- WORLDWIDE
- United Kingdom
Judges 2013

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Siavash Alamouti, Group R&D Director, Vodafone |
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Robin Bew, Editorial Director and Chief Economist, Economist Intelligence Unit |
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Hermes Chan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, MedMira Inc. 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. |
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Jan Chipchase, Executive Creative Director, Global Insights, frog design Jan Chipchase is the Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at Frog Design. He comes from an extensive research background in human and cultural research, which has taken him around the world, and helped to inspire and create products for future business. Previously working as a principal researcher at Nokia, he studied consumer’s behavioural trends to inform upon developments of new products. He has also spoken at the TED conference and featured in Fortune Magazine. |
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Martin Cooper, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ArrayComm and Dyna LLC Martin Cooper is widely recognised as a pioneer in the personal communications industry and as an innovator in spectrum management. In 1973, he introduced the first portable cellular radiotelephone, and has been called the father of portable cellular telephony. He founded ARRAYCOMM, Inc.in and GreatCall, Inc. |
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George Craford, Chief Technology Officer, Philips Lumileds Lighting Company George Craford 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. |
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Hernando De Soto, Chairman, Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) 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. |
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Rodney Ferguson, Managing Director, Panorama 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. |
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Napoleone Ferrara, Senior Deputy Director for Basic Science, University of California, San Diego Napoleone joined UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center after a storied career at the biotechnology giant Genentech, where he pioneered development of new treatments for cancer and age-related macular degeneration. There, he discovered vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)—and made the first VEGF antibody—which suppresses growth of a variety of tumors. In 2012, Napoleone was a recipient of The Economist Innovation Awards for bioscience. |
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Janus Friis, Co-founder, Atomico Ventures 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. |
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Francois Grey, Visiting Professor, Physics, Tsinghua University 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. |
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Robert Guest, Business Editor, The Economist 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. |
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Vic Hayes, Senior Research Fellow, Delft University of Technology |
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Mo Ibrahim, Founder, Mo Ibrahim Foundation Dr Mo Ibrahim is a global expert in mobile communications with a distinguished academic, business and philanthropic career. In 1998, Dr Ibrahim founded the mobile operator Celtel International, one of Africa’s most successful companies. In 2006 Dr Ibrahim established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to support great African leadership and Satya Capital, an investment company focused on opportunities in Africa. |
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Salim Ismail, Global Ambassador, Singularity University
Salim Ismail is a speaker, strategist and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. He has travelled extensively addressing breakthrough technologies and their impact on various industries. He has been Vice-president at Yahoo where he launched and ran Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator, and has founded or operated seven other early-stage companies, including his last company Angstro which was sold to Google in 2010. He has spent the last three years building Singularity University, which focuses on training leaders in managing exponentially growing technologies, as it’s founding Executive Director and Global Ambassador.
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Susie Lionie, Mobile Payments Consultant
An engineer by training, Susie is one of the creators of the M-PESA money transfer service; launching the proramme in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. M-PESA in Africa currently has nearly 20 million active customers and there are now over 160 similar services operating in more than 50 countries. In 2010, Susie was a co-winner of The Economist Innovation Award for Social an Economic Innovation for her work on M-PESA.
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Raghunath Anant (R.A.) Mashelkar, President, Global Research Alliance and Director General, India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research |
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Yoichiro Matsumoto, Professor, Dean of Engineering Faculty, University of Tokyo Professor Yoichiro Matsumoto graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1972 and received his doctorate in engineering in 1977. Since then he has been working at the University, where he is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Executive Vice-president. His research interest is in fluids engineering, molecular dynamics, multi-phase flows and medical application of fluids engineering. |
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Oliver Morton, Senior Briefings Editor, The Economist |
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Andrew Odlyzo, Professor of Mathematics, University of Minnesota Andrew Odlyzko has had a long career in research and research management at Bell Labs, AT&T Labs, and the University of Minnesota, where he is now a Professor in the School of Mathematics. He has written over 150 technical papers in various areas, and is currently working on topics ranging from the economics of the Internet to the dynamics of technology manias. |
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Andrea Pfeifer, Chief Executive Officer, AC Immune Dr Andrea Pfeifer co-founded AC Immune in 2003. As former Head of Nestlé's Global Research in Lausanne, Switzerland, she gained extensive senior management experience leading the development of the first Functional Food and Cosmoceutical Products. She is a registered Pharmacist and Toxicologist, a Professor at the EPFL, Lausanne and Chairwoman of the Biotechmedinvest AG Investment Fund. |
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Lesa B Roe, Director, Langley Research Center, NASA NASA Langley, founded in 1917, is the nation’s first civilian aeronautical research facility and NASA’s original field center and Roe is the senior management official of the Center, employing over 3,600 civil service and contractor personnel. She is responsible for the Center's technical implementation of aeronautical, space and science programs, as well as the overall management of the Center’s facilities, personnel and administration. Roe’s honors include the Senior Executive Service Presidential Rank Award, NASA Exceptional Service Medal and Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the University of Florida.
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Youssef Salah, Deputy Head, Information and Communication Technology Sector, Bibliotheca Alexandrina |
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Syl Saller, Global Innovation Director, Diageo
As Global Innovation Director, Syl is responsible for Diageo’s innovation strategy, which encompasses all new product development and launch programmes worldwide as well as the management of research and development. In addition to her innovation remit, Syl also has responsibility for Diageo’s Design and Global Licensing function. Syl is a member of the Women in Advertising and Communications London (WACL) group, heading up the Membership Committee, as well as being a member of the Marketing Group of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Marketing Society. |
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Jerry Simmons, Director, Energy Frontier Research, Sandia National Laboratories Dr Jerry Simmons is director of the Energy Frontier Research Center for Solid-State Lighting Science at Sandia National Laboratories, where he also serves as programme co-ordinator for Sandia’s DOE/Basic Energy Sciences research in materials. Dr Simmons’s technical interests include quantum electronic phenomena, novel optoelectronic devices, and high-efficiency solar photovoltaics. |
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Tom Standage, Digital Editor, The Economist and Editor, Technology Quarterly (Chairman) Tom Standage is Digital Editor at The Economist and the author of four history books, including A History of the World in Six Glasses, a New York Times bestseller, and The Victorian Internet, described by the Wall Street Journal as a "dot-com cult classic". Mr Standage has also written for publications including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times and Wired. Mr Standage holds a degree in engineering and computer science from Oxford University. |
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Tuula Teeri, President, Aalto University
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Vijay Vaistheeswaran, Global Correspondent, The Economist 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. |
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Jeff Weedman, Vice-president, Global Business Development, P&G
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Huanming Yuang, Director, Beijing Genomics Institute |

































