Daniel Dubno

Change agent, Concerned citizen, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Inventor, Journalist, Producer, Promoter, Technologist

Dan Dubno is executive director of the Hourglass Initiative, which promotes codes of ethics in the scientific community and methods of anonymous whistleblowing to combat the spread of WMDs. "Digital Dan" is also an Emmy award-winning broadcaster, technologist, consultant, producer, and "connector". He remains co-founder and curator of the annual Gadgetoff technology conference, a notorious invitation-only event where inventors and designers gather to share the latest technological breakthroughs. Dubno is also a technology consultant for a number of high-tech companies. For more than a decade, he has reviewed new technology on numerous network television news programs and on his popular website Gizmorama. Dubno, a pioneer in the use of powerful graphic technologies, satellite imagery, and visualization tools for news coverage, served as producer and technologist for CBS News in New York, where he coordinated special events unit coverage of major national and international news stories. Winner of numerous National Emmy awards, Dubno was previously a producer of the Eye on America enterprise reports for the CBS Evening News, and he produced investigative and feature segments for Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, America Tonight and economics coverage for CBS This Morning. Beginning with his presentation at TED in 2002 and again in 2003, he debuted the Keyhole software imagery program and introduced this cool earth-viewing technology to his friends at Google. This resulted in Google’s acquisition of Keyhole and formed the genesis of the wildly popular program, “Google Earth.” In addition, at CBS News, Dubno developed the first system to map real-time news feeds and the latest detailed visualization of live earthquake data over Google Earth. At CBS News, he pioneered the first systematic use of 3D animations in nightly news broadcasts; pioneered the use of virtual sets and touch screens in news; and introduced other 3D visualization techniques now seen regularly on broadcast television. Dubno left CBS News in November 2006 to form his own technology intelligence company, Blowing Things Up. Dan Dubno's technology website, Gizmorama, features video-blogs and product reviews and is one of the most popular technology review sites on the Internet. He also writes technology columns for the Huffington Post, and for science magazines, including Discover. Dubno is chair of the Radio and Television News Directors' Association Task Force on Remote Sensing, advisory committee member of the Department of Interior's National Imagery Archive, is a consultant to numerous science museums including the Liberty Science Center, the New York Hall of Science, and the American Museum of Natural History. He is on the Board of Governors of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is a member of journalism advisory boards for Rutgers University and Queens College, and was adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Dubno has lectured at various universities including MIT, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the People's University in Beijing, and has presented at the TED Conferences (2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006), the Globes Business Conference (2005), EG: The Entertainment Gathering (2006), the Digital Lifestyle Day (DLD 06-09) in Munich, GEL conferences (2004, 2005, 2006), the World Economic Forum (2006-2009) , the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Freedom Forum, the Global Disaster Information Network, the Office of Naval Research, the National Science and Technology Council, the Council on Competitiveness, and the National Association of Broadcasters. He has moderated events for the Columbia Journalism School, the World Economic Forum, and for Clean Tech Venture Network. Dubno has created and maintains the Disaster Links resource. Dubno was a member of the scientific party in May 2005 in Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institutions' expedition to the geothermal vents in the Galapagos Rift and explored the "Rosebud" field nearly two-miles below the ocean surface in the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin. With his brother, Dan holds a patent for a touch-table food service ordering system. Dan has adopted and mentors Science Skills High School's robotics team and has happily served as honorary "Principal-For-A-Day" for that high school in Brooklyn as well as for his alma mater, the Bronx High School of Science. He is "Ambassador" for the FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology which mentors students to pursue careers in science and engineering. His wife, Lisa, is executive director of the What To Expect Foundation (which provides a health literacy program to pregnant women). They live in a New York City apartment overrun by gadgets and wires with their two children and their robot dog.

Celebrating the latest technology advances and icreativity with terrific participants at Gadgetoff.... and working with scientists by leading the Hourglass Initiative to stop the spread of WMDs .

Working to promote codes of ethics among scientists and engineers regarding possible participation in weapons of mass destruction research and development. Providing anonymous web-based tools to allow whistleblowers in the scientific communities to safely report WMD threats. As threats of biological and other forms of weapons of mass destruction spread as the core technologies become more accesible and "democratized," it will be the scientists and engineers who will need to police this threat....and the mission of the Hourglass Foundation is to help.

Disruptive technology, Gadgets, Network news broadcasting, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Public Speaker & Spokesperson, Remote Sensing and Geospatial Information, Technologist, Technology enthusiast

Too many: Bringing a huge laser cutter to TED to carve pictures of the Pope in Parmesean cheese... inviting Dr, Rob Brooks into the home of a complete stranger when we were both lost in the hills of Monterrey... cancelling my presentation at TED in 2006 because of the sudden death of my Dad... becoming friends with John Brockman after first wanting to strangle him... sneaking Kevin Kelly in one year... attending a full day at TED sitting the entire time in Bran Ferren's Maximog... Richard Wurman gifting me his TED hat right off his head at his final evening hosting TED... presenting a 3D realtime video game I accidentally developed while building a 3D hyper-realistic Vatican... but, best of all, showing the technology on the TED stage (two years in a row!) that ultimately was aquired by Google and was renamed "Google Earth."

Gathering technology intelligence; organizing large numbers of experienced journalists to cover massive catastrophic events; writing comedy; singing Irish drinking songs; raising two very sweet kids