Economist and network scientist, expert on online collaboration, collective intelligence, and participatory, networked organization. Worked with governments and IGOs in various capacities; cofounded not-for-profit research and consulting collective Edgeryders; dabbled in civic hacking with Spaghetti Open Data.

Currently with the United Nations Development Programme. I have been a reasonably successful rock musician (Wikipedia), but I’m trying to quit.

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is an author, data scientist, and researcher from Colombo, Sri Lanka. His writing spans science fiction, speculative fiction, and data-driven journalism, with his work appearing in prestigious venues including Wired, Foreign Policy, and Slate. His stories have received critical acclaim, including the Gratiaen Award, and nominations for the Nebula and Independent Games Festival awards. Several of his works have achieved bestseller status with the Washington Post and Audible.

Named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list (despite his mild embarrassment about this honor), Yudhanjaya now divides his time between his code, writing, and tending to his homestead in Kandy, where he’s mastering the art of potato cultivation—all under the watchful and thoroughly unimpressed eyes of his several cats.

J M Applegate believes that economies are socially determined agreements and arrangements rooted in cultural values and narratives. She also believes there are general economic principles that apply universally but manifest differently according to circumstances. She is co-lead of the Complexity Economics Lab at Arizona State University, where she studies economic structures and dynamics in general, and development, monetary flows, and the effects of social scaling in particular.

Applegate knows from first hand experience that science fiction can inspire creative economic thinking because her own economic career was instigated by Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars.