Tom is a senior advisor, consultant, innovation leader, teacher, writer and speaker. He is an active thought leader in the world of design thinking, business consulting and organizational transformation. He is widely respected for his ability to understand and develop evolutionary, revolutionary and disruptive innovations, to explore and deconstruct complex service ecologies, to develop new business models and to bridge the virtual and physical experiences of customers/end users.

For 12 years, Tom was an associate partner and member the senior leadership at IDEO, the world-renowned innovation consultancy, where he led a wide variety of innovation consulting engagements and managed a number of key client relationships across all IDEO practice areas. Tom was intimately involved in initiatives for Motorola, Chrysler, Ford, 3M, Tetra Pak, SAS Airlines, Starbucks, NAVTEQ, Whirlpool, P&G, Eli Lilly, McDonalds, American Express, American Greetings, W.W. Grainger, Walgreens, AT&T and Bayer, among many others.

Before IDEO, Tom was intimately involved in the design and execution of a number of large-scale real estate development and building projects including work for the U.S. Department of Energy (Argonne National Laboratories), Saudia Airlines, Jeddah International Airport, Bridgestone, Ameritech, The Tribune Company, Andersen Consulting, Kraft, Discover Card and The Menninger Foundation, among others. Tom resided in Osaka, Japan for two years to manage a joint venture between Kinden Corporation and Lohan Associates and has traveled extensively throughout Asia.

Tom is an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, The Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, and at a variety of global industry and company-sponsored conferences. He holds a number of key board positions with Chicago-based companies and is a key Edison Awards steering committee member and executive director of Edison Universe, the not-for-profit arm of The Edison Awards dedicated to innovation, education and social impact. Tom is an annual participant at the main TED Conference in Long Beach and is a member of the TEDxMidwest executive planning team.

Tom has a multi-disciplined background that includes Aerospace Engineering at Purdue University, a Bachelor of Science in Social Psychology from Boston University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, a Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an executive MBA in Marketing Management from Stanford University.

Sarah Miller Caldicott is a great grandniece of Thomas Edison, a 25-year marketing veteran, an MBA, and co-author of Innovate Like Edison. A past Chairperson of the Edison Awards, Sarah currently serves on the Edison Awards Steering Committee. Sarah is an award-winning speaker, author, and thought leader on innovation. Following a domestic and international marketing career with Quaker Oats and Unilever, Sarah spent 10 years as a consultant, bringing her branding and product development expertise to businesses of all sizes. She also spent three years conducting research on Thomas Edison at Rutgers University, uncovering Edison's world-changing innovation methods. As President of the Power Patterns of Innovation, a Chicago-based firm she founded, Sarah offers innovation consulting and training services to organizations worldwide. Sarah received a BA from Wellesley College where she was named a Wellesley College Scholar, and holds an MBA from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business. She has two college-age boys and resides in Chicago.

Tom Cosgrove oversees creative and business functions for 3net, the joint venture 3D television network from Sony, Discovery and IMAX. Launched on February 13, 2011, 3net is the first 24/7, fully programmed 3D television network in the U.S.  The network features compelling original 3D content, high-quality contributions from the joint venture partners, as well as third-party acquisitions from leading 3D content producers.

Prior to being named to lead the joint venture in July 2010, Cosgrove served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Discovery Channel, managing day-to-day operations, including overall business strategy, programming, development and marketing.

Before that, Cosgrove served as General Manager of Science Channel, where he initiated a global rebranding of the channel and had direct oversight of network programming, development/production, marketing, and business and brand-enhancing strategies. He joined Discovery Communications as Senior Vice President of Programming for the portfolio of Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Discovery Times and Military Channel.

Prior to joining Discovery, Cosgrove served as General Manager for TV Guide Channel, where he had direct oversight of the brand/content strategy, including programming, development, production, marketing, business affairs, communications, research and operations.  Cosgrove also developed and introduced an interactive interface for the channel, and helped guide the content direction for the company's VOD and online platforms.

Cosgrove also has held senior management positions at ABC Family, Fox Family, Fox Kids, and Fox Broadcasting, spanning live sports, programming, acquisitions, marketing, research, sales, operations, and affiliate relations. He began his career at Leo Burnett USA. Cosgrove holds an MBA and B.A. from the University of Wisconsin.

Harry Epstein presently holds three executive positions across companies of HAVI Group, which is based in Chicago: VP Innovation at HAVI Global Solutions, VP Strategic Business Alliances at The Marketing Store Worldwide, and Chief Science Officer at Boxer strategic brand agency. HAVI Group serves 116 countries in the areas of packaging, procurement, analytics, logistics, distribution centers, global promotions management, toy and premium manufacturing, advertising and brand agencies. The HAVI Group is a family-owned business and is comparable to being on the Forbes’ Top 20 privately-owned companies.

Harry presently serves on a number of boards in the area of renewable energy, and is actively involved with a variety of organizations and think tanks. In addition, Harry serves on innovation and advisory councils for several major brand organizations. Harry frequently speaks in public in the areas of innovation, sustainability, renewable energy and packaging, and serves as a guest lecturer in academia, including the Kellogg Graduate School of Business.

Harry is an accomplished classical pianist and has numerous published articles in peer-reviewed international theoretical physics journals. He continues to actively publish, and is writing his doctoral thesis in theoretical physics. He was educated at Dawson College and McGill University in Montreal in math, physics, chemistry and business. He is married, has four children and is based in Chicago.

Dr. Erramilli’s 33 years of professional experience spans North America, Africa and Asia. He worked in industry in India and Nigeria and taught in universities in the U.S. and Singapore. Prior to joining Stuart, he was a faculty member and Associate Dean in the Nanyang Business School, Singapore, which is one of the largest business schools in Asia.

Over the years, he has taught various courses related to marketing, business strategy and global business at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels. He has also supervised several masters and doctoral dissertations. Dr. Erramilli’s doctoral work represented a pioneering analysis of the globalization of service firms. His work in this area has been cited extensively. Recently, he was recognized as the #2 most cited author in Global Strategy Research. He has published more than 25 articles in some of the world’s leading journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Management International Review, and Columbia Journal of World Business, among others. He has presented more than twenty five conference papers at major international conferences, such as the American Marketing Association and Academy of International Business.

While serving as Associate Dean at the Nanyang Business School in Singapore, Dr. Erramilli helped develop and launch the Berkeley-Nanyang Advanced Management Program and the Nanyang Executive MBA. He is an active consultant and has participated in numerous executive education programs for multinational companies, such as Samsung, Roche Diagnostics, Schering, DuPont, British Oxygen, DHL and KPMG. He served as the Chairman for the Academy of International Business-United States Southwest.

Presently, Dr. Erramilli is involved in developing a new leadership competency framework called Strategic Competitiveness to guide business leaders in the emerging global business environment referred to as the Next Economy. Innovation is a major thrust of this new framework.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities at Northwestern University, Mr. Herbst holds over 80 patents in hardware, houseware and medical products. He is listed in "Who’s Who of American Inventors", as well as other "Who’s Who" publications, and is a frequent contributor of articles in various trade journals. An expert in his field, he is frequently invited to speak at national and international industry trade shows and events. In addition, he was a recipient of the "Design of the Decade" award from the Industrial Design Society of America for his work with Gillette in the spring of 2001.

Walter Herbst currently serves as Chairman for the company he founded in 1962, Herbst LaZar Bell Inc. The firm is one of the three largest independently owned product design and development firms in the country. He is a board member of ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Professor Herbst teaches in the Marketing Department of the Kellogg School of Management where he brings his expertise for product development into the class room with a course he designed dealing with the Management of Product Development. For the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, he created the Master of Product Development Program. The program is the only program in the country that deals with the totality of most of the issues related to product development. Professor Herbst is a Fellow in IDEA, the Institute of Design Engineering and Applications program and is a NCEER Scholar (Northwestern Center for Education Research). Professor Herbst also serves on the Advisory Board for the Department of Material Sciences at Arizona State University.

Calvin L. Hodock is former Chairman of the Board of the American Marketing Association, the world’s largest professional marketing society. He is a nationally recognized authority on marketing and product innovation. His marketing credentials were earned at the Gillette Company, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson in senior management positions. He was also partner at Comart/KLP, one of the country’s largest marketing service agencies at the time. Hodock currently is on the Board of Directors of NuVim, Inc, a startup company marketing a line of healthy beverages to Wal-Mart and major supermarket accounts on the East Coast.

Hodock is a full time faculty member at Berkeley College teaching marketing courses at their Middlesex and Garrett Mountain campuses. He also teaches an advertising course at New York University and has been a guest lecturer at several colleges, including the Wharton School. During his stewardship of the American Marketing Association, Hodock created the prestigious AMA EDISON AWARD presented annually to American corporations for product innovation excellence. During a twelve-year period, he reviewed Edison submissions for literally thousands of new products and services from America’s elite corporations. Some of this material, not available in the public domain, was used in his new book Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things. He became a heralded new product guru widely quoted in the press as a result of the Edison experience.

Hodock’s involvement with the EDISON AWARDS and his book on product innovation have resulted in appearances on Fox Business News CBS, CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg, numerous radio stations in local markets, and print media, including publications like The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Jose Mercury. Brandweek, Advertising Age, Promo Magazine, and Marketing News. Numerous universities and professional organizations throughout the country, such as 3M and American Gas Association Financial Forum, have heard his thought-provoking lectures on marketing and innovation strategies. He is now working on another book The Brainwashing of America which focuses on branding.

Professor Holderfield is a passionate advocate for the power of design thinking and is well known in the field of design. His design work has been recognized globally, having received over 25 design awards including two prestigious German “Red Dot” awards, the Japan "Good Design" award, and the IF International Design Forum award. He is also the recipient of four “Intentional Design Excellence Awards” (IDEA) presented jointly by Business Week and the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), including the "Gold" for Industrial Equipment Design.
Professor Holderfield also holds 21 design and utility patents. His work has been exhibited in galleries across the nation and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes and Wired.
Professor Holderfield brings to the classroom 20 years of experience in the innovation space, most recently as the Vice President of Design and Strategy at ARC Worldwide - Leo Burnett, where he led breakthrough initiatives for McDonald's, P&G, Kellogg's and Symantec. Previously, he was the Managing Director of Strategic Design Innovation at HLB, working with such clients as Microsoft, Dell, Unilever, SC Johnson and Sons, 3M, Wrigley and LG Electronics.  In 2009, he was named to the global design jury for the International Design Excellence Awards.

Paul Israel is director and editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Dr. Israel has been with the Edison Papers since 1980 and became director in 2002 after serving as managing editor of the book edition. He is author of Edison: A Life of Invention (John Wiley & Sons, 1998), winner of the 2000 Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology. While working on this book he received an Interpretive Research Grant from the Program in Humanities, Science and Technology of the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as additional funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. His other books are: Edison's Electric Light: The Art of Invention (Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Technology, 2010) with coauthor Robert Friedel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Edison's Electric Light: Biography of an Invention (Rutgers University Press, 1986). He has delivered numerous professional papers and given public presentations and interviews on Edison's career and on the subjects of invention and innovation. His current project looks at the relationship between intellectual property and technology.

Philip T. Krein received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and the A.B. degree in economics and business from Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana. He was an engineer with Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon, then returned to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At present, he holds the Grainger Endowed Director’s Chair in Electric Machinery and Electromechanics as Professor and Director of the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics. His research interests address all aspects of power electronics, machines, drives, and electrical energy, with emphasis on nonlinear control and distributed systems. He published an undergraduate textbook, Elements of Power Electronics (Oxford University Press, 1998). In 2001, he helped initiate the International Future Energy Challenge, a major student competition involving fuel cell power conversion and energy efficiency. He holds fifteen U.S. patents with additional patents pending.

Dr. Krein is a registered professional engineer in Illinois and in Oregon. He was a senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom in 1997-98, and was recognized as a University Scholar in 1999, the highest research award at the University of Illinois. He serves as Academic Advisor for the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In 2003, he received the IEEE William E. Newell Award in Power Electronics. He is a past President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, and served as a member of the IEEE Board of Directors. In 2005-2007, he was a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society. In 2008, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He is Chairman of the Board of SolarBridge Technologies, a developer of long-life integrated solar energy systems.

Robert S. Langer is one of 13 Institute Professors (the highest honor awarded to a faculty member) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Langer has written approximately 1,000 articles. He also has more than 600 issued or pending patents worldwide. Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 200 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies. He served as a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board, the FDA’s highest advisory board, from 1995 - 2002 and as its Chairman from 1999-2002.

Dr. Langer has received over 160 major awards including the 2006 United States National Medal of Science; the Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers and the 2008 Millennium Prize, the world’s largest technology prize. He is the also the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award; 70 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize. Among numerous other awards Langer has received are the Dickson Prize for Science (2002), Heinz Award for Technology, Economy and Employment (2003), the Harvey Prize (2003), the John Fritz Award (2003) (given previously to inventors such as Thomas Edison and Orville Wright), the General Motors Kettering Prize for Cancer Research (2004), the Dan David Prize in Materials Science (2005), the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2005), the largest prize in the U.S. for medical research, induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006), the Max Planck Research Award (2008) and the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research (2008). In 1998, he re- ceived the Lemelson-MIT prize, the world’s largest prize for invention for being “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine.” In 1989 Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences. He is one of very few people ever elected to all three United States National Academies and the youngest in history (at age 43) to ever receive this distinction.

Forbes Magazine (1999) and Bio World (1990) have named Dr. Langer as one of the 25 most important individuals in biotechnology in the world. Discover Magazine (2002) named him as one of the 20 most important people in this area. Forbes Magazine (2002) selected Dr. Langer as one of the 15 innovators worldwide who will reinvent our future. Time Magazine and CNN (2001) named Dr. Langer as one of the 100 most important people in America and one of the 18 top people in science or medicine in America (America’s Best). Parade Magazine (2004) selected Dr. Langer as one of 6 “Heroes whose research may save your life.” Dr. Langer has received honorary doctorates from Yale University, the ETH (Switzerland), the Technion (Israel), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), the University of Liverpool (England), the University of Nottingham (England), Albany Medical College, the Pennsylvania State University, Northwestern University and Uppsala University (Sweden). He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University in 1970 and his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, both in Chemical Engineering.

Debbie Myers is general manager and executive vice president of programming for Science Channel. She leads the development, production, scheduling, research, marketing and communications efforts for Science Channel.

Since taking over responsibility for Science Channel, Myers has launched 20 new series, including Head Games, Meteorite Men and Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible with Professor Michio Kaku. Myers oversaw development and production of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, ranking as the highest rated series launch in Science Channel history. This summer Myers launches the highly anticipated BBC co-production, Wonders of the Solar System, hosted by physicist Dr. Brian Cox.

Myers joined Discovery Communications in June 2005 and has been responsible for more than 500 hours of content across all of Discovery’s networks, including the launch of TLC’s franchise Little People, Big World. Most recently, Myers was Senior Vice President, daytime and fringe programming for TLC. Previously, as Vice President of production for TLC, Myers created more than 500 hours of original content and oversaw the launches of LA Ink, Say Yes to the Dress, Big Medicine, Take Home Chef and Take Home Handyman as well as continuing series including What Not to Wear, Miami Ink and A Baby Story.

Prior to joining Discovery, Myers ran her own production company, Aha! Entertainment, where she created series and pilots for NBC, Paramount, VH-1 and 20th Television. Myers was also instrumental in launching several cable networks, including E! Entertainment and Oxygen. She served for eight years as Vice President of Programming and Development at E!, where she created and ran 17 signature series, including the Emmy Award-winning Talk Soup and E! News. Myers is the former Governor of the Production Executives group of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Myers also serves as an active member of the NASA Advisory Council Education and Public Outreach Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Telecommunications and Film, minors in Drama and Public Relations from San Diego State University-California State University.

David Parma is President, Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Consumer Research at Nielsen. In this role, David is responsible for the strategic direction and investment priorities of Nielsen's BASES and Consumer Research businesses globally and to develop solutions that integrate across the Company's broad range of services with a special focus on Product Innovation. David joined Nielsen in 2002, headed BASES offices in Brussels and Milan prior to moving to the U.S. in 2006 to head the BASES NJ office. In 2007, he took on added responsibility as global leader of the BASES Analytical Resources Center located in Mumbai, India. In 2008, David was appointed President, Nielsen Consumer Research and in 2009 President, Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Consumer Research. In 2010, David also became Chair of the Nielsen Product Innovation Practice Group. Prior to joining Nielsen, David held positions with Procter & Gamble and McKinsey & Company working in various European, African and Far East markets. David has a University Degree in Chemistry (Bologna, Italy), and is an accomplished concert violinist. He and his wife and three children reside in New York City.

Frank Bonafilia is the Executive Director of the Edison Best New Product Awards and Edison Green Awards. He is the co-founder of Edison Universe, a non-profit organization focused on fostering the next generation of innovators (future Thomas Edisons) in the K-12 grade level and using tools like creativity, collaboration and immersion to prepare students to identify new opportunities and create solutions around the opportunities. Frank is a 15-year marketing executive with an award-winning career in financial services, real time data synchronization, retail software and the successful development and launch of profitable new products and services. Early in his career Frank was involved with the Edison Awards when he managed the Sponsorship and Awards Division of the American Marketing Association. In that capacity, he was responsible for the Division’s overall profitability and extension of the Edison Awards brand, which is manifested in the Edison Awards’ current status as an independent organization. Frank holds an MBA from Saint Xavier University and a BA in International Communications from the University of Kansas.