John La Grou

Activist, Engineer, Idea generator, Inventor, Musician, Parent

Husband, father, renaissance spirit. One of three original startup members of Multitech Electronics in Mountain View. After three years of intensive growth, the company name was changed to Acer America. Defined and led the OEM foundation for what is today the world's third largest personal computer company. Founder and chair of POW-r Consortium, the leading audio bit reduction algorithms - used on aprox 1/3 of all streaming and downloaded music (licensed by Apple, ProTools-Avid, Ableton, etc.). "If you listen to music, you listen to POW-r." Founder and CEO of Millennia Media, a leader in design of audio electronics for critical music production. Millennia has received over 35 key industry awards and was recently inducted into the Technology Hall of Fame (2019). Millennia products are embraced by a who's who in popular music, film scoring, and critical acoustic music production. Founder at imersiv, the fourth paradigm of audio architecture. This multi-patented design topology boldly re-imagines a 100X improvement in music capture and delivery - with a 40nV noise floor and 170dB dynamic range from microphone to power amplifier, and everything in-between. Used in the 2035 NASA LISA Gravity Wave mission. Grand Prize winner of the 2025 CTF Design Competition, named "most innovative new technology of 2025" (from a global field of 635 vetted inventions). Co-founder and patent-holder at SafePlug, one of "10 World Changing Ideas" (Scientific American). Innovative electrical products which save lives, save energy, and make the Smart Home smarter - winner of the 2009 and 2012 CES Top Home Innovation Award, a WSIE 2012 Global Hot 100 Company, and CE Pro 2014 Automation Device of the Year. Co-founded Compathos Foundation with Thea, my truelove and muse of four decades. Compathos is a non-profit social action community that invites us to understand ourselves and our world through the eyes of the most vulnerable. Director and Chair at our El Dorado County (CA) Food Bank. Executive producer of Drawn From Water, a multi-award-winning investigative documentary film highlighting the plight of Ethiopia's mingi children (music by Sigur Ros, streaming on Amazon and Netflix). A 2018 Edmund Hillary Fellow and frequent speaker at colleges and technical conferences. My 2009 TED Talk, translated into 30+ languages, has been featured in Fast Company, cNet, Engadget, PopSci, TechCrunch, and dozens of other e-zines and publications. I serve on university and foundation boards and was creator and co-editor of the Wikiklesia Project: a 500-page, forty-author open-source anthology exploring the intersections of spirituality and technology - recipient of the SNCR Award for New Media. Avocations include progressive music (guitarist in the 2012 Thomas Dolby TED House Band!) and ultra-premium wine making in the California Foothills. Listed in Board Options, maintaining lifelong professional affiliations with: Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (Voting Member, Grammy Awards).

Resilient & Regenerative Systems - Emerging Networks - My Family - Self-Organization - P2P - Bridging Free Markets w/ Social Benefit - Infectious Optimism - Clean Air & Water - Immersivity - The Commons - Ethical (and smart) Socioeconomic Proportionality

By adding some low cost enhancements to the common electrical receptacle, we can globally (1) save thousands of lives, (2) prevent tens of thousands of injuries, and (3) eliminate tens of billions of dollars in property loss - every year - while significantly reducing energy consumption.

Four days of rapid-fire creativity with the most gifted and motivated group of people I've ever met in one place. A TED story... In 2006, Guy Kawasaki made me aware of Majora Carter giving a talk at a conference I had never heard of. This was my introduction to TED. Majora's talk touched me deeply and remains today as one of my favorite TEDTalks. Immediately after my 2009 TEDTalk, the first person to come up to me was -- Majora! She was weeping and told me that "...two weeks ago, our friends lost their house in the Bronx to an electrical fire - a fire that your technology would have prevented. Let me know what I can do to help spread the word." We hugged and I wept with her.

SET (but not as good as Nikki or Daniel)