Theme: Light + Dark

TEDxReykjavík was held for the fifth time on May 16th 2015 in Tjarnarbíó. The event presented Iceland’s most captivating and enlightening speakers, along with a few from abroad. All of the speakers will share with the audience their passion and their vision in a full-day event, filled with inspiration and eye-opening encounters.

This year, at TEDxReykjavík, we explored areas that we as a society often choose to ignore. Our aim was to shed light in the shadows and find ideas worth sharing.

We looked at conflicting ideas and ask ourselves: How can something that most of us find disgusting, just possibly be our best hope to survive and flourish in the future? What can we learn from the misfits of our society? How do we talk to each other about difficult issues?

By bringing taboos into the light of day, we can learn much. By embracing difficult topics we become more whole.

Tjarnabío
Tjarnargata 12
101, Reykjavík
Iceland

Arnoddur Magnús Danks

Arnoddur Magnús (Max) Danks is an actor, fight director, stunt man and teacher. He teaches kids the value of taking calculated risks, fighting individual fears and to realize that no matter how difficult things are or how frightening, they can always break through the barrier and go further, do more and allow themselves to fail without giving up.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a poetician for the Pirate Party in the Icelandic parliament. She is a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper, and had the honor to guest edit the January edition 2015 of the New Internationalist titled Democracy in the Digital era. She firmly believes individuals can change the world.

Búi Aðalsteinsson

Búi Aðalsteinsson and Stefán Thoroddsen shared a passion of finding ways to satisfy people's needs of eating healthy and natural food products, that are also made in a more sustainable way than we have gotten used to. Combining their skills in product design, business and marketing, they founded Crowbar Protein in June 2014, a company that makes food products with edible insects.

Gísli Ólafsson

Gísli Rafn Ólafsson officially became a disaster geek over a decade ago, when he joined his two passions in life, information technology and disaster response. Today he helps responders get access to the internet in the most challenging locations of all, disaster zones. When not traveling the world responding to disasters, he enjoys spending time with his wife, five kids, and grandson.

Hermann Jónsson

Hermann Jónsson is a single father of two and has great ambitions in their upbringing. He gives lectures about parenting and how he has helped his daughter tackle bullying, which she has struggled with almost all her life.

Kári Halldór

Kári is a director, drama teacher and communication/ expression coach. He has directed more than 40 productions for theatre, stage and opera, and a few for television. He has been in over 100 drama and acting training projects and has participated in innumerable theatre workshops, seminars and symposiums.

Kyra Maya Phillips

Kyra Maya Phillips is a writer and expert in innovation. She is the co-author of The Misfit Economy. Research for this book has taken her to pirate prisons in Somalia, tunnels networks deep below the city of Paris, Amish camel farms, ganglands in Cape Town and into the history books to study 18th century pirate ships. Kyra is also a co-founder of The Point People, a collective of innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs committed to driving systemic change for a more equitable society.

Linda Ósk Valdimarsdóttir

Dancer and choreographer Linda Ósk started exploring different styles of dance at the age of 4 to and has dedicated her life to dance ever since. She now runs her own studio in Iceland called Rebel Dance Studio.

Páll Ólafsson

Páll Ólafsson is a husband, father of five children and also a grandfather. He is a social worker and has worked in child protection. Currently, he works at the Governmental Agency of Child Protection in Iceland. Among other fields, he studied Restitution from Diane Gossen, Judy Anderson and others - their way of thinking and behaving inspired him and his family's lifestyle.

Selma Hermannsdóttir

Selma Björk Hermannsdóttir is an 18 year old student and was bullied her whole life. In 2013, she wrote an successful article about her bullying experience and how she tackled it, with love and strength. Since then, she has given lectures in schools and helped other people that have been bullied all over the country.

Steve Fuller

Steve Fuller is the founder of the research programme of ‘social epistemology’, which is concerned with the organised production and distribution of knowledge in society. His works have been translated in more than 20 languages. Recently, he completed a trilogy of books on the idea of a ‘trans-‘ or ‘post-‘ human future, that he explains in his TEDx talk.