Judges

Robin Bew, Editorial Director and Chief Economist, Economist Intelligence Unit             
Robin Bew was appointed Editorial Director in 2006 and is responsible for all editorial operations across the company worldwide. Mr Bew also retains his long-standing role as Chief Economist, and in this capacity is responsible for the formulation of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s overarching view on the outlook for the global economy. He was previously an economist at Her Majesty's Treasury.

Andrew Cahn has been Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) since March 2006. His role is to support British businesses in their global expansion, and to help promote the UK as the global place to do business. Innovation is at the heart of both those efforts.

Marvin Caruthers became a Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado in 1999. The laboratory in which he works uses modern concepts in nucleic acid chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology to study regulation and control of gene expression. The methodologies that are currently used for chemically synthesising DNA were developed in the same laboratory. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Hermes Chan, co-founder and CEO, invented MedMira's patented rapid flow-through technology, the basis for all of the company's rapid diagnostics. He has held progressively senior roles at MedMira including Research Scientist, General Manager, Senior Vice-president, and Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Mr Chan worked with another company in diagnostics research.

Martin Cooper is widely recognised as a pioneer in the personal communications industry and as an innovator in spectrum management. He is an inventor, he introduced, in 1973, the first portable cellular radiotelephone, and has been called the father of portable cellular telephony. He founded ARRAYCOMM, Inc.in and GreatCall, Inc. 

George Craford, Chief Technology Officer of Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, was an early pioneer in LED technology, which is now on the verge of displacing virtually all conventional light sources. In 1996, he worked with Roland Haitz to develop and promote the widespread use of LEDs, now widely used in traffic signals, clocks, cars, flashlights, cellular telephones, and architectural and decorative lighting. Mr Craford's research has been focused mainly on the development of visible LEDs using a variety of semiconductor materials. .

Hernando de Soto is currently President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, an internationally recognised think-tank headquartered in Lima, Peru. He has advised several heads of state on property reform programmes, and is the author of The Other Path, in the mid-1980s, and his seminal work The Mystery of Capital.

Dr Rodney Ferguson is a co-founder of Panorama Capital, a venture capital firm that spun off from JPMorgan Partners (JPMP), where he focuses primarily on life sciences investments. He joined JPMP as a Managing Director in their life sciences venture practice in 2001. Dr Ferguson serves on the technology advisory board of The Economist.

Nancy Floyd is Founder and Managing Director of Nth Power, the leading cleantech venture capital firm. With $420M under management Ms. Floyd has led Nth Power’s investments in over a dozen companies including three listed on NASDAQ. She is a national figure in the energy policy debate and is viewed as a thought leader in the sector. Ms. Floyd sits on the boards of the American Council for Renewable Energy, the New Leaders Council and, until recently, served on the boards of the Portland Family of Funds, Center for Resource Solutions, Oregon Economic Development Commission and Franklin & Marshall College.  

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, CEO, Vestergaard Frandsen
Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen is CEO of Swiss-based Vestergaard Frandsen S.A., whose “profit for a purpose” approach has turned social responsibility into its core business. The 50-year-old company originally created hotel and supermarket uniforms; however, when Mikkel, grandson of the founder, became involved he focused the company’s resources on solving some of the underdeveloped world’s greatest health problems. Today, Vestergaard Frandsen’s products are in use in refugee camps and disaster areas all over the world.

Janus Friis is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded Joost, Skype, Kazaa and Joltid, among other high-profile technology companies, with his long-time business partner Niklas Zennström. Messrs Friis and Zennström are co-founders of Atomico Ventures, a European Venture Capital company that invests in early-stage technology companies. During his time at Skype, Mr Friis pioneered the development of the company's voice products and helped it to become the global leader in Internet communications.

François Grey is currently a Visiting Professor of Physics at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has a research background in nanotechnology and a passion for citizen cyberscience. He has been writing about innovation for The Economist for over 20 years, and was a winner of the ABSW Science Writers’ Award.

Robert Guest is The Economist's Washington correspondent. He covers American news and politics and writes a weekly column under the pseudonym "Lexington". He blogs at http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington. From July 2010, he will be The Economist's business editor.He is the author of The Shackled Continent, a book that tries to explain why Africa is so poor and how it could become less so.

Vic Hayes,   Senior Research Fellow, Delft University of Technology

 Popularly known as the “Father of Wi-Fi,” Vic Hayes is Senior Research Fellow at Delft University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands. From 1990 to 2000 he co-established and led a standards working group (IEEE 802.11) that set the basis for wireless data transfer.  

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is an award-winning correspondent for The Economist. From 1998 to 2006 he covered the interrelated fields of energy and the environment. His current portfolio now encompasses innovation, health and biotechnology. Mr Vaitheeswaran is chairman of the Global Agenda advisory council on sustainable energy at the World Economic Forum (Davos), and an advisor on innovation to the Clinton Global Initiative. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and teaches at NYU’s Stern Business School.

Jeffrey D. Weedman, Vice President of Global Business Development, Procter & Gamble
Jeff Weedman leads the Procter & Gamble External Business Development team that searches the globe identifying open innovation opportunities via joint venture, licensing and other innovative business models. Mr Weedman’s group is at the forefront of P&G’s innovation strategy, development and implementation.

Huanming Yuang Ph. D
Dr. Yang has made a significant contribution to the Human Genome Project and HapMap projects, as well as to sequencing and analysing genomes of rice, chicken, silkworm, giant panda, cucumber, and many microorganisms. Dr. Yang has received Research Leader of the Year by Scientific American in 2002 and Award in Biology by the Third World Academy of Sciences in 2006. He was elected as a foreign member of EMBO in 2006, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007, a fellow of TWAS in 2008, a foreign academician of Indian Academy of Sciences in 2009.