One of the world's leading Futurists, Ben Hammersley is the founder and principal of Hammersley Futures, an international strategic forecasting consultancy. Their main work is in guiding corporations and governmental agencies to think clearly about the future. They, and he, specialize in how society reacts to technological innovation: including the future of crime and conflict, the changing nature of the workplace and the market, and the new cognitive tools needed to flourish in the coming decades. Previously Ben was executive editor of WIRED, the writer and presenter of the BBC’s “Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley” (now on Netflix or Amazon Prime internationally), a war correspondent in Afghanistan, an advisor to the European Commission, a pilot and wilderness medic in the USA, the author of 5 books, and the inventor of the word "Podcast". He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.

Debra Lam is the Founding Executive Director for Partnership for Inclusive Innovation. This is a statewide public-private partnership committed to investing in innovative pilot projects. She also continues to lead smart communities and urban innovation work at Georgia Tech. She founded the Georgia Smart Community Challenge, the first state-wide effort in the nation that empowers communities of all sizes to become smarter. Prior to this, she served as Pittsburgh's first ever Chief of Innovation & Performance where she oversaw all technology, sustainability, performance and innovation functions of city government. She crafted the city's first strategic plan for innovation, Inclusive Innovation Roadmap. Prior to that, she was a management consultant at a global engineering and design firm, Arup. She has been the recipient of various awards, including one of the top 100 most influential people in digital government by Apolitcal, and 40under40 by Atlanta Business Chronicle and Georgia Trend. She has worked and lived in the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and University of California, Berkeley, and serves on the boards of the MetroLab Network and Neighborhood Nexus.

Tawanna A. Black is a nationally recognized thought leader known for influencing, inspiring, and equipping cross-sector leaders to transform a personal conviction for equality into actions that produce equitable and thriving communities. For more than 20 years, Tawanna has led multi-sector collaboratives, triple bottom line diversity and inclusion strategy development, and economic revitalization organizations in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. In 2017, Tawanna launched the nation’s first organization dedicated exclusively to creating inclusive regional economies by equipping public and private sector employers to dismantle institutional racism and build shared accountability for inclusive economic growth, the Center for Economic Inclusion As Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tawanna leads a team of people who offer ground-breaking consulting products and services to move businesses and local and regional governments from diversity and inclusion programs to triple bottom line results that are good for employees, employers, and communities; foster shared accountability for regional inclusive growth; change the narrative about the economic imperative and value of closing racial wealth gaps. Prior to founding the Center, Tawanna was Executive Director of the Northside Funders Group. The place-based funders collaborative comprised of 20 corporate, community, and private foundations and public-sector investors committed to aligning investments and strategies and changing philanthropic practices to catalyze racial and economic equity in North Minneapolis.   Before moving to Minnesota, Tawanna led diversity and inclusion for Cox Communications in Omaha, Nebraska, where she served as an advisor to the senior management team, establishing the first business inclusion strategy, responsible for setting the highest standards for business growth, innovation, and stakeholder return by ensuring that the company understood and acted upon the needs of diverse communities. Prior to Cox, Tawanna served as the first Executive Director for Destination Midtown, leading an unprecedented community economic development public-private partnership. Her visionary leadership led to more than $500 million of re-investment, attracting over 30 small businesses, and building the civic infrastructure for meaningful co-creation between residents, small and large businesses and policy makers in the historic heart of Omaha in just three years. Tawanna is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. She has a Bachelor of Public Administration Degree from Washburn University in Topeka, KS. Tawanna’s accomplishments and civic leadership have been recognized with many awards and commendations, including: Selected as one of the nations’ Top 25 Disruptive Leaders working to close racial gaps by Living Cities (2016); Washburn University Alumni Fellow (2018); Twin Cities Business Magazine’s 100 People to Know (2017); Minneapolis- St. Paul Business Journals Women in Business Award Winner (2017); Midlands Business Journal’s (Omaha) 40 Under 40 (2004); Minnesota Business Magazines’ Real Power 50 (2017); and a recipient of the prestigious Bush Fellowship by the Bush Foundation (2014). Tawanna has lent her leadership to over 35 nonprofit and philanthropic boards over the past decade. Today, she generously lends her time to: Minnesota Tech Association Board of Directors; Washburn University Alumni Foundation Board of Trustees; Community Advisory Board of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute; and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter of The Links, Incorporated. Tawanna is married to Eric Black and has two children, Traviata (9) and Christian (7).

Gabe is a Founding Partner of Cityfi, advising governments and companies worldwide on innovation in cities. Gabe is the former Commissioner of the Chicago and Washington, DC Departments of Transportation, where he relentlessly revamped arcane government processes and communication internally and externally to eliminate speed to implementation with a focus on putting people first vs. automobiles on city streets. This included building bus rapid transit, streetcar, two of the first and largest bikeshare systems in the U.S. and 100’s of miles of protected bike lanes and better pedestrian infrastructure for vulnerable citizens citywide, as well as facilitating private services like carshare and rideshare that could help further each city’s mobility goals. As Commissioner in Chicago, he also revamped public spaces, working to bring a new Riverwalk to Chicago as well as the breathtaking Bloomingdale Trail and four new CTA transit stations. Gabe has twice been a visiting fellow for the Centre For Livable Cities in Singapore, working on creating a “car-lite” city-state. Gabe honed his creativity and leadership skills working in business, including Zipcar, where he served as Vice President, Bikes USA as National Director of Stores and CEO of his own electric powered, organic food truck chain, On The Fly. Post-government, and after an enriching fellowship with the Urban Land Institute in 2014, Gabe joined Fontinalis Partners as Venture Partner on their $100 million 2nd fund and continues today with the launch of the $200 million FCP3 fund in 2019. In 2015, Gabe also published Start-Up City with David Vega-Barachowitz on Island Press, a manifesto on revamping how we innovate in cities and rethinking public-private partnerships with a triple-bottom line approach as technology shapes a dramatically different future. Gabe sits on the boards of Streetsblog, Carma, TransitScreen and advisory boards of NACTO, Spin, Stae, Numina, Bespoke and many others.