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Brendan is Open Source's blogger in chief. He has written for *The New York Times*, *The New York Times Magazine* and the *Wall Street Journal Europe*. He is the radio editor of John Hodgman's Little Gray Book Lectures, and his audio work has been featured by Transom, Wonkette!, Andrew Sullivan's "Daily Dish", the Irish broadcaster RTE, Radio Netherlands and US public radio stations. Before Open Source he was the site editor of the Public Radio Exchange; he has been quoted on blogs and podcasting by *The Economist*, the *BBC*, the *AP*, *The New York Times* and the *Los Angeles Times*.

Ethan Zuckerman's main affiliation is with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Geekcorps was his main project until quite recently. It's an international non-profit organization that transfers tech skills from geeks in developed nations to geeks in emerging nations, especially entrepreneurial geeks who are building small businesses. Zuckerman co-founded the organization in early 2000 with a number of friends who were interested in bridging the gaps between the geek world and the international development world. In 1994, he dropped out of graduate school and joined a couple of friends in Williamstown, MA in building one of the first "pure" dot.com companies - Tripod. As the only person on the team who knew HTML, he became the "tech guy" - later outclassed by guys who could program circles around him, Zuckerman became "bizdev guy", "legal guy", "customer service guy" and "R&D guy" before settling, briefly, on "retired guy". He lives with his wife Rachel in Lanesboro, MA, a rural town of about 3,000 in Berkshire County. Zuckerman currently serves on the board of the foundation, which works to help artisans in developing worlds support their communities and families. He is also on the boards of the Prospect Foundation, an organization that works on technology training and workforce development in the Berkshires, and RadioVoodoo, a technology company building cool interactive voice systems for radio stations and other industries.

Eszter Hargittai is associate professor of Communication Studies and faculty associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University where she heads the Web Use Project. She received her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University where she was a Wilson Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Northwestern, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. Her research focuses on the social and policy implications of information technologies with a particular interest in how IT may contribute to or alleviate social inequalities. Her research projects have looked at differences in people's Web-use skills, the evolution of search engines and the organization and presentation of online content, political uses of information technologies, and how IT are influencing the types of cultural products people consume.

Patricia Aufderheide is a professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C., and the director of the Center for Social Media there. She is the author of, among others, Documentary: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2007), The Daily Planet (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), and Communications Policy in the Public Interest (Guilford Press, 1999). She has been a Fulbright and John Simon Guggenheim fellow and has served as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival among others.

Charles Nesson is the founder and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Harvard College in 1960, and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law summa cum laude in 1963. He clerked for Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court, and served as Special Assistant to John Doar in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He joined the Harvard Law faculty in 1966. Nesson has taught courses on evidence, criminal law, trial advocacy, torts and ethics, incorporating the latest technologies. Nesson is also well known as a moderator for the Fred Friendly Seminars on public television employing the Socratic dialogue method of discussion. He has served as a public defender on the Massachusetts Defenders Committee, and as counsel in the Woburn toxic tort case and various civil liberties cases.

Anne M. Finucane is president for the Northeast, Bank of America. Reporting to Bank of America Chairman Chad Gifford, Ms. Finucane is responsible for developing and executing strategic transition plans for New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She also has oversight for ongoing market leadership in the region, and is responsible for managing the Northeast strategy with the overall brand efforts of Bank of America. Ms. Finucane also serves as Director of Strategic Issues Management and has been appointed to the Board of the Bank of Americ Foundation. Prior to joining Fleet, Ms. Finucane operated her own consulting firm after holding a number of executive positions during her 14-year tenure at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc., New Englands largest advertising agency. She launched her career in communications in the Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs, City of Boston as a public information officer. Ms. Finucane is active in many philanthropic and community organizations. She serves as a board member of the Massachusetts Womens Forum (president emeritus), former chair of the New England Council; and on the non-profit boards of the International Center of Journalists, New York Literacy Partners, The American Ireland Fund, and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

John Lester joined Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) in 2005, bringing experience in online community development as well as a background in the fields of healthcare and education. Previously, John was the Information Systems Director for the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he pioneered the use of the web in 1993 to create online communities supporting patients dealing with neurological disorders. As a research associate in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, he also created online collaborative education environments for professors and students to advance the case-based teaching method in medical education. John leads Linden Lab's customer market development in education and healthcare. He acts as a strategist and evangelist for people using Second Life in teaching, academic and healthcare research, medical education, simulation, and scientific visualization. He also acts as Linden Lab's Boston Operations Director, having founded Linden Lab's Boston-area office and helping it grow successfully. John lives in Boston and is commonly referred to by his avatar's name in Second Life - "Pathfinder Linden."