Over the past few weeks, there have been many developments with regards to the CONNECTING’07 congress, October 17 to 20, 2007 in San Francisco, USA. The latest list of congress speakers will provide a very rich program of speaker sessions, panel discussions and interactive environments:

• Hans Rosling, founder of Gapminder  (Sweden)
• Richard Seymour, Seymourpowell co-founder and designer of  the Virgin Galactic spacecraft (England) 
• Barney Hatt/JB Straubel, designers of the Tesla Roadster  (UK) 
• Alex Steffen, co-founder of  Worldchanging.org 
• Larry Speck, Norman Bel Geddes expert from the University of  Texas 
• Ezio Manzini, design professor from Milan  (Italy) 
• Suzanne Gibbs Howard, IDEO  anthropologist 
• Paul Saffo, futurist and author 
• Fiona Dunne and Anthony Raby, instructors at London's Royal  College of Art (England) 
• Janine Benyus, biomimicry expert and  author 
• Joshua Prince-Ramus, Rem Koolhaas lead  architect 
• Bruce Sterling, Wired magazine columnist and  science fiction author (currently living in Belgrade) 
• Hiroshi Ishii, MIT Media Lab  professor 
• Hartmut Esslinger, founder of frog  design 
• Stefano Marzano, CEO & Chief Creative Director, Philips  Design (Netherlands) 
• Yves Behar, founder of fuseproject 
• Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management,  University of Toronto (Canada) 
• Naoto Fukasawa, world-renowned industrial designer  (Japan) 
• Sir Ken Robinson, expert on creativity, innovation and  design 
• Toyoyuki Uematsu, president, Panasonic Design Company  (Japan) 
• Branko Lukic, founder of non.object 
• Patrick Whitney, director, Institute of Design, Illinois  Institute of Technology 
• Mark Dziersk, former senior VP, Herbst LaZar  Bell

In addition, the call for education papers received a great response from 25 countries all over the world.  The papers are currently being selected and final selections will be made through the course of April this year.

Mark your calendar

The deadline for early congress registration rates is fast approaching!  We encourage you to register for CONNECTING’07 as soon as possible to make the most of this reduced registration rate www.connecting07.org.

Reminder

Begin your visa application for travel to the congress as early as possible.