCE how to court the stakeholders – An early advocate and pioneer of cross-media storytelling, digital distribution and filmmaking, Liz is a digital film and media expert. She is the Founder and CEO of Power tto he Pixel (PttP), a leading cross-media organisation that specialises in and advises international media companies and creators in new ways to create, finance and distribute stories and engage with audiences across multiple platforms. PttP runs the renowned annual Cross-Media Forum in London, connecting the film and media industries with key international innovators in a conference, cross-media market and think tank; and The Pixel Lab, a first of its kind project-focused business development course for cross-media properties. Liz has advised many international media organisations including the UK Film Council, where she was Digital Strategy Advisor, and is regularly invited to speak at international conferences and film festivals, including Berlin, Cannes, Rotterdam, London. Liz was the Programme Director of Digimart, The Global Digital Distribution Summit in Montreal, founder of production company Earthly Delights Films, and set up and ran the UK office for Next Wave Films (a company of the Independent Film Channel) from 1998 to 2002. Next Wave Films was a pioneer in the production, finance and sales of ultra low budget features and digital filmmaking. The company helped exceptionally talented filmmakers, such as Christopher Nolan launch their careers. http://www.powertothepixel.com/ tweets powertothepixel

MARIEKE HERMANS. Innovation Manager, Dutch Public Broadcasting.

OUT OF THE BOX – pushing creativity forward – Marieke is a creative media professional with a clear vision of innovation in media content. As Innovation Manager at the Dutch Public Broadcasting (NPO) she directs the NPOX network for over 2500 media professionals initiating and organizing more than 200 workshops and an annual festival. As project manager of Eurovision TV Lab she contributes to the innovation of video formats, content and audience participation of public content for Nederland3. Marieke – better known as MAC, her initials- is a motivational and creative facilitator of change and initiated numerous creative cross media formats as format developer and editor in chief. MAC graduated form Utrecht University Master General Arts, arts policy and management, with her thesis researched and written in Johannesburg, South Africa on the Changes in management and organization of the Market Theatre and the Civic Theatre, in “The New South Africa ‘. http://tvlab.nl/ – www.npox.nl

MAURICIO MOTA. Founder, The Alchemists.

ENGAGING THE UNENGAGEABLE involving endangered youth – Mauricio is one of today’s most innovative and provocative transmedia storytellers. He is Chief Storytelling Officer and Co-Founder of The Alchemists, a leading transmedia company based in Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and Cambridge. Influenced by the work of his grandfather who was considered the Brazilian Shakespeare, he started telling stories at just 8 years old. At 15, after being inspired by his mother’s study of how role-playing games could help to shape the young storytellers of the future, he created a game called ‘Autoria,’ (or Authorship in English) that went on to revolutionize education in Brazil. After just 2 years, Autoria had become a key part of the curriculum at more than 4,000 schools, was licensed 8 times by brands and institutions, and was even used by the UN and the Ministry of Education in Brazil. Maurício then went on to work in advertising for a few years before finding his true passion through Henry Jenkins and the concept he brought to the world – transmedia storytelling – something that would connect his 6 years daughter’s never ending demand for new stories, with his grandfather’s vision about how great storytelling should be done, along with the vastness of possibilities presented by all of the new media platforms of today. Mauricio”s mission is not only to fulfill the mandate of his family’s storytelling dynasty, but it is also to create the transmedia platforms for the storytellers of the future. Like the Net Almanac and the public schools students from Rio. http://www.thealchemists.com/blog/

MAX GIOVAGNOLI. Professor, author and transmedia expert.

THE NUCLEAR POWER OF IMAGERY – bewitching with the visual

Max has been the pioneer of transmedia storytelling in Italy, and his book Fare cross-media (Makin’ cross-media, 2005) has been the first essay focusing on cross-media/transmedia narratives ever published in Europe. He started to use transmedia techniques as editor-in-chief for the Italian Big Brother in 2001, and as artistic director of the network Cross-media.it he daily cooperates with public broadcasters and movie productions. He got a PhD in Literature and Imagery focusing on the relationships between storytelling and iconography in the tales of Middle Ages, and his novels are witty experiments of polymorphic narrative spreading real and digital worlds. He manages the MA in Media Design at European Institute of Design in Rome, and his last transmedia project: The sea in my veins (novel, short movie, iPhone App and website) gained a great success in the last edition of the Cairo Mediterranean Literary Festival during the “Arab Spring”. His new book, Transmedia Storytelling, will be published in US in September. http://www.cross-media.it/tag/max-giovagnoli/

MICHEL REILHAC. Head of Cinema, ARTE FRANCE.

TWICE UPON A TIME – a new storytelling language in the making -

Michel is currently Head of Cinema for the French/ German public cultural broadcasting company ARTE France, acquiring about 100 films a year and co-producing each year around 25 independant features worldwide. He was a dancer and holds an MBA. He has his own production company, MELANGE, and has directed several documentaries as well as his first feature “The Good Old Naughty Days” in 2002. In the 90’s and early 00’s, he has curated and designed several major interactive events ( Les Arts Etonnants, Le Bal Moderne, Dark Noir,…) and participatory exhibitions using either dance or total darkness to engage the audience in an immersive experience. For the past 4 years he has been exploring transmedia fiction storytelling as part of Arte France strategy to develop multiplatform programming and production. He is currently developping and co-producing, within Arte France,”Rosa”, a transmedia feature story by French director Lucile Chaufour. He is also developping several other independant transmedia projects while speaking regularly at transmedia gatherings across the world and doing coaching work with organisations such as the Pixel Lab and the Torino Film Lab.http://michel-reilhac.blogs.arte.tv/ tweets michelreilhac

MITCHELL JOACHIM. Innovator in urban and ecological design.

ENVIRONMENTAL CITIES – architecture to nurture creativity -

Mitchell is a leader in ecological design and urbanism. He is a co-founder of Terreform ONE and Terrefuge, and is on the faculty at Columbia University and Parsons. Formerly he was an architect at Gehry Partners and Pei Cobb Freed, and he has been awarded the Moshe Safdie Research Fellowship. Joachim won the History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, and Time Magazine’s “Best Invention of the Year 2007″ for his Compacted Car with MIT’s Smart Cities. His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published. He was chosen by Wired for “The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To.”. http://www.terreform.org/ tweets MitchellJoachim

MOHAMED NANABHAY. Head of New Media, AlJazeera Network.

REPORTING A REBELLION – the spring revolution in North Africa -

Mohamed Nanabhay is the Head of Online at Al Jazeera English based in Doha, Qatar. He joined Al Jazeera in 2004 and is currently leading AJE’s online operations and serves as the website Editor-in- Chief. He led the team that produced Al Jazeera’s widely acclaimed online coverage of the Arab revolutions in 2011. Previously Mohamed founded the Al Jazeera Network’s New Media department, where he built a cross-disciplinary team that focused on engaging audiences through online communities and emerging technologies. Mohamed pioneered the use of Creative Commons within Al Jazeera, where he launched the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository. This repository made available Al Jazeera footage to other broadcasters and film-makers under the most permissive As an internet entrepreneur, Mohamed has been involved with developing online properties since 1995 and is an active angel investor, providing seed funding and mentorship to early stage internet companies. Prior to joining Al Jazeera, Mohamed worked at KPMG in South Africa where he provided security, privacy and continuity consulting to South Africa’s leading businesses. In 2005 Mohamed was awarded the Thomas Fitzgerald Award by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) for outstanding achievement in the field of information assurance. Mohamed has studied International Relations at the University of Cambridge (UK) and, Computer Science and History at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) where he served as the Vice-President of the Student Union. http://www.aljazeera.com tweets mohamed

OLIVIA FERMI. Writer, photographer and process facilitator.

BECOMING THE INSPIRATION WE SEEK – the alchemy of opposites

Olivia Fermi, M.A.A.B.S., ConRes Cert, is a writer, photographer and process facilitator. Besides helping clients jump to the next level in whatever sticky area of work they choose, she talks and gives workshops on the Neutron Trail, her name for a free-form cultural inquiry into the disconnects which mark this complex and controversial terrain — our shared nuclear legacy. She meets with physicists, environmentalists, students and nuclear survivors, then weaves powerful stories with creative real–time interventions to empower all of us who choose to join her as Neutron Trail Walkers. Olivia has collaborated with performance artists, lived in an intentional community, operated her own computer training company and worked as a business systems analyst. A passion for supporting human life within Gaia’s container fuels her life’s work. http://neutrontrail.com/ tweets oliviafermi

ROSIE ALLIMONOS. Multiplatform Commissioner (BBC).

DR. WHO and MYTHOLOGY travel across time and space -

A transmedia commissioner and producer with 15 years experience in expanding stories across digital platforms. Rosie is currently responsible for commissioning the next generation of connected TV, mobile, online and IPTV platforms for BBC Drama, Films and Acquisitions. In this role she has pioneered the development of online drama and narrative gaming, overseeing the strategy and delivery of the BBC’s most successful transmedia brands. Working across the silos of the organisation and with independent producers to harness collaborative energies and expand storyworlds; she has delivered content with strong emotional appeal yet has also cut through to deliver massive audiences. Before joining the BBC Rosie spent a decade working across interactive agencies, film bodies, indies and broadcasters in the UK, US and Australia, while leading the ‘science meets art’ innovation hub Experimenta. Committed to innovation in transmedia formats, Rosie also works with the BBC’s R&D arm; she conceived the ‘Mythology Engine’ an R&D prototype that maps TV drama series into a re-usable, transmedia wiki for unlocking the BBC archive. Her current research involves the development of anticipatory interfaces for storytelling, providing a seamless storyworld journey across devices.

More than the 70% of the essays and handbooks focusing on Media Studies published in Italy, for example, are books originally written in another language: english, french, deutch, spanish, polish, portuguese… Even the smallest corporate in our market translate and publish foreign texts regularly to help people learning  better and knowing more about communications, media techniques and imaginery. But… as you know them, how many US publishing house, for example, have an in-house reader that can judge french, italian, spanish etc… titles? So, how to compensate this absence? Are you sure that literary agents are the best solution actually?

Just a personal example: since Cross-media communication is such a young discipline, I wrote the first book focusing on cross-media in the world here in Italy in 2005. Then, I published the second one (one of the 5 published all over Europe today) in 2009, and it got published by one of the most important corporates in Italy (mutatis mutandis, the same that published the optimum Henry Jenkin’s “Convergence Culture”…). Dozens of students and young researchers studied them and today I’m so proud they are at owrk for majors and european broadcasters. But… did any US publishing house notice it?

Yes, many and complicated are the reasons of the fact: the small dimensions of the italian market, the “big risk” of the scouting activity, the absence of translators from italian to english in US for example, the low quality of many texts (like my books, probably!) etc.! So, I’ll write my next essay using my global (and incorrect) English and my students will study it in that language, ok! But… are you sure that this would be the real, ultimate and best solution for the audience too? And not just for Italians, or Europeans… [Max Giovagnoli]