Speakers

Helen Thomas, Former White House Bureau Chief

Commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press", former White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas is a trailblazer, breaking through barriers for women reporters while covering every President since John F. Kennedy. For 57 years, Helen Thomas also served as White House correspondent for United Press International. She recently left this post and joined Hearst Newspapers as a syndicated columnist.

Thomas was the only woman print journalist traveling with then President Nixon to China during his breakthrough trip in January, 1972. She has the distinction of having traveled around the world several times with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, during the course of which she covered every Economic Summit. The World Almanac has cited her as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in America.

Thomas is the recipient of the 2009 Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism.

Bob Schieffer, CBS News’ Chief Washington Correspondent

Bob Schieffer is CBS News' chief Washington correspondent and also serves as anchor and moderator of Face The Nation, CBS News' Sunday public affairs broadcast. Schieffer served as interim anchor of The CBS Evening News from March 10, 2005, until Aug. 31, 2006. He is a regular contributor to The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Schieffer has covered Washington for CBS News for more than 0 years and is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the nation's capital -- the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill. He has been Chief Washington correspondent since 1982 and congressional correspondent since 1989 and has covered every presidential campaign and been a floor reporter at all of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions since 1972. He began anchoring Face The Nation in May 1991.

Schieffer is the recipient of the 2009 Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast Journalism.

Philip Rosedale, Second Life Founder - Chairman of the Board, Linden Lab

Philip Rosedale founded San Francisco-based Linden Lab in 1999, and has led the creation of the virtual world of Second Life from initial concept to a market-leading virtual world, with a robust economy and a global population. As a pioneer in the virtual world industry, Rosedale is actively involved in the strategy, development and design of Linden Lab’s products, including the world of Second Life and the Second Life Grid platform. Rosedale is known for his entrepreneurial approach to new technologies, starting a network software company when he was 17. In 1995 he created an innovative internet video conferencing product, which was later acquired by RealNetworks, where he went on to become Vice President and CTO. In 1999, the advent of consumer broadband and better PC 3D graphics inspired Rosedale to leave RealNetworks and found Linden Lab, pursuing his lifelong dream of creating an internet scale virtual world. Rosedale holds a BS degree in Physics from the University of California at San Diego.

Lane Merrifield, Executive Vice President, Disney Online Studios

Lane Merrifield is one of three co-founders of Club Penguin, one of the fastest-growing and most popular virtual worlds for children. Since Club Penguin’s inception, Lane has led the management, operations and business strategy for Club Penguin out of the company’s headquarters in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Lane recently assumed a new role overseeing development for all the Walt Disney Company’s virtual worlds.

Lane helped develop and launch Club Penguin in 2005 and played an integral role in its phenomenal growth and success. The company’s commitment to creating a safe and ad-free online playground helped propel Club Penguin to international acclaim and a partnership with the Walt Disney Company, which acquired Club Penguin in August 2007.

Lila King, CNN.com Senior Producer

Lila King is a senior producer for CNN.com. She leads the site’s user-participation efforts, including overseeing CNN’s user-generated news Web site, iReport.com.

Since coming to CNN.com in 2001, King has reported and produced several multimedia stories on a wide range of topics in international news, working to integrate new technologies into storytelling presentations. King produced many of the online interactive maps and audio slideshows that distinguished CNN's Peabody Award-winning coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In 2006 King launched iReport, CNN’s highly successful citizen journalism initiative, and led the editorial development of iReport.com, the user-generated news site that launched in February 2008.

Erica Driver, ThinkBalm co-founder

Erica Driver is a co-founder and principal at ThinkBalm. She is a leading industry analyst with nearly 15 years of experience in the IT sector. She is quoted in mainstream and industry trade press including the Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CIO, and Computerworld. Prior to co-founding ThinkBalm, Erica was a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, where she launched the company’s Web3D coverage as part of her enterprise collaboration research. She was also the co-conspirator behind Forrester’s Information Workplace concepts and research.

While at Forrester, Erica served as a strategic advisor to a wide range of clients including Alcoa, Bell Canada, Dominion Resources, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, Marriott, Microsoft, Raytheon, Roche, the United Nations, and the U.S. General Services Administration. Prior to her tenure at Forrester, she was a Director at Giga Information Group (now part of Forrester) and an analyst at Hurwitz Group (now Hurwitz & Associates). She began her career in IT as a system administrator and Lotus Notes developer. Erica is a graduate of Harvard University.

Wagner James Au, Virtual World Journalist

Wagner James Au is the author of *The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World* (HarperCollins) and has been, at various times, a freelance writer, a metaverse consultant, a game developer, a screenwriter, and most pertinent, a white-suited avatar named "Hamlet Au," the first embedded journalist in a virtual world, beginning in 2003-a role he still plays on his blog, New World Notes (nwn.blogs.com). His work in Second Life has been cited or profiled in *The New York Times*, the BBC, CNN International, NPR, among others, and has spoken on the subject at South by Southwest, ETech, Web 2.0, and other conferences. He also covers the game industry and online worlds for GigaOM.com and has previously written for Wired, Salon, and the Los Angeles Times. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii.

Bernhard Drax, Virtual World Journalist

Bernhard Drax writes music for TV, commercials and feature film. His orchestral score for the  Disney romantic comedy "Sommer" gained critical acclaim in Germany as the film remained among the top ten for 4 consecutive months this year. In the virtual world “Second Life” he creates machinima reports on social and political issues. 

He recently started his own production company draxtor.com and delivered machinima for clients such as Manpower Inc., Dresdner Bank and German public TV. His reportage on virtual Guantanamo won the 2008 Human Rights Media Awards from internews France. Bernhard studied composition at the Richard-Strauss Conservatory in Munich Germany and audio engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles. He lives on the Central Coast of California with his wife and son.