Among our guests we were lucky to have Zurich based Sandboxer Dominik Grolimund. Dominik just received the 2009 Swiss ICT Award for his company Wuala, a technology firm with a revolutionary approach for secure online storage. Dominik discussed cyber-security with future Sandboxer Jade Nester, who is an international telecommunications expert in the Office of Communication and Information Policy at the US Department of State. Sandboxer Nils Remmel, who is visiting Washington for several weeks to conduct PhD research at the IMF, had an engaging conversation with law student Mike Raykher about the recent financial collapse.

It was also a great pleasure to welcome four new members to the Washington DC Sandbox scene, including Eric Kuhn (a rising journalist, commentator, and Audience Interaction Producer at CNN), Nick O’Neill (Founder of Socialtimes.com and well known social media expert), Alexander Zachary Girod (Founder Legal River), and Arthur Sabintsev (PhD student studying theoretical nuclear physics while writing popular Firefox extensions on the side).

Future Sandboxer Don Ball (Founder of Global Catalyst Group—an organization with similar values and goals as Sandbox) shared his vision for empowering Gen Y leaders with a voice in tackling some of the major challenges facing our generation. We were also excited to have future Sandboxer Robbie Gross (media coordinator for Newt Gingrich), talented photojournalist Mark Abramson, technology enthusiast George Ivanov, and up and coming Georgetown entrepreneur Crystal Ding. Future members Denis Baranov and Anton Zolotov shared their experience working on a new start up they hope will revolutionize online event publishing.

As all Sandbox dinners, Friday’s gathering generated fresh ideas, contacts, and future collaborations. With the continued expansion of the DC Sandbox community, we hope to create even further inter-city collaboration between our US Sandbox hubs in New York City, San Francisco, and other growing Sandbox hubs around the world.

Paul Gleger is Head of US Business Marketing and is the Washington DC Sandbox Ambassador. He has been part of the energetic Sandbox team for over two months and loves telling others about Sandbox’s mission to connect the most inspiring young leaders and innovators from around the world.

I have been reading and hearing about the so-called “superstring theory” quite often, but I was always sure that this is something that only theoretical physicists could even begin to understand. After all, the idea that the universe consists of tiny strings that vibrate in 11 dimensions (some of which are “rolled up”) does sound rather weird, doesn’t it?

But then I saw this video from the TED conference. Here at Sandbox, we admire TED for the way they manage to bring different people together, and for their high-quality presentations. This presentation from string theorist Brian Greene is a perfect example: Within 20 minutes, Greene manages to explain the theory in a simple, non-technical way. Now I really feel that I understood what it’s all about. Sort of.

What do you think of the presentation? Are there other theories or phenomena that you would like to have explained in this way?

PS. In unrelated news, Sandbox founder Antoine just turned 25 yesterday. Happy birthday from the rest of the team! If you want to congratulate Antoine as well, post a comment here or send him a message on Twitter.