Team and Project History

The Solve for X Team

The Solve For X Team includes Astro Teller and Megan Smith, Co-Creators and Co-Hosts, Will Patrick, Moonshot Curator, Kathy Cooper, Marketing and Website Lead, Karishma Shah, Global Partnerships and Community Development Lead, Merci Niebres, Event Producer, Tara Vega, Event Team and Event Website Lead, Steven Le, Google[x] Webmaster, our friends and web developers at MochaLeaf in San Francisco, our videographers at Electric Legend Pictures and several friends of the site, event, and idea who helped us including (but not limited to): Nadya Direkova, Courtney Hohne, Obi Felten, Adrien Treuille, Lisa Jiang, Chris Sell, and Lorraine Twohill. We are advised by Solve for X Chairman, Eric Schmidt.

Supported by: Most of the Solve for X team is based at Google on the Google[x] team and support Solve for X part-time as a Google[x] project.

Solve for X Origins:

Solve For X started with an experimental event in February 2012 co-created by Astro Teller and Megan Smith with the help of Eric Schmidt and their small talented team of Will Patrick, Lisa Jiang, Merci Niebres and Tara Vega, with funding from Google[x].

For three days, forty-six scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators from around the world came together to discuss and debate radical solutions using breakthrough technologies to some really big problems. Learn more in our launch blog post and sampler video for more context -- and under the Events section of our About page.

A Few Outcomes From Our 2012 Experimental Event:

• SolveforX.com website launched...

  We launched this website to expand participation in sharing moonshots, rating together and ultimately moving these ideas forward. We welcome everyone to join us!

• Found aligned organizations to collaborate with...

  There are many great organizations around the world with a shared mission to encourage technology moonshots. We reached out to several of them and asked them to help us find and evaluate the best moonshots just like everyone on the web. Our partners submit the best moonshots they find so they can be evaluated and discussed on SolveforX.com.

• Encouraging more interactive events...

  We encourage anyone to clone and/or adapt our format (moonshot talk-small group brainstorming-report out) to host their own events -- conferences, meetings, at school, communities, etc.
  • Some of our collaborating organization are adding Solve for X brainstorming to their events --- the first one will be at ASU CSI this spring. We have also seen the first pilot of Solve for X @ School.
  • We plan to repeat the event. Solve for X 2013 will bring a new group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and innovators along with a few of our Solve for X community members together in California in early 2013 to debate and discuss moonshot projects. We will post the talks and notes.