Curiosity Expert: Daniel Dubno

Founder, "Gadgetoff"; Executive Director, "Hourglass Initiative"

• Daniel Dubno on YouTube

Dan Dubno is founder and Executive Director of The Hourglass Initiative, a non-profit corporation that engages the scientific community in efforts to combat proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by encouraging ethical codes of conduct and by designing secure methods to allow scientists to report rogue efforts to their peers. He founded Blowing Things Up (BTU) LLC., an international consultancy that brings innovative technology to new markets, particularly in the field of homeland security and counter-terrorism with numerous corporate clients. He is an Emmy-award winning TV producer, broadcaster, technologist, presenter, inventor, and "connector". He is a popular speaker at technology, business, and policy conferences around the world.

For seventeen years, Dan Dubno was Producer and Technologist for the CBS Evening News and supervised Special Events coverage of wars, terrorism, natural and manmade disasters, and elections. While supervising 9/11 coverage for CBS News, Dubno was also a consultant to New York City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management during the World Trade Center disaster. He supervised "pool coverage" of imagery while assisting with GIS mapping tools for rescue, recovery, and public information efforts. At CBS, Dubno created the comprehensive CBS News DIsasterlinks web resource and designed the first advanced real-time web-based earthquake public information system in collaboration with USGS and Google Earth.

He is a pioneer in the use of powerful graphic technologies, satellite imagery, and visualization tools for news and disaster coverage. He introduced the first systematic use of 3D animations in nightly news broadcasts; the use of virtual sets, 3-D visualizations, and touch screens in news; and dozens of other technologies now seen regularly on broadcasts. His over thirty years of experience at CBS News and PBS garnered multiple Emmy Awards and commendations. At CBS News, Dubno produced and authored comprehensive editorial coverage regarding hurricane preparedness, tornados, cyclones, terrorism, chemical and biological weapons threats, etc., and was responsible for selecting and hiring on-camera experts in these areas.

While at CBS, Dubno appeared on-camera as Digital Dan and humorously introduced America to important (and occasionally frivolous) new technologies. He continues to write a column for the Huffington Post and technology and policy reviews for websites and science magazines. His success in "Bringing the Smart and Useless Together" led him to cofound the annual Gadgetoff, a notorious, invitation-only technology celebration for the world's leading technology disruptors in New York City.

At the 2002 and 2003 TED Conference, Dubno debuted the Keyhole software imagery program and introduced this earth-viewing technology to his friends at Google. This resulted in Google's acquisition of Keyhole which led to "Google Earth." At CBS News, Dubno developed the first system to map real-time news feeds and the latest detailed visualization of live earthquake data over Google Earth.

Dubno is a frequent guest lecturer at universities including Columbia, Barnard, the Kennedy School of Government, MIT, West Point, and Renmin University in Beijing, on disaster coverage, focusing on interactions between first responders and the print, broadcast, and internet media. Dubno routinely presents at prominent international conferences including TED, the World Economic Forum, DLD, EG, etc., on methods for stimulating innovation and integrating "disruptive" technology innovations in government, corporations, and non-governmental agencies. In addition, as Executive Director of the Hourglass Initiative, Dubno is frequently invited to address issues involving scientific ethics, WMD proliferation, and web-based tools for countering terrorist threats at technology and security conferences across the United States and in countries including Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Dubai, Germany, France, South Korea, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, etc.

Dubno was on-camera host and co-author of education efforts by the Open Geospatial Consortium to lead agencies to adopt uniform data standards to improve disaster management. He has been keynote speaker at FEMA national events related to hurricane and other disaster coverage and for the Office of Naval Research and DHS regarding transformational technologies in the fight against terror. Dubno testified before the OMB and the President's Office of Science and Technology about new web-based methods to inform the public about disasters and terrorism. He was a consultant for the Pacific Disaster Information Center regarding public information, web strategies, and new tools and was keynote speaker at the Pacific Disaster Conference.

Dubno was chair of the Radio and Television News Directors Association Task Force on Remote Sensing, and an advisory committee member of the Department of Interior's National Imagery Archive. He's been a consultant to numerous science museums including the Liberty Science Center, the New York Hall of Science, and the American Museum of Natural History. He's been on the Board of Governors of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, a member of journalism advisory boards for Rutgers University, and Queens College, and was adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and School of Engineering.

Dubno was a member of the scientific party in May 2005 in Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution's expedition to the geothermal vents in the Galapagos Rift, and explored the "Rosebud" field nearly two-miles below the ocean surface in the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin. He is "Ambassador" for the FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology which mentors students to pursue careers in science and engineering.