Alejandro Cruz is Minister of Science and Technology, Costa Rica.
Alejandro Cruz was appointed Minister of Science and Technology of Costa Rica on February 15, 2011. Previously, he was involved in various positions with the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, a public university that started in 1973. He served as a President of the University from 1995 to 2003.
During his term in the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, the University acquired a strategic position in the development of Costa Rica by introducing new technology programs and building strong ties with the attraction of foreign direct investment and the support of small and medium enterprises.
Mr. Cruz has also been associated with the National Rectors Council (CONARE) and the National Center of High Technology (CENAT), both supported by the State Universities. Another important academic challenge for Mr. Cruz, was the creation and initial operation of the Central American Council for Accreditation of Higher Education (CCA), where he served as Founder and Vice President.
In the area of planning and developing a country vision for Costa Rica, Mr. Cruz was coordinator for the initiative called “Estrategia SIglo XXI,” which is a long-term strategy based on science, technology and innovation. This effort was supported by numerous professionals from academia, industry and government.
Mr. Cruz worked for the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) from 1983 to 1987. He has also served as both advisor and consultant for various government agencies, academic institutions and private companies.
Since his retirement in 2009, Mr. Cruz was dedicated to his family farm and business until President Laura Chinchilla designated him Minister of Science and Technology.
Mr. Cruz has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Costa Rica and a Master of Science from the State University of New York (SUNY) and Syracuse University.
He is married to Isabel Guzmán and they have four children.

Prof. Dr. Nuket Yetis is President of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) since August 2008; she was Acting President from 2004-2008. Her initiation of a thorough restructuring translated into an over 33-fold increase in financial support provided to universities as well as private and public research institutes within the Turkish Research Area in 2006 compared to 2003, while the number of TÜBITAK employees increased only 6 percent. The overall support increased more than five-fold while the granted fellowships and scholarships displayed an even sharper increase. Among other tangible results were doubled revenues for TÜBITAK’s own research institutes through their products and services.
Prof. Dr. Yetis was director of the Turkish Institute for Industrial Management from 2000-2003. During her tenure there, she led management reform and restructuring projects for more than 75 organizations, the number of employees increased 40 percent, and operational revenues increased 20-fold. The Institute logged a 110 percent financial self sufficiency in 2002.
She was Dean of Marmara University’s Faculty of Engineering (MUFE) from 1994-2000. She led Continuous Quality Improvement activities at MUFE, making it the first Turkish public organization to become a finalist for the European Quality Award in 2000. MUFE was the first applicant and finalist for the European Quality Award in higher education.
Prof. Dr. Yetis was Associate Dean of Marmara University’s Faculty of Engineering from 1990-1994. She has been among the leading founders of the Faculty of Engineering, and she established master’s and doctoral programs in Engineering Management. She was Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration, Marmara University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, from 1985-1989; and she was an instructor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Istanbul Technical University from 1982-1985.
Prof. Dr. Yetis received the Ph. D. in Industrial Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, and an MBA in Operations Management and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Bosphorus University.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon Limited, India
A successful technocrat of global standing, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw heads India’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. She is highly respected in the corporate world and has recently made it to the 2010 Time 100 list of The World’s Most Influential People. Her pioneering efforts in biotechnology have drawn global recognition both for Indian industry and Biocon.
After completing her Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from Bangalore University in 1973, she went to Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education (now University of Ballarat), Australia, to study brewing and qualified as a master brewer in 1974. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw started her professional career as trainee brewer in Carlton & United Beverages in 1974. In 1978, she joined as a Trainee Manager with Biocon Biochemicals Limited in Ireland. Collaborating with the same Irish firm, she founded Biocon India in 1978.
Ms. Shaw chairs Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology and also served on the Board of Science Foundation, Ireland. She presently serves on the Advisory Council of the Government’s Department of Biotechnology, where she has been instrumental in bringing government, industry and academia together to chart a clear and progressive growth path for biotechnology in India. She is also part of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry in India and the US-India CEO Forum. Ms. Shaw also serves as Member, Governing Body and General Body, of the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, an autonomous body of the Government of India. She is also a founder member of the society for the formation of "Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine." Ms. Shaw has most recently been nominated as Member of the Board of Trade, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Ms. Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Nikkei Asia Prize 2009, for Regional Growth; Express Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit Award 2009 for Dynamic Entrepreneur; the Economic Times "Businesswoman of the Year"; the Veuve Clicquot Initiative for Economic Development for Asia; Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences and Healthcare; “Technology Pioneer" recognition by the World Economic Forum; and the Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. Her most cherished awards are the national awards, PADMASHRI (1989) and PADMA BHUSHAN (2005), presented to her by the President of India, for her pioneering efforts in industrial biotechnology.

Dr. Albert H. Rubenstein is founder and president of International Applied Science and Technology Associates (IASTA) and professor emeritus of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University. At Northwestern, he founded and directed the Program of Research on the Management of Research, Development and Innovation; and the Master of Engineering Management program. He co-founded and directed the Center for Information and Telecommunication Technology.
Dr. Rubenstein was on the faculty of M.I.T. from 1953-59 and on the faculty of Northwestern since 1959. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California (UC), Berkeley; UC Irvine; and UC San Diego. He has authored and co-authored over 150 publications. His latest books are Managing Technology in the Decentralized Firm (Wiley 1989 and iUniverse 2001) and Installing and Managing Workable Knowledge Management Systems (with Eliezer Geisler, Praeger 2003). He has consulted for over 100 firms and technology-based government agencies in the U.S. and a dozen other countries. In 1992 he was named the first Pioneer in Innovation Management and Engineering Manager of the Year by IEEE. He is a fellow of IEEE, AAAS, and the Society for Applied Anthropology. He was editor of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and a director of Narragansett Capital Corp. for 25 years each.
He has a B.S. in engineering from Lehigh University (1949) and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Columbia University (1950 and 1954). In 1993 he received an honorary Doctor of Engineering from Lehigh University. He was in the Combat Infantry in WWII. Since moving to Washington in 2005, he continues to be active in professional societies and consulting, including a contract with NASA in the field of knowledge management.

Dr. Mihail C. Roco is the Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a key architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Dr. Roco is the founding chair of the U.S. National Science and Technology Council’s subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET), and leads the Nanotechnology Group of the International Risk Governance Council. He also coordinated the programs on academic liaison with industry (GOALI). Prior to joining the NSF, he was Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kentucky (1981-1995) and held visiting professorships at the California Institute of Technology (1988-89), Johns Hopkins University (1993-1995), Tohoku University (1989), and Delft University of Technology (1997-98).
Dr. Roco is credited with 13 patents and has contributed over 200 articles and 15 books, including Nanotechnology: Societal Implications - Maximizing Benefits to Humanity (Springer Science, November 2006), significantly advancing the body of literature in the field. Dr. Roco coordinated the preparation of the U.S. National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) reports on "Nanotechnology Research Directions" (NSTC, 1999) and the "National Nanotechnology Initiative" (NSTC, 2000). Under his stewardship, the nanotechnology federal investment has increased from about $3 million in 1991 at NSF to $1.3 billion in 2005/2006. His research included experimental and simulation methods to investigate nanosystems. Dr. Roco was a researcher in multiphase systems, visualization techniques, computer simulations, and nanoparticles in the 1980s as a professor at the University of Kentucky. In 1991 he initiated the first federal government program with a focus on nanoscale science and engineering (on Synthesis and Processing of Nanoparticles at NSF in 1991). He formally proposed NNI in a presentation at the White House/OSTP, Committee on Technology, on March 11, 1999. Since 2002 he prepared a series of four volumes related to development and management of new technologies, beginning with Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance in collaboration with W.S. Bainbridge.
Dr. Roco is a Correspondent Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, and a Fellow of ASME, of AIChE, and of the Institute of Physics. Forbes magazine recognized him in 2003 as first among “Nanotechnology’s Power Brokers,” and Scientific American named him one of 2004’s top 50 Technology Leaders. In 2005, he received the AIChE Forum award “for leadership and service to the national science and engineering community through initiating and bringing to fruition the National Nanotechnology Initiative.” He is the editor of several journals, including the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. He was honored as recipient of the Carl Duisberg Award in Germany, “Burgers Professorship Award” in the Netherlands and the “University Research Professorship” award in the U.S. Dr. Roco is a member of several honorary boards and was elected Engineer of the Year by the U.S. Society of Professional Engineers and NSF in 1999 and again in 2004.

Dr. Frederick Betz recently retired from the Graduate School of Management and Technology at the University of Maryland University College. Previously, he was a program officer in engineering at the National Science Foundation. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley, after which he changed fields to management science and taught in business schools. His research has been in management science and in the management of engineering and technology. His recent books include Managing Technology, Strategic Technology Management, Managing Technological Innovation, and Executive Strategy: Strategic Management and Information Technology.

Dr. Fariborz Maseeh is a worldwide expert in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). After earning a doctorate in engineering from MIT, Maseeh founded IntelliSense in 1991. It was the first company of its kind for the custom design, development and manufacturing of next generation MEMS devices – tiny, computer-controlled chips used in products ranging from cardiac pacemakers to aircraft landing gear. Under Maseeh’s leadership, IntelliSense became the world's fastest-growing MEMS corporation, twice named to both The New England Technology Fast 50 and The Forbes Fast 50. Maseeh has published numerous scientific articles on topics such as business strategy, fabrication technologies and design and software for MEMS, in addition to securing a number of patents and trademarks. He currently serves on the boards of several technology firms, engineering schools—including the University of California at Irvine (UCI) and the University of Southern California—and non-profit organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club of Boston and the Children's Hospital of Orange County Foundation for Children. Maseeh considers himself a “venture philanthropist,” applying business concepts to his philanthropy. He considers his gifts as investments and looks for causes with clear objectives and broad markets. Maseeh serves as a UCI Foundation trustee and sits on engineering advisory boards at UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the University of Southern California, and Portland State University (PSU). He has endowed several chairs in engineering disciplines at MIT and PSU. He is chairman of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County Foundation and serves on a number of community boards, including the Boys and Girls Club of Boston. As the recipient of the prestigious 2006 Ellis Island Medal of Honor for his outstanding contributions to America, he joins a remarkable group of awardees, including six Presidents, several Senators and Congressman and Nobel Prize Winners.

Dr. Veziroglu graduated from the City and Guilds College, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, with degrees in Mechanical Engineering (A.C.G.I., B.Sc.), Advanced Studies in Engineering (D.I.C.) and Heat Transfer (Ph.D.). After serving in some Turkish government agencies as a Technical Consultant and Deputy Director of Steel Silos, and then heading a private company, he joined the University of Miami Engineering Faculty, and served as the Director of Graduate Studies, Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Clean Energy Research Institute. Since May 2004 he is on leave from the University of Miami, and is establishing UNIDO-ICHET (United Nations Industrial Development Organization – International Center for Hydrogen Energy Technologies) in Istanbul, Turkey as its director. He has published some 350 scientific reports and papers, edited 200 volumes of proceedings, and is the Editor in Chief of the monthly scientific journal; International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. He has been an invited lecturer and/or consultant on energy research and education to many countries and to several universities and research organizations in the United States. Dr. Veziroglu has organized several conferences and symposia on Alternative Energy Sources, Environment, Hydrogen Energy, Heat and Mass Transfer, and Remote Sensing, including the first major conference on Hydrogen Energy. He is a member of some twenty scientific organizations, and is a Fellow of the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also the Founding President of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Dr. Veziroglu has been the recipient of several international awards, including Turkish Presidential Science Award, 1975, Honorary Professorship, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, China, 1981, I. V. Kurchatov Medal, Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, Moscow, U.S.S.R, 1982, Energy for Mankind Award, 1986, Twenty-Five Years' Service Award, American Nuclear Society, 1987, Turkish Superior Service to Mankind Award, 1991, Honorary Doctorate, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey, 1998, Honorary Member, Argentinean Academy of Sciences, 2000, and Honorary Doctorate, Donetsk State Technical University, Donetsk, Ukraine, 2001. In 2000, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics for both envisioning the Hydrogen Economy, and striving towards its realization.

Bob Colwell was Intel’s chief IA32 microprocessor architect from 1992-2000, and managed the IA32 Arch group in Intel’s Hillsboro, Oregon facility through the P6 and Pentium 4 projects. He was named the Eckert- Mauchly award winner for 2005, the highest honor in the field of computer architecture, for “outstanding achievements in the design and implementation of industry-changing microarchitectures, and for significant contributions to the RISC/CISC architecture debate.” He was named an Intel Fellow in 1996. Previously, Colwell was a CPU architect at VLIW pioneer Multiflow Computer, a hardware design engineer at workstation vendor Perq Systems, and a member of technical staff at Bell Labs. He has published many technical papers and journal articles, is inventor or co-inventor on 40+ patents, and has participated in numerous panel sessions and invited talks. He is the Perspectives editor for IEEE Computer Magazine, and writes the At Random column. He is currently an independent consultant. Colwell holds the BSEE degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and the MSEE and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University.

Daeje Chin is the Minister of Information and Communications in Korea. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, in 1970 and 1974, respectively. He continued his studies with another M.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1979, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1983. After working as a Research Fellow at the H-P IC Lab and the IBM Watson Institute for several years, he joined Samsung Electronics as a Chief Research Fellow in 1985, and held progressively higher positions including Director of Research, Executive Director, Chief Executive Director, Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Representative Director, and President of various divisions until 2003. He was appointed to his current position as the Minister of Information and Communications in year 2003.

Kiyoshi Niwa is a Professor in the Department of General Systems Studies at the University of Tokyo. Before joining the university, he was with the Advanced Research Laboratory (1985 to 1994) and the Systems Development Laboratory (1972 to 1985), both of Hitachi, Ltd., Japan. Since 1988 he also has been a Senior Research Fellow in the IC2 (Innovation Creativity and Capital) Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. From 1989 to 1991 he was a Visiting Professor of the Engineering Management Program at Portland State University, USA. His research and teaching interests include technology and research management, knowledge management, and organizational intelligence. He has published many papers in journals such as IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management; IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics; AI Magazine; Knowledge Engineering Review; and the Journal of the Japan Society for Management Information. He is the author of the book Knowledge-Based Risk Management in Engineering (Wiley Series in Engineering and Technology Management) published by John Wiley in 1989, and is a co-editor of PICMET ’91, ’97, ’99, and ’01. He is also the co-author of the book Technology Management Strategy (in Japanese) published by Seisansei-shuppan in Tokyo in 1999, and translated into Korean in 2001. Dr. Niwa received his BS (1970) and MS (1972) in chemistry (physical chemistry) from Waseda University, Japan. While working as a research scientist at Hitachi, he received his Dr. of Engineering (1986) in systems science (knowledge management) from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. He serves as the editor of the Journal of the Japan Society for Management Information and on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Knowledge Engineering Review, and The International Journal of Decision Support Systems. He is the PICMET Director of International Activities.

Rosalie A. Zobel was born in England. She received a bachelor's degree in physics from Nottingham University, UK, in 1964, and a PhD in radiation physics from London University in 1967. She started her career in the Information Technology industry in ICL in 1967, and later held positions as a systems engineer in CERN (Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), Geneva, Switzerland, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, UK, and the Max-Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching, Germany. At the latter she became operations manager of the first CRAY Supercomputer centre in continental Europe. In 1981 she moved to the USA and took up a position in the AT&T Headquarters, Basking Ridge, USA. She held positions as senior marketing manager for open systems software both for the USA and international markets, and was responsible from 1983-1986 for the international UNIX business. In 1986 she became senior marketing manager for information technology products in AT&T Japan. She returned to Europe in 1988 as Deputy Head of Unit of the European Community's ESPRIT Business Systems unit. In 1991 she launched the initiative in Open Microprocessor systems (OMI). From 1995 she was the Head of unit "Business systems, multimedia and microprocessor applications", and EU-coordinator of the G7 Pilot Project "Global Marketplace for SMEs". From 1999-2002 she was Director of “New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce”. From 2003 she is Director of "Components and Systems" in the Information Society and Media Directorate-General of the European Commission.