Two new additions to the TEDGlobal 2013 program: Blaise Agüera y Arcas and George Monbiot

If you sped up the scene at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre today, it would look like blurs of red and green streaks — the red from the TED logos on the T-shirts of the crew who are busily setting up for TEDGlobal 2013, and the green from the name badges worn by staff members who are excitedly working on last-minute touches.

TEDGlobal 2013 begins tomorrow, June 10, and will be five days of fascinating talks around the theme Think Again. Adding to the excitement: two new speakers who have been added to the program, software architect Blaise Agüera y Arcas and environmentalist George Monbiot.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas is no stranger to the TED stage – at TED2007, he demoed Photosynth, which channels photos into 3D environments, and at TED2010, he revealed Bing’s augmented-reality maps. He’s a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft (and author Maria Semple revealed that he was the inspiration for the character Elgin Branch in her best-seller Where’d You Go, Bernadette?). So you won’t want to miss his latest demo in Session 2, Those Flying Things.

Meanwhile George Monbiot, the author of the book Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life, is joining Session 1, Moments of Truth. Monbiot, a journalist who writes and makes radio programs about the environment, is the founder of The Land Is Ours, a land right campaign. He argues for repairing the environment by letting nature “find its own way.” If we can restore our lands and our oceans, he says, imagine the sense of awe and wonder that would infuse Planet Earth.

Stay tuned to the TED Blog for our speaker-by-speaker coverage of TEDGlobal 2013.