What happens when material things become free? Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson examines new models of wealth distribution and claims we’re moving from economies of scarcity to an age of abundance.

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Strategist and expert on national security affairs Tom Barnett takes command and focuses in on the role of the United States in a geopolitical world of “core” and “gap” states. As you were, soldier.

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Practicing “identity correction” – the Yes Men target large corporations that put profits ahead of everything else. Getting inside the system, and impersonating business leaders, they smuggle stories out to the world to expose big business wrong-doing.

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Practicing “identity correction” – the Yes Men target large corporations that put profits ahead of everything else. Getting inside the system, and impersonating business leaders, they smuggle stories out to the world to expose big business wrong-doing.

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Author, futurist, activist and visionary, the inimitable Stewart Brand puts a lens to the next 30 years of the green movement. He sees increasing urbanization, new cities full of young people, the expansion of environmentalism and more.

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Lester Brown, preeminent environmentalist and head of the Earth Policy Institute, warns that society is too dependent on fossil fuels, and consumption habits must change to maintain a healthy social, economic and environmental balance in the world.

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Blaine Brownell is an architect obsessed with sustainable building materials. He introduces a wonderful world of products made from repurposed materials and provides a glimpse of what a post-fossil fuel world might look like.

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Part mad scientist, part artist, chef Homaro Cantu pushes the traditional limits of known taste, texture and technique in a stunning futuristic fashion. With lab partner Ben Roche, Homaro slices and dices technology to reinvent the way people eat.

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Code Monkey get up. Code Monkey go to job. Code Monkey have boring meeting. With boring manager Rob. Want more from singer/songwriter and Pop!Tech balladeer Jonathan Coulton? Download podcast, Monkey.

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Richard Dawkins believes science’s ability to admit ignorance is one of its greatest strengths. On the flip side, he proposes that faith remains arrogant and all too certain of its validity without any rational set of proofs.

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Living in public: Since being detained and interrogated by the FBI as a suspected terrorist, Hasan Elahi has documented his every move in maps and images on the web. He walks us through his “little” self-surveillance experiment, where he’s found that the more public his personal information, the more protected he is.

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Musician, producer and artist Brian Eno shows how simple things can give rise to complex things—in art and life. See how he uses Darwin’s ecological model of the world as a roadmap for human culture now and in the future.

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The stars and stripes forever? Futurist and author Juan Enriquez isn’t sure of that. He cites a long history of borders, countries and flags that have changed, and warns the United States isn’t immune.

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Hear how executive director of SELF, Robert Freling, is lighting up the developing world and empowering self-sufficiency by delivering solar power to more than 2 billion people on the planet living without electricity.

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You may know Tom Friedman as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author, but a fashionista?! Well, sort of. Tom purports that green is the new red, white and blue, and that our current energy crisis is like no other.

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Wired editor-at-large Kevin Kelly explores the nature of technology through technology’s eyes. And, watch out!—Kevin thinks we’ll soon be dwarfed by the collective intelligence of all the technology we’re creating.

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Health inequality: isn’t afraid to ask the searing questions, especially about global inequalities in health care. With a simple philosophy—equal lives deserve equal treatment—she addresses the dilemma head-on.

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For many, vocalist Yungchen Lhamo has become the voice of Tibet. Yungchen’s powerful a cappella vocals fill the Camden Opera House as she weaves rich narrative with spirit to share her life’s journey.

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A foremost interpreter of religion and culture says we’re missing a rest-of-world perspective about faith. Martin Marty invites a broader definition of religion as well as a closer look at its meaning for the majority of the world.

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Dictionaries made cool: Self-proclaimed word geek Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, is on a mission to debunk common misconceptions and elevate the use—and cool factor—of dictionaries. And what’s this about dictionaries being “the vodka of literature”?

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Neema Mgana is a social entrepreneur, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and PopTech Fellow. She gives us an insider’s view into work she started last year with Architecture for Humanity in a PopTech match-up. Together, they’re creating a community-based health center in the rural Singida region of Tanzania.

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Many consider Jason Moran, 32, the foremost jazz pianist of his generation, with seven albums under the Blue Note label since 1999. Here’s a sample of how he experiments with new methods and ideas to cook up his own flavor of jazz.

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What does the future of entertainment look like? Ask a ninja! Entertainer, tech geek and co-creator of AskaNinja.com, Kent Nichols, delivers his rules for phenomenal success in the Participation Economy.

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Anthropologist and Tibetan studies expert Losang Rabgey shows how technology is being used to open up Tibet to the world, as well as connect lives across the region, in ways true to their various experiences.

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The Mexican acoustic guitar duo sensation Rodrigo y Gabriela put fast fingers to strings for a performance that will put you on your feet and keep you moving. There’s no better way to say it: they rock!

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Artist, photographer and inventor Clifford Ross demonstrates some of the magnificent images from his invention, the R2. It’s the highest-resolution 360-degree high-definition camera array ever built. He’s using it to shoot his current project—the vast, undisturbed wetlands ecosystem of Brazil’s famed Pantanal.

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Prepare to be moved … “Sinikithemba” is Zulu for “give us hope” or “we give hope.” This group of HIV-positive Zulu men and women who provide support to persons with HIV/AIDS at McCord Hospital in Durban shake down the house.

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As co-founder and editor of WorldChanging.com, Alex Steffen sees the biggest barriers to building a sustainable planet as political, not technological. Here, he offers an actionable task list of challenges, ideas, products and services to help dematerialize the world.

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Author, journalist and contributing editor at Wired magazine Bruce Sterling understands why people get confused about new technology concepts. In what he sees as a culture war of web semantics, Bruce gets the audience’s attention with a unique call for a new vocabulary to better describe experiences with technology.

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Survival and family: Zinhle Thabethe has faced the prospect of her own death. Her personal stories about survival and family loss reflect a nation’s epidemic in a sobering and inspirational wake-up call.

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Dr. Craig Venter’s contributions to human genome research have made him one of the 21st century’s leading biologists. He introduces potential opportunities for using recombinant DNA and synthesized cells to help solve the world’s energy problems.

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Hop on board. Writer, composer, musician and comedian extraordinaire Reggie Watts leads a musical trip that’ll get (and keep) you movin’.

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As artistic director of the New York-based performance and media ensemble The Builders Association, Marianne Weems shows us how she puts technology at center stage to extend the boundaries of contemporary theater.

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The creative force behind The Sims series believes a complex way of understanding the world can be gained through very simple rules. Will Wright unveils his next game, Spore, where players are creators who build—and react to—ever-more complexity within their environments.

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