Natalie Panek is an inspiring young innovator, with dreams of playing a dynamic role in the future of space exploration. A rocket scientist, she was recently named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network, a Forbes 30 under 30 2015, and “a vocal advocate for women in technology” by The Financial Post. In her spare time she has designed and driven a solar-powered car across North America, and builds space robotics.

From humble beginnings as street performance in a small Quebec town in 1984, Cirque du Soleil has grown to become the world’s most diverse, and dynamic brand of creative performances. On a recent visit to Las Vegas, which is home to seven permanent Cirque productions, I caught up with Jay Guilford, who is the creative content strategist for their team building program, SPARK. SPARK helps big companies embrace some of the innovation and creativity that is at the heart of the Cirque du Soleil shows, albeit without some of the accompanying acrobatics of course.

Starting work in the nineties, I quickly discovered that professional mastery had a lot to do with your ability to manipulate complex Excel spreadsheets. Analysts crunched numbers, programmers cracked code. These days, 21st century companies are trying to do the exact opposite - putting the power to create software and automate activities, in the hands of people closest to the work. Rick Willett, CEO of Quickbase, is one of the people leading this no-code revolution. Formerly at GE, and now focused on reinventing enterprise collaboration, we spoke about the future of work and the power of algorithmic decision making.

I met David Jay many years ago, at a cafe on Bondi Beach. Originally from California, he had moved to Australia for work, and for the last 20 or so years, had made a name for himself as a fashion photographer, whose work had been featured in international editions of Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Style and Shape among others. Then, about eight years ago, everything changed when a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. Soon after, David began The SCAR Project which documented survivors of breast cancer. Following this series, David continued to dedicate his work to capturing often unseen aspects of humanity, including The Unknown Soldier, The Alabama Project, Grief Camp, and Naked Ladies. Jay’s photography has been published in the New York Times, BBC, LIFE, Forbes, USA Today, and countless other publications throughout the world.

Dan Anthony and Sean McKeever are architects and leaders of NBBJ's design computation team. NBBJ is the go-to architecture firm for when the world’s biggest technology brands – Google and Amazon in the US, and Alipay and Tencent in China - want to build innovative, new workspaces. Over coffee in their headquarters in Seattle we spoke about parametric design and how algorithms are now being used, in conjunction with learnings from neuroscience, to optimize workspaces for productivity, collaboration and wellbeing.