Long Now Boston Summer Gathering 02025

Danny Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, scientist, and writer who is particularly known for his work in computer science. He is best known as the founder of Thinking Machines Corporation, a parallel supercomputer manufacturer, and subsequently was a fellow at Walt Disney Imagineering. Hillis co-founded Applied Minds, the technology R&D think-tank, and is co-founder of Applied Invention, an interdisciplinary group of engineers, scientists, and artists that develops technology solutions in partnership with leading companies and entrepreneurs. Hillis is a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab, the Judge Widney Professor of Engineering and Medicine at the University of Southern California, Professor of Research Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and Research Professor of Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He is the principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute’s Physical Sciences in Oncology Laboratory at USC.

Taylor is a Managing Partner at Cotor, Inc., focused on developing technical and marketing solutions for business problems. Previously, Taylor was Co-Founder and CEO of San Francisco based innovation practice, Milsal McCaull. Under her leadership, the company’s clients included a diverse portfolio, from startups to the world’s largest corporations. Taylor has orchestrated over $500M in transactions for projects including megawatt-scale alternative energy installations and SaaS solutions for corporate clients and major retailers. She also founded Zephyr, a mechanical engineering and design firm, with clients including Apple and HP. She is also an investor in early stage biotech companies. Taylor co-founded and produced the first TEDx. Her hobby is collecting the world’s brightest people around a dinner table to share ideas.