Kathi R. Kitner is a cultural anthropologist and holds a PhD from the University of Florida. In her dissertation research, Kathi examined how the uneven process of modernization and globalization in the guise of free port economics, oil and tourism was transforming a Venezuelan island of fishermen and farmers. At the University of Miami Kathi was the co-Principal Investigator on an NIH project evaluating needle use among street-based heroin addicts. Kitner has worked for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council where she was responsible for defining and determining the social and cultural impacts of new federal regulations on the fishing communities of the southeastern United States. Currently, Kitner is exploring gendered approaches to technology adoption, content creation for emerging areas, and new linkages for common property regimes and technology.

Richard Beckwith is a research psychologist by training. At Intel, Richard has worked on sensor networks for agriculture and educational applications of technology. His recent work has focused on communities in emerging economies and models of technology adoption. He was previously an Associate Professor at Northwestern University's Institute of the Learning Sciences, conducting research on how technology can best be used in education and training. As a research scientist at Princeton University's Cognitive Science Lab, he looked at ways to use research for structuring natural language applications. He received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University where he researched how children learn in specific contexts.