Yennie Solheim leads the social impact work at Niantic, finding ways to create real world impact through the technology Niantic creates. Notable projects include an annual Earth Day campaign, hundreds of hyper local community events around the world, and partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF and the National Park Foundation. In addition, she works on Niantic’s corporate development. She has spent the last 10 years at Niantic, working across marketing, operations, and business development. Prior to Niantic, Yennie ran a small energy consulting firm. She’s a University of California - Davis alum and lives in San Francisco with her two young daughters.

Juliano Calil (Ph.D.) is the co-founder of Virtual Planet Technologies and a pioneer in science communication. His work and academic research are motivated by the urgent need to reduce climate change impacts by adopting equitable solutions through inclusive community engagement. Juliano and his team are developing interactive virtual reality (VR) experiences to communicate climate change impacts and solutions to diverse audiences. Virtual Planet is working with communities across the world including Turner Station, MD, Santa Cruz, Long Beach, and Paradise in California, and Germany to address complex issues related to natural disasters such as coastal flooding, wildfires, and heatwaves. Dr. Calil is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy and Adjunct Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. He has published studies related to the use of immersive solutions to address climate impacts and coastal adaptation studies in California, Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mid-Atlantic region, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Juliano received his Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences from the University of California Santa Cruz and his Master of Environmental Science and Management (MESM) from the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Recent publications include:

- “Using Virtual Reality in Sea Level Rise Planning and Community Engagement – An Overview” and

- “Neglected: Environmental Justice Impacts of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution” for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

International bestseller Michael Chatfield is an army veteran who enjoys long walks in foreign countries and some good beer with videos games at night!

He writes character driven fast paced series spanning Fantasy, Science fiction and LitRPG.

He focuses on bringing a realism and depth to stories that bring his worlds alive. He is currently working on; the fantasy Epic Ten Realms, following two veterans dropped into a fantasy world and the science fiction Builder's Legacy, about a group of gamers playing in the biggest MMORPG of their lives.

He has several complete series such as the LitRPG series Emerilia, Space Opera The Free Fleet, Hard Military Science Fiction Series, Harmony War continued in the Maraukian War Series and humor filled Fantasy Death Knight Series!

Like many LitRPG authors, TJ turned to the genre as a way to feed his gaming addiction while pretending to be an adult. His latest projects are:

First Fist: Seventh Bridge to the Heavens. Available on ebook. Audio released end of March 2022.

The Guild Core: Dragon Bourne (Complete Trilogy). Available on ebook and audio.

Eternal Online: The Shattered Sword (Complete Trilogy). Available on ebook and audio. Published by Aethon Books

Sam has spent his career leading teams and companies at the cutting-edge of the video game industry. Today his team at Level Ex harnesses video game technology and cognitive neuroscience to engage and train over 750,000 medical professionals. Before Level Ex, he was the CEO of the leading independent game publisher in Hollywood, releasing games based on popular films, including The Hunger Games and Mission: Impossible. Sam also led the DirectX graphics team at Microsoft, where he accepted a Technical Emmy on behalf of his team for advancing the visual realism of video games across the industry. His career began at LucasArts, creating Star Wars games for PlayStation and Xbox. Sam serves on numerous industry advisory boards and speaks internationally on video games in medicine.

Steve Grubbs is the founder and CEO of VictoryXR. After founding the company in 2016, Steve lead the VXR team to winning the Global Education Innovation of the Year award in 2021. Before founding VXR, Steve founded two other successful ventures.

Steve served in the State of Iowa Legislator from 1991-1997, sitting as Chair of the House Education Committee. He holds a B.B.A. in Finance and J.D. from The University of Iowa.

Shazi Visram is an entrepreneur and mother committed to bettering the world through business that is socially, financially, and environmentally enlightened. She is the Founder of Happy Family Brands, which she led to become the #1 organic baby food company in the US market with disruptive innovations that have democratized organic food for new families, despite her very humble beginnings.

Shazi is also the Founder and CEO of Healthy Baby, which is the culmination of a life's work dedicated to protecting children's neurological health. Healthy Baby is a safe space for families to find the knowledge, community, and products to build connected minds and bodies during baby's early years, a time when they are making one million neural connections every second.

As an advocate of social entrepreneurship, Visram is actively engaged as an investor and advisor to companies innovating for a brighter future. Visram serves on the board of Environmental Working Group (EWG), the Board of Overseers at Columbia Business School and Columbia College, in addition to being a Founding Member of Columbia’s Alumnae Legacy Circle.

In 2013, she was acknowledged by President Barack Obama as "not only an outstanding businesswoman, but also a leader that all of us can emulate." In 2018, Visram proudly received Columbia University's University Medal of Excellence “for her gifts as a leader, her optimistic spirit, and determination”.

Martin Brown is an experienced educator with a demonstrated history of working in the entertainment industry. Producer of Moulin Rouge, Co-producer of Romeo+Juliet and Art Director of Strictly Ballroom. He is a strong professional with a Masters of Humanities focused in Literature from University of Tasmania.

Author of the best-selling Divine Dungeon, Completionist Chronicles, and Full Murderhobo series, Dakota Krout was chosen as Audible's top 5 fantasy pick of 2017, has been a top 5 bestseller on Amazon, and a top 6 bestseller on Audible.

Kit Krugman built and leads the Organization & Culture Design practice at co:collective, a creative & strategic transformation consultancy. She has led transformation initiatives from big companies to big causes: she has worked with fast growing start ups, leading technology giants like IBM, LinkedIn, and Microsoft and social justice and gender equity non-profits like the Lower East Side Girls Club and WIN: Women in Innovation.

Jay leads a nonprofit advocacy campaign, EQuip Our Kids!, whose focus is raising the emotional intelligence of humanity, starting with children and youth. EQuip promotes getting what educators call Social-Emotional Learning curriculum into every pre-K to 12 school. Motivated by the reality that 90% of the public is unaware of the remarkable child, school, family, workplace and society outcomes of this learning, Jay argues it is actually the most likely social movement in the world to raise human consciousness on a mass level out of the paradigm of conflict, pain, inequity and misery – which is inevitable in the historic child development and human relationship training we have inherited.

Jay Levin has led six media companies and launched six nonprofits dedicated to social change. He is best known as the founder and former editor-in-chief and CEO of the multiple-award winning LA Weekly, which under his editorial, business and sales/marketing leadership became the largest circulation and most advertising-rich weekly newspaper in the country. Jay is also trained in depth psychology and has worked part-time with helping hundreds of individuals and groups in transforming their lives.

As an environmental consultant, biologist, and marine scientist, Garrett Stuart uses his diverse background and love of story-telling to drive a change in our future generations. His passions lie in bridging the gap between Nature and our youth to teach families sustainability and safe farming and gardening techniques.

Dane Maxwell is the yoda of SAAS. Author of #1 Best Selling book Start From Zero. Podcast host Start From Zero. He is the founder of Arena Rivals the first of its kind Virtual Reality eSports arena shooter thats focus is to create an uplifting community of highly competitive gamers that want to make friends and build a positive brain.

Psychologist Skip Rizzo conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation and resilience. This work spans the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. Rizzo, whose work using virtual reality-based exposure therapy to treat PTSD received the American Psychological Association’s 2010 Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Treatment of Trauma, is the associate director for medical virtual reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He also holds research professor appointments with the USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Rizzo is working with a team that is creating artificially intelligent virtual patients that clinicians can use to practice skills required for challenging clinical interviews and diagnostic assessments. His cognitive work has addressed the use of VR applications to test and train attention, memory, visuospatial abilities and executive function. In the motor domain, he has developed VR game systems to address physical rehabilitation post stroke and traumatic brain injury and for prosthetic use training. He is currently designing VR scenarios to address social and vocational interaction in persons with autistic spectrum disorder. Rizzo is currently examining the use of VR applications for training emotional coping skills with the aim of preparing service members for the stresses of combat. He is senior editor of the MIT Press journal, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. He also sits on a number of editorial boards for journals in the areas of cognition and computer technology (Cognitive Technology; Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds; Media Psychology) and is the creator of the Virtual Reality Mental Health Email Listserve (VRPSYCH).

Approaching 30 years of obsession in the wellness and performance space! Fueled by a love of playing sports, Dr. Dave was the kid who dove deep into the science behind performance. This translated into a career focused on coaching mindset, habits and routines, fitness, nutrition, epigenetics, functional medicine, and physiology. From pro athletes to high performing CEO’s, Dr. Dave has been there to help guide people through their tough spots. He’s been a speaker, author, CEO, researcher, and board member. Through all these vast experiences, he’s now putting it all together in a technology platform to help millions of people through digital health.

Brian did an MA in Somatic Psychology at Naropa University. He has studied and practiced both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism for over 30 years. He also trained with Byron Katie and has practiced the Work of Byron Katie for over 20 years. Brian’s motive throughout his study and search was to synthesize and distill the essence of what makes a knowledge of our fundamental okness possible and easily accessible. Brian has worked with people struggling with addiction, depression, and anxiety. He now works primarily with entrepreneurs seeking relief from stress and overwhelm. He has developed a simple practice called ‘noticing’ that reliably uncovers a sense of peace and freedom and empowers people to grow in confidence in it as their natural state.

As the founder of the Welcome to Humanity movement, and the True Voice Podcasting Mastermind and methodology, Dr. Fred now finds himself making the difference he came here to make. His years in the community, where he has been a physician to over 40,000 patients, and his storied and adventurous life traveling around the world, has now left him uniquely qualified to remind us all of what we already know. Communication is where love arises from, and speaking truth and listening authentically are the source of that love.

Mathew Koder is an artist of the human mechanism, a lifelong martial artist and yoga practitioner, bodybuilder, personal trainer, structure therapist, and performance coach. He is on a mission to help people maximize their system by being a mixed martial artist of the soul. He wants to foster Joyful communities through individual transformation.

Carrie Shaw is a medical illustrator, public health educator, and the CEO & Founder of Embodied Labs - an immersive caregiver training platform. Her vision is to see healthier & connected lives through shared immersive experiences and her mission is to connect humans more deeply and quickly to each other through sharing their lived experiences.

Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed Neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape at UCSF, a translational neuroscience center engaged in technology creation and scientific research.

At Neuroscape, he leads the design and development of novel brain assessment and cognitive optimization technologies. Neuroscape’s novel approach involves the development of custom-designed, closed-loop video games integrated with the latest advancements in software and hardware (virtual/augmented reality, motion capture, mobile physiological recording devices, transcranial electrical brain stimulation). These technologies are then advanced to rigorous research studies that evaluate their impact on cognition, as well as neural mechanisms using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Dr. Gazzaley is co-founder and Chief Science Advisor of Akili Interactive, a company developing therapeutic video games, Sensync, a company creating the first Sensory Immersion Vessel, and JAZZ Venture Partners, a venture capital firm investing in experiential technologies. He has been a scientific advisor for over a dozen companies including Apple, GE, Deloitte, Magic Leap, and the VOID. He was a Science Board member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, and is currently a Board of Trustee and Science Council member of the California Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Gazzaley has filed multiple patents for his inventions, authored over 140 scientific articles, and delivered over 675 invited presentations around the world. His research and perspectives have been consistently profiled in high-impact media, such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Discover, Wired, PBS, NPR, CNN and NBC Nightly News. He wrote and hosted the nationally-televised PBS special “The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley”, and co-authored the 2016 MIT Press book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World”, winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in the category of Biomedicine and Neuroscience. Dr. Gazzaley has received many awards and honors, including the 2015 Society for Neuroscience Science Educator Award.