Randall Munroe

The keynotes by Randall Munroe are always highly entertaining, thanks to the comic's deadpan sense of humor. The CNU graduate studied physics before working as a roboticist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.

Beyond his passion for math and science, Munroe is a talented web cartoonist. He began the arbitrarily named webcomic 'xkcd,' which garners millions of views per month. In 2007, Wired described xkcd, writing, "the comic is itself a language -- a way for people who are unpracticed at talking about their emotions to articulate them."

Munroe also runs a blog, titled 'What If?,' which specializes in answering hypothetical "what if?" questions submitted by users. He enjoys musing over these fanciful hypotheticals, considering it a bonus if he can "put boxes around it and make it a comic."