Patricia Ceysens

Flemish minister of Economy, Enterprise, Science, Innovation and Foreign Trade

Patricia Ceysens graduated in law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1988 and also obtained a degree in Marketing Management. From 1989 until 1990, she was an academic assistant at the law school of the university.Patricia Ceysens started her professional career as a lawyer at the bar in Leuven from 1988 until 1999. From 1990 onwards, she practiced law in Brussels at the office Loeff, Claeys, Verbeke (now Allen & Overy Belgium), specializing in intellectual property rights.

Since 1995 Ceysens is a member of the city council of Leuven. She briefly served as a member of the provincial council of Flemish Brabant in 1995 until she was elected to the Flemish Parliament in 1995. Re-elected in 1999 and 2004, Ceysens became part of the Flemish government and served as Flemish minister of Economy, Foreign Trade and E-government from June 2003 to July 2004. During that period, Ceysens took the initiative to start Flanders District of Creativity, one of the first government efforts in the world to focus on the creative economy. After the elections of 2004, Ceysens became leader of her parliamentary group in the Flemish parliament.

In October 2007, Ceysens again became part of the Flemish government, taking on the role of minister of Economy, Enterprise, Science, Innovation and Foreign Trade.

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John Cleese

Actor, author and Inspiration Booster

John Cleese is known best for his work appearing in and co-writing Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda. As a charismatic and famous wise guy who became a man of wisdom without losing his sense of humor, John Cleese is a powerful advocate for creativity. “If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play”, is one of his famous quotes.

Too often, businesses are all about one thing: business. With an eye ruthlessly fixed on the bottom line, margins, overhead, and costs. Cleese will show you how an element of creativity in the business world can reap untold dividends. From recruitment, training, and retaining employees to better and more enjoyable customer service, he`s focused on helping businesses innovate and accommodate change.

In addition to his acting and writing talents, John Cleese is respected world-wide for his corporate training programmes. Cleese holds an MA in Law from Cambridge University and an Hon. LL.D. from St. Andrews University, where he was Rector for several years. He is also professor-at-large at Cornell University.

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Martin Heylen

TV-maker and Journalist

Martin Heylen is a passionate and award-winning journalist an storyteller. For the daily TV magazine ‘Man bites Dog’, Martin brings authentic stories from his traveling through the United States, Siberia in winter, and China. He won Humo’s prestigious Ha! award for the deeply human series Back to Siberia.

Prior to his TV career, Martin Heylen wrote for Humo, and worked as radio reporter and presenter for Studio Brussel, Donna, Radio 2 and Radio 1. He started his career at quality newspaper De Morgen. Apart from his great human connection abilities, Martin Heylen also has a connection with the ‘Tour de France’.

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Steve Wozniak

Co-founder Apple

Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976 together with Steve Jobs. He helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple’s first line of products the Apple I and II and influenced the popular Macintosh. Steve was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1985, the highest honor bestowed on America’s leading innovators. In 2000, Steve was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame for “single-handedly designing the first personal computer and for then redirecting his lifelong passion for mathematics and electronics toward lighting the fires of excitement for education in grade school students and their teachers.”

Steve Wozniak is currently executive vice president, chief technology officer and chief visionary officer for Jazz Technologies, Inc., and still works for Apple. Steve has also his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon, published in September 2006. In his free time, Steve plays Segway polo.

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Tom Kelley

General Manager IDEO

Tom is the general manager of IDEO, the famous design and development firm that brought us the Apple mouse, the Palm V, the Miele vacuum cleaner and hundreds of other cutting edge products. IDEO was listed as number five in the 2008 Fast Company of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies. With his brother David, Tom has helped grow IDEO from a staff of 20 designers to more than 500 people. IDEO’s success, he says, comes from its philosophy: you don’t have to be a genius to have a great idea and companies that encourage this creativity will excel. Tom has been named the first-ever Executive Fellow by the dean of the Haas Business School at the University of California Berkeley. He is the author of two outstanding books on innovation and creativity: The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation.

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Dan Heath

Author Made to Stick

Dan Heath, along with his brother Chip, wrote the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. “They lay out a blueprint for engineering your own sticky ideas, whether your goal is to stop teen smoking, sell more soap or get your boss to take you seriously”, said the review in Time Magazine. Amazon editors named it the #2 business book of last year. And Psychology Today stated: "If nobody listens when you're trying to share important information, this book is for you”.

Dan Heath writes for Fast Company and serves as a consultant at the Aspen Institute. He worked in "making ideas stick" with organizations such as Microsoft, Macy's, Nestle, and the American Heart Association. Dan received a B.A. from the University of Texas and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Dan conducted research and wrote case studies for Harvard Business School. He is also the co-founder of a startup textbook publishing company called Thinkwell. A proud geeky moment for Dan was his victory in the 2005 New Yorker Cartoon Caption context, beating out 13,000 other entrants.

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Chris Anderson

Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine. Author, Free! and The Long Tail

As editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson is one of the most knowledgeable, insightful and articulate voices at the center of the new economy. He consistently understands before anyone else the new directions the economy is taking and then names the central phenomenon, giving us handles for the business opportunities they represent.
With his New York Times bestseller The Long Tail, he named the rise of the niche as a powerful new force in our economy—why the future of business is selling small quantities of more things to the few people who want those things; how all of these small communities together make up a vast market potential, and how the efficiencies of digital and web technology make it all possible. Now Chris has published Free: Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, first as an article in Wired magazine, soon to be a book—available for free! As the marginal cost of digital information approaches zero, practically everything on the Web heads toward ‘free’. How do you thrive when free has emerged as a full-fledged economy?

Chris Anderson worked at The Economist for seven years in various positions and served as an editor at the two premier science journals, Science and Nature. Education background in physics, including research at Los Alamos.

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