Laura Vais

Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users

Applied Biosystems, Inc. is a company that provides integrated systems for sequencing, flow cytometry, and various types of PCR. The company is based in Foster City, CA. The company's products cover the entire process from sample preparation to data analysis. The company was founded by Chris Yoo, Marvin H. Caruthers, Michael W. Hunkapiller, and Leroy E. Hood. Applied Biosystems was acquired by Invitrogen Corp. from Applera Corp. on November 21, 2008 for $6,417.85 million.

The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through its flagship award program, the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. These three-year awards support the continuation, replication or extension of programs that have proved successful in addressing a broad array of critical social issues: tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, economic and social equity, institutional responsibility, and peace and security. The foundation was founded in 1999 by Jeff Skoll and is located is Palo Alto, California.