Larry Brilliant, Chief Philanthropy Evangelist, Google.org: "I feel like FiRe is my home, the place I come back to every year. It's great to see old friends."

Lee Hartwell, Nobelist, and President and Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center: "I found the meeting a delightful coming-together of highly motivated and accomplished people with a strong interest in using their talents and resources for the social good."

Bruce Sterling, Science Fiction Author: "I prophesized something like this FiRe conference in 1998, a new artistic and social movement - the Viridian Movement. Green tech is advancing as fast as global warming. The new cyber solar and wind energy systems are different entities from the old Dutch windmills. It's a 30-year overnight success."

Ricardo Salinas, CEO, Grupo Salinas: "I'm glad I came. FiRe has been extremely enlightening, and I am happy about that. The whole issue of climate change has taken on a new perspective for me. This is my first time at FiRe, and I have had the opportunity to meet lots of very interesting new people."

David Brin, Author and Physicist: "The future is made by hard-nosed optimists, and there are few places where you'll get as fine a mix of horizon technologies, economic insight, and focused truth-telling than at FiRe."

Jerry Woodall, National Medal of Technology Laureate and Distinguished Professor of Elec. and Comp. Eng., Purdue University: "As both education and research professionals, [Dr. Nancy Bulger] and I have attended hundreds of conferences, meetings, and workshops. We found FiRe 2008, our first FiRe, to be the best meeting we have ever attended, bar none."

William A Haseltine, Ph.D.; President, The William A. Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts: "The FiRe conference is an excellent opportunity to view cutting-edge emergent technology for the most relevant applications presented in a compelling manner by leaders in their field in an intimate and delightful setting."

Erik Blachford, CEO, TerraPass Inc.: "As usual, the insights [at FiRe] flowed fast and furious, not only on the panels, but at all the breaks and social events."

Stephen Evans, Presenter, Business Daily, BBC World Service "Every time I do one of these [FiRe] sessions, I feel more and more enthused, and feel better about humanity."

Larry Smarr, Director, Calit2 ["The FiRe Lab"], UCSD: "It was a great thrill for me and all of the Calit2 staff to see the level of response from such a high-level audience. I have next year on the calendar and will start planning for it now."

Bruce Harned, President, MarketFit Associates: "FiRe is truly the unifying force in technology. This year's "Rapid Response" theme empowered many disparate disciplines into an amazing core of innovation, action, and hope about the Earth's future."