Moon-Walker Astronaut Dr. Ed Mitchell to Keynote

Dr. Mitchell was the sixth man to walk on the moon as part of his Apollo 14 mission (http://www.edmitchellapollo14.com/). As anyone might expect, this adventure significantly impacted his life, but in ways that continue to this day. In Mitchell’s book “The Way of the Explorer,” he explains the consciousness shifting ramifications of his journey, which lead to his founding the Institute of Noetic Sciences (www.ions.org). What does Mitchell think of Digital Earth? In a personal dialog he explains how he believes that humankind is in the path of peril and that only through a significant increase in our collective IQs will we find salvation. Digital Earth is envisioned to provide the mechanisms for collective IQ enhancements, if we can get humankind to drink from this fountain of knowledge. Perhaps the next generation will learn from Mitchell and cooperate on this greatest of human challenges; Mission to Planet Earth.

Buckminster Fuller Institute Joins ISDE5

Many of us are aware that Bucky Fuller foretold of the advent of a Geoscope or digital earth way back. In fact, according to Fuller scholar, Bonnie DeVarco, Fuller documented these issues in the later 1920s. His career continued to flesh out the efficacies and intellectual intricacies of the 3-dimensional world and ways to improve our spatial and contextual understanding of the parts and the whole. BFI has agreed to join in supporting and participating in next June’s gala event and will be preparing with Ms. DeVarco some very special presentations to unveil a wealth of lesser known details on the great man and his prescience for Digital Earth.

Mouse Inventor Doug Engelbart to Keynote

In the cat and mouse game of computational advancements, Dr. Doug Engelbart’s name has a secure future. As the inventor of the computer mouse, Dr. Engelbart has been privy to a host of advance ideas and topics that have ended up changing the way we interface with our cybernetic infrastructure. Engelbart continues to push his work ethic, way past conventional retirement age, by showing up daily at his Logitech offices in Fremont working on our collective futures. He is fascinated by the potential for integrating organizational structures and behaviours to capture the human input for a collective democratic experiment in human potential. Engelbart is also of the opinion that humankind is facing a critical juncture that will require an increase in our collective IQ. Again, can Digital Earth meet this mandate or are we just spinning our globes?