Francis Gendron is the first student to graduate from the Earthship Academy of Michael Reynolds in Taos, New-Mexico. His passion for the promotion and application of radically sustainable solutions brought him to participate in over 40 conferences to share and teach the philosophy and concept that makes the Earthship one of the most promising solutions for the future.

Francis Gendron also created the website www.SolutionEra.com to help promote ideas and technologies that will allow us to live very well and comfortably while making positive contributions to the environment in Québec, his place of residence. He is also working on the project of combining Earthship Technology, aquaponic and passive solar greenhouse technology in order to create the farm of the future, a greenhouse that allows anyone to grow local organic food in their backyard and in an automated way while using very little energy.

Michael Green is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, recognized for his award winning buildings, public art, interiors, landscapes and urban environments, Michael’s reputation has led him to develop a wide range of projects from international airports and skyscrapers to Vancouver’s Ronald McDonald House, North Vancouver City Hall Phase 1 and modest but unique retail spaces and homes. His work extends around the globe, including current projects for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture designing a sustainable community in the mountains of Central Asia. Michael is dedicated to bringing attention to several of the overwhelming challenges in architecture today.

JUNO nominated Jaffa Road is an acclaimed Toronto based world music group made up of some of Canada’s most exciting and innovative interpreters of inter-cultural music. They recently released their second CD Where the Light Gets In to critical acclaim and an enthusiastic, standing room only crowd at Hugh’s Room, one of Toronto’s premier music venues.  Their music creates a unique sonic landscape that draws organically from the worlds of Jewish music, Arabic and Indian music, modern jazz, electronica, rock, pop, and dub.  Their song, L.Y.G., off their debut album, Sunplace, won Grand Prize and a Lennon Award in the prestigious John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the band was awarded Best World Music Artist at the 2010 Toronto Independent Music Awards.  They have traveled to many communities across Canada delighting audiences with their unique brand of genre-bending fusion.

Jack Andraka is a Maryland high school student who at age 15 created a novel paper sensor that detects pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer in 5 minutes for as little as 3 cents. He conducted his research at Johns Hopkins University and is the winner of the Gordon E. Moore award at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award.

He is the youngest speaker at the Royal Society of Medicine and has been featured on 60 Minutes, World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer, NPR Marketplace, Popular Science and Wired as well as documentaries including “You Don’t know Jack” by Morgan Spurlock. Jack is currently working with a team of teens (Gen Z) on the Qualcomm Foundation Tricorder X Prize.

He is also on the national junior wildwater kayaking team, has won awards at multiple national and international math competitions, and enjoys playing with his dog and folding origami.

African-American by birth and Jewish by choice, Anthony (Mordechai Tzvi) Russell is a fresh new voice in the contemporary Yiddish music scene. Trained and experienced as an operatic bass, Russell has more recently discovered in Yiddish art song an ideal canvas for the expression of his own multifaceted identity. He has deeply immersed himself in the recital repertoire of the famed Sidor Belarsky (1898-1975), one of the 20th century’s most celebrated and prolific performers of cantorial music, Chassidic nigunim, and Yiddish folk songs. Striving in his interpretations to “embody the aspirations, desires and struggles of one diaspora culture enriched with the colours and experiences of another,” Russell’s rich basso cantante evokes Paul Robeson as much as Belarsky himself. His earnest and heartfelt interpretations reveal the narrative, melodic, and cultural riches of a timeless repertoire, now given refreshing new life by an emerging talent.

The Boxcar Boys deliver a veritable gumbo of wild gypsy, Dixieland jazz, Klezmer, and original folk music performed with a good time New Orleans spirit. They are the combined forces of clarinetist and tunesmith John David Williams (Jaron Freeman-Fox and the Opposite of Everything, The Roofhoppers, Lemon Bucket Orkestra), jazz master Karl Silveira on trombone (The Lemon Bucket Orkestra), violin whiz Laura C. Bates (Trent Severn, Del Bel) soulful accordionist Ronen Segall and JUNO nominee Rob Teehan (Heavyweights Brass Band, Saidah Baba Talibah, Lemon Bucket Orkestra) on sousaphone. Three years ago the boys (and girl) set out to hone their sound by busking at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto. Now they have caught the ears of fans and critics across the country. This past fall the band released their second full-length album Rye Whiskey after a busy summer of jazz and folk festival performances. Rye Whiskey captures The Boxcar Boys at their finest, musicians with appreciation for old jazz and folk music who have created a sound that is undoubtedly their own.

Don Tapscott is one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, media and the economic and social impact of technology. He is the CEO of  the think tank The Tapscott Group and has authored or co-authored 15 widely read books most recently (with Anthony D. Williams) Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet and the TED e-Book, Radical Openness: Four Unexpected Principles for Success.  In 2012 he published The Don Tapscott App, available for free in the Apple App Store.  In 2011, Thinkers50 and Harvard Business Review named Tapscott as one of the 10 most important living business thinkers. At the University of Toronto, Tapscott is Adjunct Professor of Management for the Rotman School of Management and the Inaugural Fellow of the Martin Prosperity Institute. In June 2013, he will become the 11th Chancellor of Trent University.

Marina Adshade is an economist and author of Dollars and Sex: How Economics Influences Sex and Love (Harper Collins).

In 2008, Dr. Adshade launched an undergraduate course titled Economics of Sex and Love, which invited her students to approach questions of sex and love through an economist’s lens. The class was an immediate hit with students and, by the time the first term started, had generated international media attention.

As a writer, Dr. Adshade hit her groove the moment she launched Dollars and Sex on the online knowledge forum Big Think and almost immediately became one of the best-read series on that site, attracting over three quarters of a million unique visitors. Since April 2013, Dollars and Sex (the blog) has been appearing at Psychology Today.

Dr. Adshade is a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and Canadian Business Magazine and has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times (UK), the Daily Mail (UK) and Buzzfeed. She has made numerous TV appearances on CTV and CBC, interviews on CBC Radio and National Public Radio (US), online panel discussions, international and domestic print media and podcasts in Canada and the US. All media can be seen on her website at www.marinaadshade.com.

Dr. Adshade has a Ph.D. from Queen’s University and currently teaches economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

Ian Webster is the creator of Asterank, a scientific and economic database of known asteroids in our solar system.  Asterank provides a query interface and 3D visualizations for nearly 600,000 objects based on aggregate data from NASA/JPL, the Minor Planet Center, world markets, and other sources. Asterank has been featured by BBC News and Popular Science.

Ian lives in Mountain View, CA and is a recent graduate of Dartmouth College, where he studied computer science.  He has been collaborating with asteroid experts to further compile and analyze asteroid data.

Michael Nicula is the Founder and Leader of the Online Party of Canada, built through the registration process as a Canadian Federal political party.  He also owns a small company developing web-based business applications called ‘HCM Soft’ – specialized in Human Capital Management outsourcing services: HR Administration, web-based Timesheet and Expense Reporting, Payroll, Benefits Administration, Skills and Qualifications management etc

In addition to being a Business Software Executive, he holds a Masters’ Degree in Architecture, a successful Physics competitor, is trained as a Technician in Nuclear Technologies and served in the army, discharged honourably with the rank of Lieutenant.  He is a member of the Boards of Directors of several non-profit organizations and considers it his duty to serve his community and country.