John Werner is the founder of Ideas in Action, Inc. (IIA) and Managing Director at Link Ventures and Chief Network Officer, SVP of Corporate Development at Cogo Labs in Cambridge Ma. Prior he was a Vice President at an augmented reality company. He is also founding Managing Director for MIT Media Lab's Emerging Worlds Special Interest Group (SIG), and former Head of Innovation and New Ventures for the Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab for Ramesh Raskar, director of the Camera Culture Group at MIT Media Lab. He is one of the founding members of the non-profit organization Citizen Schools (founded in 1995) and the curator of TEDxBeaconStreet, and TEDxMIT with Daniela Rus - both independent event licensed by TED as part of TEDx. He started first ever AR-in-Action Augmented Reality Conference "ARIA" at MIT Media Lab in January 2017 and Blockchain+AI+Human = Magic Summit, now called Imagination in Action at MIT and Davos which he curates with Professor Sandy Pentland. Early life and education Werner was born in 1970 in New York City. His father John F. Werner was the chief clerk and CEO of the Supreme Court in New York County, and his mother Laura A. Werner was an Assistant Attorney General in New York State. His brother, Jeffrey Werner, is the Deputy General Counsel for the New York City Mayor's Office of Management and Budget. His sister, Margaret DeVoe, is a Senior Counsel at New York City Law Department. Werner attended school at the Trinity School NYC for 13 years where he was a class Senator, and a multi-year Varsity Letter earner for Cross Country, Swimming (Co-Captain) and Lacrosse. He was awarded the Holden Cup, the honor for top athlete in the Senior Class at Trinity. Werner received a degree from Hamilton College (New York) in 1992. He also co-organized the Hamilton's successful campaign to set a Guinness record for the most people swimming in a 24-hour relay, setting the record at 1:42 AM on April 8, 1989. In 2008, Werner was recipient of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1988, Werner gained notability at Hamilton when, as a first-year student, he organized the first ever successful completion of a class-wide challenge issued yearly by Dan Chambliss, Professor of Sociology: If no one in his course showed up for the final exam, all of them would receive an A on