Sugar Mitra, Education Scientist

Sugata Mitra is the Teacher's Institute 2013-2014 featured Visiting Scholar. Mitra is a winner of the 2013 TED Prize. He is a Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication, and Language Sciences at Newcastle University in England. His “Hole in the Wall” experiments were the basis for the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, which won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year. Mitra's international experiments have shown that in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other if they’re motivated by curiosity and peer interest. 

Peter Williams, Architect

Peter Williams is the founder and executive director of an organization whose goal is to improve global health, using design to create healthier environments as preventative measures for tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria. Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments (ARCHIVE) has projects in countries worldwide, including Haiti, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. ARCHIVE identifies and addresses the causes of poor health in disadvantaged communities and uses strategies related to housing design improvements to create environments that promote better health.