Creative Thinkers of 2011.

1. Eric Dishman/Intel: 

Intel's director of health innovation, Eric is responsible for driving Intel's worldwide research, new product innovation and usability engineering activities in the healthcare area. Dishman joined Intel in 1999 as a senior researcher, and has been involved in a variety of research and management roles related to Intel's consumer and healthcare businesses. Trained as a social scientist, he has been involved with bringing an ethnographic approach to Intel's research and product development efforts. According to Eric, Healthcare needs tech based solutions based in communities and homes, focused on empowering patients to manage their own health and change their behavior as necessary. His goal is to enable 50% of care in the U.S. to be delivered in the home by 2020. "That's game-changing for quality of life, and a trillion dollars in potential savings."

2. Alex Kipman/Microsoft:

The man who incubated the game console, Kinect. Kinect was previously called the Project Natal, a Brazilian c

ity name as a tribute to the country by Brazilian-born Microsoft Director. The name Natal was also chosen because the word natal means "of or relating to birth", reflecting Microsoft's view of the project as "the birth of the next generation of home entertainment". Since its release in November, Kinect -- which consists of a depth sensor, microphones, and a motion camera tracking 20 points on the body in three-dimensional space--has inspired not only sales (some 10 million units) but also excitement among tinkerers who will soon have a Kinect software-development kit to advance their pet projects in, say, robotics or 3-D mapping. "This is a new era," says Kipman, "and it's going to require a ton of pioneering, a ton of innovation, and a ton of incubation. That's not going to happen all within Microsoft."

3. Chris Cox/Facebook:

Christopher Cox is called the 'triple threat' for the simple reason that Chris has mastered in three different ski

lls- an engineer who can build company-defining products, an operator who can recruit and manage good people, and a long-term strategic thinker. Chris, a math nerd who loved science friction went on to do the legendary Symbolic Systems program at Stanford, and into post-graduate work in the university's natural language processing group. "I loved artificial intelligence -- it seemed like the craziest and most expansive thing in the Stanford course reader," said Cox. When Facebook came calling, Cox passed at first. "I didn't think they were working on solving a serious problem." But after a series of meetings, a picture emerged in his mind. "I could see an unencumbered ability for people to communicate with each other," he says. "I saw it as a map -- a modern form of cartography, but of relationships and people." Cox envisions a future in which what your friends recommend on social networks plays a bigger role in what you buy, do, or watch on TV.

4. Andy Mooney/Disney:

Andrew Mooney was the Chairman of Disney Consumer Products (DCP). Mooney has been credited with pioneering the $4

billion Disney Princess franchise, an idea that Mooney says struck him at a Disney on Ice performance a few years earlier. Under Mooney's leadership and the DCP umbrella are The Baby Einstein Company, Disney Publishing Worldwide and newly re-acquired retail chain The Disney Store. "To make your mark, you have to do things other people thought were insane," says Andy Mooney. He is also behind Disney Baby onesies, which will be doled out to new moms in the hospital mere moments after they give birth.

5. Sebastian Thrun/Google:

When Sebastian was growing up in Germany, a car accident killed a childhood friend, and last November, anot

her accident claimed the life of a coworker. Both crashes were avoidable. Both the accidents instigated him to develop robotic cars that drive more safely. His invention also won government's $2 million DARPA challenge. His vehicle drove itself across the 132-mile desert racecourse. After which he hired two of his competitors to join him at Google. Each car is equipped with sensors that gather millions of data points per second about the surroundings and differentiate cars, pedestrians, birds, you name it. The unmanned vehicles of theirs have driven more than 140,000 miles till date.

6. Scott Forstall/Apple:

If Jonathan Ives astonishes people with his impressive designs of Apple, Scoot Forstall makes Apple experience

smooth with his smart software. s senior VP of iPhone software, Forstall is the chief architect of iOS, the industry-defining operating system that runs on more than 160 million iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Forstall, who went to work for Jobs right out of college, is one of the key architects of Apple's current success. His name is on about 50 Apple patents that cover everything from how application icons are laid out on the iPhone screen to the method of turning off a device with a finger swipe. On a crucial 2009 patent for a touchscreen device controlled by finger commands, 'Forstall, Scott' is listed second, right after 'Jobs, Steven P.' In many ways, Forstall is a mini-Steve. He's a hard-driving manager who obsesses over every detail. He has Jobs's knack for translating technical, feature-set jargon into plain English.

7. Chetan Bhagat/Writer:

Chetan Bhagat's four best sellers have sold almost 4 million books since 2004. Bhagat, also an op-ed columnist

in both Hindi and English newspapers, focusing on youth and issues based on national development is beloved. He knows his demographic of 21st-century global workers, as reflected by the plots and themes in books such as One Night @ the Call Center. In 2008, The New York Times called Bhagat "the biggest selling English language novelist in India's history".

8. Trevor Edwards/Nike:

Trevor Edwards sounds more like an existential philosopher than a marketing chief. "You bought a running shoe, a

football boot, for a reason. Now, who do you want to become?" he wonders. To respond -- "to make data more motivational" -- Edwards, Nike's VP of global brand management, has launched an array of simple tools (like wearable sensors linked to social apps and online communities) that record workouts, offer sophisticated coaching, and encourage support from friends -- for everyone from future elite athletes to regular folks seeking well-being.