Thinkers

Robert D. Atkinson
President, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. With “innovation” becoming a major policy area, Atkinson has been at the forefront of pushing it as a cornerstone of economic development.

Rod Beckstrom
CEO, ICANN. The body that governs Internet addresses and names (such as .com and .us) is headed by Beckstrom, an author and entrepreneur.

Edward Black
CEO, Computer & Communications Industry Association. Head of one of the industry’s top trade groups since 1995, Black was involved with the State Department and is active in other government projects on tech policy.

Andy Carvin
Social-media strategist, NPR. Beloved in the local tech community, the prolific tweeter has become a worldwide resource as the hub of first-person accounts about the unrest and revolution across the Arab world.

Vint Cerf (vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Google); Steve Crocker (board-of-directors vice chair, ICANN); and Robert E. Kahn (president, CEO, and chairman, Corporation for National Research Initiatives). Not too many people can claim to have invented the Internet (and Al Gore’s not one of them), but these three can. Decades later, all are still leaders in the industry.

Leslie Harris
CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology. The Georgetown Law grad turned policy wonk has helped establish CDT as a key resource for privacy rights online.

Walt Mossberg
Personal-tech columnist, Wall Street Journal. Mossberg’s reviews are considered definitive by many, and his expanding empire of projects, such as AllThingsD, keep him influential.

Lynn St. Amour
CEO, Internet Society. Her organization, based in the United States and Switzerland, works on increasing Internet access to developing countries and setting standards to ease communication.