The Rockefeller Foundation and PopTech have announced the inaugural recipients of the Bellagio/PopTech Fellows program, a collaborative incubator that works to foster ideas for improving the lives of poor and vulnerable populations.

This year's fellows will focus on how technology and data can contribute to the creation of more resilient communities. They are Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a visiting professor at the MIT Center for Civic Media; Gustavo Faleiros, a Brazilian environmental journalist and media trainer; Amy Luers, director of climate change at the Skoll Global Threats Fund; Patrick Meier, director of social innovation at the Qatar Foundation's Computing Research Institute; and Jer Thorp, an artist and educator whose work explores the boundaries between science and art.

Together with guest "catalysts" from the arts, mathematics, and the nonprofit world, each fellow will consider questions about the production, ownership, openness, veracity, social life, and limits of big data. The program also will serve as a laboratory for the study of the nature of collaboration itself as a profound tool for creative problem-solving and solution development.