46
GILBERTO GIL
Musician, Activist
Bossa nova, tropicalia,
samba, reggae, forró-
even the names of the
genres Gilberto Gil,
67, has shaped are
musical. Yet his
background in politics
and activism is almost
as long as his perfor-
mance career, starting
with his imprisonment
by the Brazilian
military regime in 1969
and continuing with his
work as a passionate
environmentalist. Less
well known is his
interest in the Internet,
especially the free-
culture movement led
by Lawrence Lessig and
the Electronic Frontier
Foundation in the U.S.
In 2008, Gil left his
position as
as Brazil's
minister of culture to
re-record old classics
with his band, Banda
Larga Cordel (Portu-
guese for "broadband"),
and release the rights to
their music under a
Creative Commons
license to be freely
remixed and shared by
the world.
47
CAROL TWIGG
President, CEO
National Center
for Academic
Transformation
Carol Twigg, 66,
founded the National
Center for Academic
Transformation in 1998
to use technology to
improve the quality and
reduce the cost of higher
education. Today, some
200 state universities
94 FASTCOMPANY.COM June 2010
and community colleges
participate in NCAT'S
Program for Course
Redesign, which runs
workshops for profes-
sors and provides
social-media tools and
software-based
tutorials that enhance
student learning outside
the classroom -and
allow teachers to take
on more students. On
average, the NCAT
reports that it has
trimmed academic-
department expenses
by 37%. Joe Benson,
vice president for
Brazil's for-
mer culture
minister
Gilberto Gil
performs at
the 2008
Montreux
Jazz Festival
research at the Univer-
sity of Alabama, who
has worked closely with
Twigg, says the school's
precalculus program has
seen a 75% improve
ment in student success
rates. "There is no other
education organization
that has had the same
kind of impact in
creating high-quality,
cost-effective learning
initiatives," he says.
48
PARK
TODD
CTO
Department of
Health and
Human Services
Todd Park, 37, is taking
public health data-
obesity rates, smoking
rates, access to healthy
food-and liberating
them. Through the
Community Health Data
Initiative, the informa-
tion is now available to
everyone, including
developers and busi-
nesses. "It's insufficient
to just put data out
there," he says. "We want
to market them to people
who can turn them into
supercool apps." One
developer has suggested
open-sourcing a social-
networking game-and
creating the FarmVille of
community health"We
can educate people," Park
says, "and help them use
the data to lead healthier
lives." In his mind, his
current job isn't much
different from his
Ocultar TranscriçãoMostrar Transcrição