University of Southern California

USC Network Culture Project

USC Annenberg School for Communication

John Seely Brown   |  more Network Culture Project Fellow

John Seely Brown is currently a visiting scholar at USC and co-chairman of Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation. Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)-a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, knowledge management, complex adaptive systems, ethnographic studies of the workscape and nano technology. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include the impact of globalization on business, the management of radical innovation, digital culture, ubiquitous computing and organizational and individual learning.

Cory Ondrejka   |  more Network Culture Project Fellow

Cory Ondrejka is SVP of Digital Strategy for EMI music, creating new connections and business models between artsits and fans. Prior to EMI, he was the cofounder of Second Life, the hugely successful and award winning virtual world, where he architected the core code and hired the team responsible for Second Life's growth to over 12 million residents. Ondrejka is an adjunct professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He is an authority on the development and use of virtual worlds in game, entertainment, education, government, military, and business applications. In addition, Ondrejka is an expert on the complex interrelation between innovation and learning, as well as the technological and social requirements of product development across entangled, geographically dispersed teams. Prior to Second Life, Ondrejka led the development of numerous video games, including Road Rash 64. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he completed degrees in both Weapons and Systems Engineering and Computer Science.

Gilson Schwartz  |  more Network Culture Project Fellow

Professor of Economics of Information at the Department of Film, Radio and TV of the School of Communication and Arts at the University of São Paulo, Gilson Schwartz has for the last 25 years also acted as a journalist with some of the largest Brazilian media groups such as Folha de S. Paulo, Globo and Terra, where he presently blogs about "Iconomics". This is also the new discipline he created in 2007 and now teaches for students from engineering, computer science, business and economics, communication and arts at USP. He graduated in Economics and in Social Sciences, holds a PhD on Keynesian economics at the University of Campinas and has worked as Chief Economist at BankBoston Brazil, Advisor to the President of the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES). As a Visiting Research Fellow at the "Institute of Developing Economies", Schwartz lived in Tokyo (1988) and since then have engaged in academic and entrepreneurial endeavors in Japan and other Asian nations. Since the approval of the "City of Knowledge" (www.cidade.usp.br) project by the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP, in 1999, he has directed the action-research group towards the emergence of new digital media and virtual worlds such as Second Life, where he has been acting since 2007 as Curator for the Centro Cultural Bradesco and, beginning this September, a pro bono island for the City of Knowledge. The "City of Knowledge" research program at USP was nominated among the "Top 30" initiatives by the "Development Gateway Foundation" in 2006. The research program has been listed in the DTI "Digital media scoping mission – a report from Brazil" (UK, Dec., 2006) and, in 2007, it was distinguished with the "Academic Quality" Prize by the "B2B" magazine. There is an audio report on the BBC´s website on the creation of ringtones with local xavante people as a result of pilot-projects led by the "City of Knowledge" research fellows. This innovation resulted from experimentation within a large-scale project on demand by the Civil House of the Presidency of Brazil, through the National Information Technology Institute (ITI). Second Life has been a testbed and playground for creating and moderating online learning programs on the arts, economics and sustainability as well as theatrical and entertaining 3D performances in the metaverse. It is also important to think outside the web and Schwartz has engaged in research and innovation projects geared towards improving the awareness of digital mobility for development, working as an associate research fellow with USC Professor François Bar in a large scale survey of the impact of mobile phone in Latin America, sponsored by Fundación Telefónica.