In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Curve Theatre
60 Rutland Street
Leicester, Leicestershire, LE1 1SB
United Kingdom

An Eclectic Trio of Creative Entrepreneurs

Janie Morgan-Wood is founder and chair of the Leicester Textiles Trust which aims to celebrate local textiles history, ignite innovation and deliver the ‘right’ skills. Jim Willis is co-founder and MD of award winning digital agency Bulb Studios. Jim has a background in launching and scaling startups. His career started as a sound installation artist. Owner / creative director of social enterprise – Watch This Space and Designer / maker of label SMWalker, spent the first year after graduating in 2011 featuring in national and international galleries, solo exhibitions and fashion weeks and then set up a pop-up shop in Leicester city centre.

Cast of Adrian Mole The Musical

Young performers from Curve Leicester's production of Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 and 3 quarters: The Musical

Multiple Speakers

A open mic opportunity at Ted X Leicester.

Pre-TedX Student Workshop Winners

Pre-TedX Student Workshop Winners.

Andy Collop

Professor Andy Collop is Deputy Vice-Chancellor at De Montfort University where he has responsibility for day-to-day academic leadership in addition to overseeing the University’s Research and Innovation agenda. This presentation highlights the ways in which De Montfort’s University contributes to the fabric and culture of the City of Leicester through strong local strategic, cultural and business partnerships. DMU is the most-improved university in the UK, according to The Sunday Times league tables. This year the Complete University Guide also rated DMU, naming us in the UK’s top 40 universities for best student experience. Our hugely successful graduates have gone onto work at world-leading companies such as Warner Bros, HSBC, Nike, KPMG, BBC, Gucci, Abercrombie and Fitch, BMW, Levi’s, NASA, Disney, IBM and Adidas.

Charles Landry

Fiona Allan

Fiona’s career in the cultural sector has spanned both artistic leadership – as Head of Programming at the Sydney Opera House, and Artistic Director of Wales Millennium Centre – and executive leadership – including roles of Chief Executive Officer of the Sydney Film Festival, and now Curve. Since joining Curve in 2011, she has led a programme of organisational development which has seen significant increases in audiences, expansion of Curve’s learning, participation and community activity, increased use of Curve for major national conferences, and recognition of Curve as a driver of Leicester’s social, cultural and economic development. Fiona sits on the national boards for UK Theatre and Dance Consortium UK, and locally on the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) and the City Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Board.

Jawaahir Daahir

Writer, Journalist, Researcher, Social Worker and Somali Diaspora Consultant. Founder and CEO of Somali Development Services and worked as a Social Worker in The Netherlands. She has twenty years of proven management, directorship and developmental skills within the Voluntary and Community Sector. Moreover, she was member of ITV Midlands Diversity Advisory Panel, Leicestershire Multicultural Advisory Group, Community Governor in Upland Junior Primary School and she is a member of Independent Advisory Group for the Leicestershire Police. She is acknowledged locally, regionally and nationally for her work in supporting local disadvantaged communities. Lately she has been honoured with British Empire Medal by Her Majesty, The Queen for her work in Leicester. Her published work includes: Lead researcher of ‘Somalis in Leicester’, 2014 Co-editor of Somali-English book; Somalia to Europe: Leicester – 2011 Somali-Dutch migration to Leicester-UK, 2006

Jo Tallack

Jo Tallack is the General Manager at Highcross. Originally from Somerset , Jo has brought an outsider’s view to the centre and the city. Jo dreamt of a theatrical career but studying Media at college turned her towards scenery and dress design. Progressing from shopfloor to management in Debenhams, she worked for Woolworths and WestQuay Shopping centre before being head-hunted for Highcross. Jo uses all her skills, strengths and interests in her daily work: from storytelling to children in store, appreciation of retail, working the shop floor, high pressure deadlines, and ensuring she engages with the customers and city stakeholders.

Joe Allen

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Josie Fraser

Josie Fraser is a UK-based Social and Educational Technologist. Since June 2010, she has lead on technology for Leicester City Council’s multi-million pound Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Programme. She is responsible for setting, promoting and delivering on a city wide agenda for educational transformation in relation to the use of technology within schools. She developed and leads on the DigiLit Leicester staff development project, designed to raise digital literacy skills and awareness across Leicester’s secondary schools workforce, to enhance practice and in turn raise learner engagement and achievement. The project is a partnership between the Council, De Montfort University, and 23 secondary schools. In September 2013, the project achieved recognition as one of five global winners of the Reclaim Open Learning innovation 2013 competition, organised by the MacArthur Foundation, The Digital Media and Learning Hub, and MIT Media Lab.

Karen Chouhan

Karen has lived in Leicester since 1975 when she studied Philosophy at the University of Leicester. She is a currently a Leicester Organiser for the Workers Educational Association at the 101 Hinckley Road Centre and the Chair of Healthwatch Leicester. Previously she worked for 30+ years in equality campaigning organisations nationally and locally and in Higher, Further and Community Education. Her passion for justice and education has led to several awards – one of which was from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust –with the accolade ‘Visionary for a just and peaceful world’ in 2005. Senior lecturer at De Montfort University, 1988 – 2000, programme leader for the MA in Community Education. She founded Equanomics UK, which is based on the premise that economic justice is the route to social justice. Through Equanomics UK Karen organised two UK tours with the Reverend Jesse Jackson to highlight economic injustice.

Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor has been Chief Executive of the RSA since November 2006. During this time the Society has substantially increased its output of research and innovation, has provided new routes to support charitable initiatives of its 26,000 Fellows – including crowd funding – and has developed a global profile as a platform for ideas. Prior to this appointment, Matthew was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister. Matthew is a regular media performer having appeared several times on the Today Programme, The Daily Politics and Newsnight. He had written and presented several Radio Four documentaries and is a panellist on the programme Moral Maze. He has written for newspapers including the FT and Observer and journals including Management Today and the Municipal Journal. He has posted over a thousand times on his RSA blog site and tweets as RSAMatthew.

Nat Powers

Nat Powers is a British lyricist, song writer, record producer and poet from Leicester who has become one of the first British musicians to work with hip-hop figures such as Run-DMC, Spice One , Wu Tang and form relationships with a majority of the iconic Death Row Records roster. He is also working on a film project in Malawi, Africa; and is currently responsible for setting up a publishing and media venture, which will be producing a breakthrough Leicester based magazine, designed to make a change to the city, and the rest of the world by embracing culture and creativity.

Nayna Bhikha

In 1999, Nayna was diagnosed with lymphoma, then with a brain tumour and chronic fatigue. She used spiritual and self-healing methods to address her ill health. Through Grace, Nayna experienced a life changing shift in perspective, a moving into an incredible deep inner peace. She recognised this reconnection to be a truly Magnificent Resource that she believes dwells within us all to access and live from as we face life’s challenges. The cancer had spontaneously resolved, but the brain tumour was removed by neurosurgery in 2006. A second brain tumour was diagnosed in 2009, symptoms of which are being faced with a transformed life view and showing recovery. Nayna shares all that she has experienced and come to understand about; self-healing, quantum reality and the Divine nature of Life to help others reconnect to their awesome Power of Love.

Professor Kevin Schurer

Professor Kevin Schürer is Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at the University of Leicester. Before coming to Leicester he was Director of the UK Data Archive, a member of the internationally-renowned Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, and taught in the Department of History, University of Essex, also serving as Research Director and Director of the Centre for Local and Regional History. He is an Academician of the Academy for the Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Geographical Society, and a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Kevin was the bio genealogical researcher as part of the team identifying the remains of Richard III in Leicester. He is also a Trustee of Big Difference Company which runs Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival.

Professor Monder Ram

Monder Ram joined Birmingham Business School from De Montfort University in September 2013 where he was Professor of Small Business and Director of Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME). He is a leading authority on small business and ethnic minority entrepreneurship research and has published widely. Monder Ram was responsible for initiating the annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference in 1998, now the most important event in the calendar for disseminating policy and research on ethnic minority firms. He was named as one of the country’s most influential Asians by the Institute of Asian Professionals and was awarded an OBE in the 2004.

Rick Moore

Rick has 30 years experience as a Justice of the Peace, and brings a strong understanding of the law and its application across a breadth of areas including property and development, HR, environment, and criminal and civil law. He also has 40 years experience in the property market in the East Midlands including land acquisitions and negotiation, valuation and development advice, environment and planning considerations, project management, and marketing in the residential and commercial sectors, for corporate and private clients. He is Chair of the Board of a number of significant sub-regional, regional and national agencies and companies Including Chair – Healthwatch Leicestershire Director, Homecom Charity Trustee and Chairman,Hope against Cancer Charity Chair, Leicester Miller Education Company, charged with delivery of £235m of “Building Schools for the Future” funds Chair of Governors of Fullhurst Community College Chair, Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation

Sarah Levitt

Sarah Levitt was born 05/06/1956 in Macclesfield, Cheshire and grew up in Leek, Staffordshire. A BA in Art History and an MA in the History of Dress were followed by work at Platt Hall Gallery of English Costume, Manchester City Art Galleries, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Gunnersbury Park Museum, West London. She came to Leicester in 1997 as Head of Museums, and became Head of Arts and Museums in 2006. Sarah is a fellow of the Museums Association and has written and lectured extensively on a range of subjects related to museums. Since 2010 Sarah and her team have been closely involved in the search for King Richard III, his discovery, the creation of the King Richard III Visitor Centre, and the reinterment programme

Shami Chakrabarti

Shami Chakrabarti has been Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) since September 2003. Shami first joined Liberty as In-House Counsel on 10 September 2001. She became heavily involved in its engagement with the ‘War on Terror’ and with the defence and promotion of human rights values in Parliament, the Courts and wider society. A Barrister by background, she was called to the Bar in 1994 and worked as a lawyer in the Home Office from 1996 until 2001 for Governments of both persuasions. Since becoming Liberty’s Director she has written, spoken and broadcast widely on the importance of the post-WW2 human rights framework as an essential component of democratic society. She was born in London and studied Law at the London School of Economics. She is Chancellor of Essex University and a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. Shami’s first book, On Liberty, was published by Allen Lane in October 2014.

Verity Hancock

Verity grew up in Hertfordshire and went to a local comprehensive. On gaining a law degree from Oxford University in 1988 she pursued a career in Further Education, beginning with roles at the City and Guilds of London Institute and with Training and Enterprise Councils in the capital. On the creation of the Learning and Skills Council in 2001 she moved into senior management, holding a number of positions including Regional Director for the East Midlands and National Director of Funding, Planning and Performance. Most recently a senior civil servant with the Skills Funding Agency in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Verity was appointed Principal and Chief Executive of Leicester College in January 2013. She is a Governor of Babington College in the city, a member of the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership’s People Board and of NIACE’s Further Education Advisory Group.