Committee

John C. Havens is Founder of the H(app)athon Project, a contributing writer for Mashable, and author of,  Hacking H(app)iness – Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World. 

Havens was EVP of Social Media at Porter Novelli, and has advised clients on social/emerging media including Gillette, Merck, HP, Monster, and P&G among others. He is a former professional actor and current blues musician.

For more information: John on Linked In, John on Twitter, John’s Speaking Website.

Alexis recently completed a master’s degree in the Information and Knowledge Strategy program at Columbia University.  She has a special interest in employee happiness and its value to organizations.  Her master’s thesis researched the psychology of happiness at work, and how knowledge management practices might influence employee happiness.

Konstantin is the Founder of the MeasuredMe Blog and is the Manager of Statistical Analysis at GfK MRI.  He specializes in applied psychometric and statistical methods in media, marketing and social research. Konstantin’s professional research interests and expertise include classification modeling (with focus on consumer segmentations), statistical programming (SAS and SPSS), attitudinal and lifestyle measurement, psychographic and behavioral targeting, predictive modeling, statistical matching and data fusion, measurement of advertising effectiveness, quantification of ad and editorial content, and sampling. 

Dara Barlin founded A Big Project in January of 2012. A Big Project is a one year effort of people from around the world to clarify where we all agree, and to share the news in ways that can reach people’s hearts –- through art and music. 

Dara has an eclectic background, with experience in the fields of education research, policy, community and union organizing, and philanthropy. Prior to initiating A Big Project, she focused her efforts on increasing equity and achievement in public schools. She has provided policy, research and advocacy support for the New Teacher Center, Ford Foundation, ReLearning Curve, and Institute for Public Policy Research (UK). In addition, she has led over a dozen successful organizing campaigns for the American Federation of Teachers and Human Rights for All. Dara has published several articles and a book on systems change in education which have earned the title of ‘the most widely read’ on several online platforms including Harvard Education Letter, Ed Week and IPPR’s ‘What’s Hot’ Column.

Sean is the founder of Decahedralist Consulting, and a member of the Steering Committee for Project VRM.  Sean has a wide variety of experience with boutiques, large agencies (Advertising and PR), and startups (digital, consumer, B2B).  In the past 16 years he has gone from being the “troubleshooter” to “the man with the plan” to the founder of his own agency, where the work included documentary films, live events, mobile, social and web. 

Sean started at the “kid’s table” of digital back in the early 1990s, and loves the potential of communications business that we are beginning to create through integration.  Customers will never live in channels, think of themselves as segments or care very much about our brands until we connect with them in their context.  In the last few years, Sean’s work has been all about integrating the experiences for and with the customer. 

Mario is the Founder and Chief Happiness Officer for the Happy Post Project, a social movement that believes spreading happiness is a powerful platform for social change. Happy Post invites people across the globe to answer a simple question: “What makes you happy?” With a Post-it as their canvas, people write down and draw their idea of happiness. From this simple gesture, we are creating a transcultural grassroots movement. The impact is the dynamic Happy Post community, which believes that spreading happiness is at the core of meaningful social change.

The Happy Post Project cultivates a community of social entrepreneurs in 28 countries who use happiness as a catalyst for creating meaningful social change. These innovators develop tools and events for individuals, communities, governments and companies. Now, Happy Post is a leader in the growing happiness industry which asserts happiness as an important foundation for society.

John Henry Clippinger is Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group where he is conducting research on trust frameworks for protecting and sharing personal information. With Professor Alex Pentland of MIT, he is founder and Executive Director of the newly formed ID3 (Institute for Institutional Innovation & Data Driven Design) which is developing an open governance platform to support an ecosystem for data-driven services, infrastructures, and enterprises. Previously, he was founder and Co-Director of The Law Lab at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, a multi-disciplinary center founded to research the role of social, neurological, and economic mechanisms on the role of law in facilitating cooperation and entrepreneurial innovation. Dr. Clippinger was also a Senior Fellow at the Berkman Center where he co-founded and supported the development of an open source, interoperable identity framework called Project Higgins that gives users control over their personal information.

He is the author of A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity (Perseus, Public Affairs, 2007, and The Biology of Business, Natural Laws of Enterprise, (Josey Bass, 1998). Previously, he was Director of Intellectual Capital, Coopers & Lybrand and the founder and CEO of four software companies. He also holds software patents, and consults with companies, foundations, and government agencies on technology, policy and business strategy. He is Co-Chair of Open Identity Exchange Advisory Board and has lectured at Stanford, Brandeis, MIT, Yale, Boston University, Chinese Academy of Science, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, among others.

Dr. Clippinger is a graduate of Yale University and holds a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the eG8 Forum, and the Global Leadership Telco Council and the Risk Analysis Networks for the World Economic Forum, an Aspen Institute Research Fellow, frequent participant at The DoD sponsored Highlands Forum, The Aspen Institute, the CEO Leadership Institute of Yale School of Management, Creative Leadership Summit, Aspen Institute Italy, Telco 2.0, Fortune Brainstorm, Arab Thought Leadership Conference, Kauffman Summer Institute, Monaco Media Forum, Ashoka, and The Santa Fe Institute Business Network.

Mary is the Microsoft Research Area Manager of the (VIBE) Research Group. Mary’s research focuses primarily on emotion tracking, information worker task management, multitasking, and awareness systems for individuals and groups. Her background is in visual attention and multitasking. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Indiana University in Bloomington. Mary was awarded the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award, was inducted into the CHI Academy, and became an ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2010.

Scott David is the Executive Director of the Law, Technology & Arts Group at the University of Washington. Scott’s practice focuses on intellectual property and technology counseling and transactions, and he has become a leading expert in these areas nationally and internationally.  Scott has been a partner at K&L Gates (formerly Preston, Gates & Ellis) since 1992. Prior to joining K&L Gates, he was an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York.

Scott has been active in the World Economic Forum (Davos), Identity Commons, ABA Cyberspace Committee, and Workboat (technology/arts organization), among other activities. He has also served as an external board member of the Law, Technology and Arts Journal since 2008.

Johannes is a Founding Research Student on the World Well-Being Project at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Taichi is a founder of Happiness Architect, a collaboration design agency with a passion to let people do what they love with like-minded people for happiness. We produce socially-driven projects by facilitating collaborative activities (i.e. bringing people together to collaboratively work on ideas). We comprehensively coordinate such a collaboration process. We strongly believe in the power of social capital to add new value to our lives, create a positive social impact and bring us happiness. For further info about Taichi, please see his TEDx, Do the Interesting Thing. 

Jon Hall is working at the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Program in New York. Before joining the UN  Jon spent 7 years working for the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where he led the Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies, a project that was instrumental in paving the way to the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress. Before joining the OECD he worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics and was the chief architect and author of the first two issues of “Measures of Australia’s Progress”, which won a national award in 2003. 

An Australian and British citizen, Jon has also worked for the British government in London, and for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Lusaka, Zambia, and as a spectacularly unsuccessful house painter, security guard and waiter in the USA.

Jon has spoken in over 40 countries about indicators and measuring development, progress and happiness. He has a Maths degree from Durham University in the UK, and Master’s degrees in Statistics (London University) and Public Service Administration (Australia and New Zealand School of Government).

Chris Heuer is the Founder and Chairman of Social Media Club. He has been engaged in interactive communications since 1993, and launched his first agency, Guru Communications, out of South Beach, Florida in 1994. Over the years he has helped numerous startups with go-to market strategies, product design, web site development, online marketing campaigns, ecommerce and what is now widely referred to as Social Media.



Seeing similarities between the rise of the Web as a vital communications technology and the current rise of Social Media, Chris formed Social Media Club in March, 2006 to help more people understand the greater significance of what it means to be social and how media production/consumption has changed. To this end, Social Media Club is promoting media literacy, encouraging the sharing of lessons learned, promoting industry standards such as Creative Commons and discussing questions of ethics.



More recently, Chris organized AdHocnium, a team of “Creative Catalysts” from around the world who educate agencies and their clients and partner to develop social engagement strategies that deliver creative impact, brand preference AND measurable ROI.

In addition to his direct endeavors, he serves as an advisory board member for Buzzlogic and My 6 Sesnse. He is a frequent speaker, workshop leader and a trained facilitator and has organized numerous unconferences for the community and private organizations of all sizes.

Chris graduated from American University in 1991 with an interdisciplinary degree in Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics and Government.

Kat is the co-founder and Research Director at ilumivu, as well as being the H(app)tahon Project overall Tech Lead and Chair of the Survey SubCommittee.  She is exploring the intersection of emerging technology and psychology. In 2009 after 15 years hands-on work with families of children with autism she co-founded Cambridge, MA based software company ilumivu to bring the latest tools to those actively trying to improve the human experience. ilumivu currently supports research groups and human service agencies in the US, South America and Europe. Meanwhile, Kat is completing her PhD designing low-cost, culturally-sensitive autism training programs for parents of kids on the spectrum. 

Peggy is a postdoctoral Scholar at University of Pennsylvania where she is working on the World Well-Being Project.  Her research incorporates a lifespan perspective and advanced quantitative techniques, including growth curve analysis, structural equation modeling, survival analysis, meta-analysis, integrative data techniques, and exploratory data mining to understand patterns of health and behavior across the lifespan, with a focus on personality, social, and interactional factors that lead to and change individual trajectories toward health and resilience or illness and disease.

Randall Krantz is a passionate and highly motivated sustainability professional with a diverse private sector background, embracing systems thinking from resource use to consumption behaviours. Randall is currently Strategy Advisor to the CEO of Druk Holding and Investments in Bhutan, where he is focused on sustainable competitiveness, governance and catalysing entrepreneurship. Most recently, Randall was Director of Sustainability at the World Economic Forum, where he worked with a range of business leaders and experts to explore the transformational changes required to decouple our culture of consumption from environmental degradation.

Randall joined the Forum in 2005 to build the foundations of a new climate change initiative. Building on a technical background in the energy sector, Randall worked for as a field engineer for GE Power Systems for five years and with a technology start-up in London commercialising fuel cell technologies. Randall holds an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in NY. Outside of the office, Randall is equally passionate about mountains, endurance sports and photography. He travelled to Bhutan with a touring bike, a slackline, two pairs of running shoes and three cameras.

Arthi is a noted information designer and visualization expert. She has also led teams of UX strategists, researchers, designers, and developers in large-scale enterprise development projects.

Her work has been featured in numerous articles, publications, seminars, and other formats, and her work visualizing legal information has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in an upcoming work on policy, psychology and legal studies.

Her background is in Public Policy analysis and Information Design, and her main interest is in utilizing design and visual communication techniques to improve decision making for the public. She has worked with a wide range of firms from large education companies to financial, insurance, media, and non-profit entities. She was also the lead strategist on a major assessment companies online disability accommodation application digitization project.

Neal Lathia is a Research Associate at the Computer Laboratory at University of Cambridge, UK, where he researches how smartphone sensor data can be used to build and measure future behaviour change mobile applications. He has a PhD in Computer Science, which focused on online recommender systems, and has since been interested in how the growing availability of data is transforming our online and offline lives. You can find him on twitter @neal_lathia. 

As chief marketing officer of NBBJ, Tim Leberecht helps spark and nurture new thinking (and great architecture and design) for companies around the world. Prior to his role at NBBJ, Tim was the chief marketing officer of global design and innovation firm frog. He is the founder and publisher of the award-winning design mind print and online magazine, and the founder and producer of the Reinvent Business hackathon.

Tim serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Values. He writes the iPlot blog, and his thoughts on business and society have appeared in outlets such as CNET, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, MIX, Rotman Magazine, Wired, and the World Economic Forum blog. Leberecht is also a sought-after public speaker and has spoken at venues including TED University, DLD Tel Aviv, Next, Re:Publica, Futurist CMO Summit, i7 Innovation Summit, and Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently working on a book about finding more meaning in business.

Kalev H. Leetaru is a University Fellow at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science and is Former Assistant Director for Text and Digital Media Analytics and Former Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Science and Former Center Affiliate of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

His award-winning work centers on the application of high performance computing and “big data” to grand challenge problems. He holds three US patents and more than 50 University Invention Disclosures and has been an invited speaker, panelist, and discussant at venues including the Library of Congress, TEDxTallinn, IAB Poland, Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford, while his work has been profiled in venues as diverse as Nature, the New York Times, BBC, Discovery Channel, The Atlantic, Fortune Magazine, The Economist, Columbia Journalism Review, MSNBC, Que Leer and media outlets in more than 100 countries.  His 2011 “Culturomics 2.0″ study was selected by The Economist as one of just five science discoveries deemed the most significant developments of 2011.

Amber is the Director of Business Development at Rakuten LinkShare Corporation. An ecommerce enthusiast with twelve years of online experience, specializing in affiliate marketing and creating successful B2B relationships. Particularly driven by emerging technologies and how consumer behavior is changing with the standardization of social, mobile and peer marketing. Currently heading up business development in Tech Alley in New York City and an enthusiastic geek on the Happathon Committee.