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EVERY YEAR, WE AT TIME DIGITAL CHOOSE THE 12 MEN AND

women who are doing the most to shape the future of tech-

nology. And every year, it gets a little harder. When this

magazine was first launched, most technology actually was“digital.” Now it’s organic, prosthetic, aesthetic, pharmaceutical, sub-

orbital and goodness knows what else. In this month’s installment, we

profile a fashion designer, a space-travel impresario and a high-tech

philanthropist. And in 2027, who knows? It’s still up in the air.

P H O T O - I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y N I C K K O U D I S F O R T I M E D I G I T A L

The Divine Nine Cotillionboldly went where no party

had gone before: outer space

THIS FALL, WHEN NINTENDO HEIRESS AYUMI MIYAMOTO

seized the Milan runways and unveiled Princess Peach

International’s Web Wear line, everyone present knew

they were seeing the future of the frock.

“Ever since my parents founded Princess Peach,” the dazzling

fashion mogul announced to a rapt audience, “our corporate goal

has been to unite high style and high functionality, not just for the

fashion elite but for the whole world. Our new design partner in

New York, Wu Wear, finally brings us to the heights of a truly global

cybergreen aesthetic. Combining our already extensive grassroots

retail and village networks, and with confirmed support from the

marketing wing of United Popstarz, Princess Peach and Wu Wear

Micro-Textiles will globally dominate street trends throughout

the 2026 season.”

A bold prediction, but Ayumi and Princess Peach have the

chops—and the chips—to back it up.

Princess Peach was the first to make so-called downloadable

clothing not only practical, but chic. A Princess Peach garment

comes in the form of a limp bundle of nondescript cloth. It be-

comes wearable only when the buyer downloads a design to a CPU

woven into the material—whereupon it instantly configures itself.

From Hong Kong to Samarkand, Princess Peach’s clientele

can change the color, shape, texture and design of any

Web Wear garment literally at the touch of a button.

Custom variations are also available via satellite

and lapel omnicom.

Princess Peach has more going for it than high

style and great gear: Miyamoto has repeatedly

crushed the competition with sheer practicality. The

Web Wear sheath is composed of hybridized, neo-

organic fibers, which auto-sterilize in sunlight, swiftly

vaporizing bacteria and debris. Not only do these gar-

ments make polluting detergents a thing of the past,

but they are especially popular in the many parts of

the planet where water is in short supply. “Ayumi was

the first businesswoman to bring true haute couture

to the planet’s majority populations,” says Giacomo

Petrinelli, chief parfumier of EuroBoutique. “All we’ve

done is follow her footsteps into the huge emerging mar-

was on, and since that unforgettable night vacationers and conven-

tioneers have been clamoring for tickets into space.

As a result of the cotillion’s success, Rococo persuaded

the prestigious Winfrey-Cosby Institute to establish Satellite

University, an internationally accredited post-graduate center for

higher learning, which attracts the cream of the Divine Nine

pledges, as well as other elite students from around the world.

“Satellite University has become an international portal, provid-

ing people of all nations with access to data, education and other

resources,” says Zeca Moreno, chief coordinator of the Winfrey-

Cosby Institute. “In a nation that often seems lethargic, spoiled

and obsessed with trivia, Pearl Rococo has become a symbol of

hope, of striving ambition—and the standard-bearer of a high-

tech revolution for all.”

34

AYUMI MIYAMOTOCEO, PRINCESS PEACH INTERNATIONAL

FOR DECADES, THERE’S BEEN TALK OF PRIVATIZING THE

space effort—but it took one of America’s best-known

socialites to make it happen.

Of course, Pearl Rococo is much more than a party maven.

An Internet mogul, content producer and renowned philan-

thropist, she first caught the public eye as a prime mover in the

Urban Renaissance that revitalized America’s inner cities in the

first decade of this century. What would she do for an encore?

“Everybody kind of snickered when Pearl’s 40 Acres Initiative

bought that rusty real estate in Canaveral, Fla.,” recalls society

doyenne Courtney Pulitzer. “But the project really took off.”

Rebuilding the decrepit Kennedy Space Center was relatively

easy; new magnetic launch tracks instantly made civilian space

travel a smooth, nonpolluting ride. But the trick was turning an

old, disused orbiting space station into America’s ultimate enter-

tainment destination. And that’s where Rococo’s matchless talents

as a hostess came into play.

Each year, the Divine Nine Cotillion hosts ranking members

of all nine African-American fraternities and sororities. For the

last decade, this event—which also determines America’s social

trends for the year—has been held at New York’s Colonel Guion

Bluford Pavilion. But last year, Rococo had another idea: to turn

the Divine Nine into history’s first outer-space party.

It wasn’t easy. Her proposal brought stiff protests from the

Earl Graves Foundation, which is affiliated with the Omega Psi Phi

Fraternity and owns Bluford Pavilion. “Ms. Rococo’s initiative is

an affront to Colonel Bluford’s memory, to a cherished tradition,

and, in particular, to Omega Psi Phi,” declared Earl Graves III,

Omega Psi Phi’s representative to the Cotillion Planning Com-

mittee. Rococo smoothed these ruffled feathers by arranging

generous donations to the Graves

Foundation from the Unit-

ed Sisters of Zeta Phi

Beta, Alpha Kappa Al-

pha and Sigma Gam-

ma Rho. The party

PEARL ROCOCO FOUNDER, ROCOCO DIGITAL ENTERPRISES

HAIR: YUSEFF; MAKEUP: DON ROKICKI; STYLIST: JOE DELATE; STYLIST ASSISTANT: HADLEY HAUT; WARDROBE:VERSACE, VIVIANE TAM, CARMEN MARK VALVO, KALINKA, ADRIEN LANDAU, PAN-ZAI, NEW YORK INDUSTRY,NORMA KAMALI, TUFI DUEK; JEWELRY: NOIR

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ASK CAITLIN GATES ABOUT THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE SHE

faced in 2025. She’ll tell you it wasn’t her day job as chief

of Microsofts 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, nor her recent biotech spin-

off MicroBioSoft. It wasn’t her role as the guiding force behind

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which began 2022 as the

world’s wealthiest philanthropic institution and finished as the

world’s wealthiest institution, period. It wasn’t even her triumphant

recapturing of the World Chess Federation championship from

archnemesis Flaming Indigo TX4040.

“My single greatest challenge,” confesses the 24-year-old mega-

mogul as she relaxes in her traditional, highly wired Seattle family

home, “was beating my dad at Age of Empires. He just loves those

classic computer games.”

Whatever she says, Gates changed the world this year when she

announced that the Gates Foundation would launch the long-

awaited third phase in its Global Charitable Initiative. “The world

is finally ready for laptops,” said Gates at a steering committee

meeting in December. “Our broad-based sub-Saharan irrigation pro-

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CAITLIN GATESDIRECTOR, BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION

kets of Africa, China and Indonesia. And besides, she is just so chic!”

It’s no wonder that Miyamoto’s innovative approach dominates

couture across the developing world. And here in America, wearing

a single all-purpose work and party suit allows millions to use a lit-

tle extra capital for their favorite sport: stock speculation. Many put

their nest eggs into Princess Peach—and who can blame them?

gram, combined with Gates-sponsored agriculture genetic engi-

neering research, has effectively stemmed the tide of world

hunger. AIDS, malaria, cholera, ebola, tuberculosis—our medical

branch has eradicated every one of these killers. We can now

return to our original agenda, the one we began some 30 years

ago: universal access to computers and to the Net.”

The fourth and youngest child of Microsoft’s legendary

founder, Caitlin Gates grew up in the brave new world of high-

tech mega-philanthropy. The digital economy of the 1990s

created personal fortunes of unprecedented magnitude—

“gazillionaire” became an official entry in the Oxford English Dic-tionary in 2002. As a result, organizations like the Gates Foun-

dation and the eBay Institute for Global Economic Reform used

their financial clout to attack disease, hunger and illiteracy on a

scale never previously imagined. Caitlin Gates’ precocity—she

gained early notoriety by proving Goldbach’s Conjecture

at age 9—convinced her father to hand her the reins of the

foundation and the Baby Bills in 2015, when he retired to

pursue his first love, water skiing.

What does the year ahead hold for Gates and her many

trillions? She’s already invested heavily in efforts to mine the

asteroid belt for silicon. Once those shipments reach Earth, she’s

hoping to build and give away enough computers to raise the

planet’s computers-to-humans ratio as high as 20 to 1. Of course,

no one will be surprised to learn that those billions of comput-

ers will run—what else?—Microsoft software.

And then? “More of Age of Empires,” she says, with complete

seriousness. “Dad wants a rematch.” π

(The Digital Dozen continues in our next issue)

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