Max Henrion
California - USA
Lumina Decision Systems

Biography:

Max Henrion has been trying for about 30 years to figure out what computers are "good" for. He likes to create software tools to help individuals and groups make decisions more openly and effectively. He is now working on a new project for online deliberation.

Max is the Founder and CEO of Lumina Decision Systems, a company based in Los Gatos, California. Lumina publishes decision-support software and offers consulting and training in effective decision making. Max is the lead designer of Lumina's Analytica software for creating and communicating quantitative models for business and public policy. He also designed the Jeeves Advisor, an online consumer advice engine, offered by Ask Jeeves, where he was VP of Decision Technology.

Max has been Consulting Professor in Medical Informatics at Stanford, and Associate Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He coauthored a book "Uncertainty", published by Cambridge UP, and over 60 scholarly and several unscholarly articles on decision analysis, psychology, public policy, and artificial intelligence. He has a PhD from the Heinz School of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon, Master of Design from the Royal College of Art, London, and BA in Natural Science from Emmanuel College Cambridge. These days he teaches meditation to prison inmates.

What's a recent movie you've seen and enjoyed and why?

"Doing time, doing Vipassana" is an amazing documentary made by two Israeli women on meditation in prisons in India. Karen Bidi, the Inspector General of Indian prisons, arranged meditation courses at Tihar, one of India's largest and harshest prisons. This beautiful film shows how Vipassana meditation dramatically improved the behavior and attitudes of inmates and jailers. This approach is being widely adopted in India, and a few places elsewhere including the US. (http://www.dhamma.org/dtdv.htm)

Pick a favorite technology and explain how it makes the world a better place?

I hope it's not too self-serving to mention Analytica, the software which I designed. Analytica is a visual tool for creating and communicating policy models. It is designed to make quantitative models more transparent, so as to foster more informed and productive debate about assumptions and implications. Applications of Analytica include integrated assessments of air quality, acid rain and emissions trading, the human effects of global climate change, food and water availability in West Africa, and balancing beluga populations with Inuit whale hunting. (More at www.lumina.com)

2-3 questions or issues that you hope we'll address at the "Deepening Online Deliberation" meeting?

* What are the best tools available for creating and managing online deliberation for a town?
* How do you make online deliberation about our society more engaging to people who claim to be "not interested in politics"?
* How might we substantially expand the use of online deliberation for major policy decisions over the next few years?