TEDxSydney 2015 took place on Thursday 21 May 2015 within the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House before a live audience of 2,300. It was also streamed live to a worldwide audience ... viewing from home, the workplace or one of our 120 satellite events. As with our five previous TEDxSydney events, the full day of programming blended talks, performances and specially produced films.

Sydney Opera House
Sydney, New South Wales, 2000
Australia

Lisa Gerrard & Peter Hollo

Lisa Gerrard: Over a career that takes in over two decades with Dead Can Dance, award-winning movie soundtracks and a series of acclaimed solo and collaborative albums, Lisa Gerrard has established herself as one of Australia's most ground-breaking and in-demand artists as a composer, vocalist and instrumentalist. Peter Hollo has forged a career in non-classical cello through his work with FourPlay String Quartet, electronic improv group Tangents, and solo work as raven, as well as innovative collaborations with surprising artists across many genres.

Starlady

Trans woman Starlady is a youth worker and LBGTI advocate in some of Australia’s most remote and challenging places. Using an unusual set of tools, the flamboyant hairdresser spends her time travelling thousands of kilometres across the central desert.

The Sticks

The Sticks is a futuristic live electronic act revolving around a new custom-built gestural electronic drumkit called the AirSticks. They are: Alon Ilsar with Daniel Pliner and Josh Ahearn.

Alec Doomadgee

was born and raised on the Waanyi/Garawa Land Trust with his extended family. After many years as a radio announcer, including as part of the National Indigenous Radio Service Sydney Olympics broadcast in 2000, Alec decided to follow his dream to become an actor. Since then, he has starred in numerous television and film productions, notably opposite Leah Purcell in the award-winning drama series Redfern Now on the ABC. In 2013 Alec went on a spiritual “Walkabout” to North America, where he created a pathway between ancient cultures, spending time with the Native Americans in Arizona, South Dakota, Montana and Alberta, Canada. Alec has been working on a feature documentary called “Zach’s Ceremony” for the past 10 years – he promises it’s due out soon!

Captain Frodo

Captain Frodo is a third generation showman. He spent his childhood on the road as an assistant in his Dad's Magic show. The last decade he has been touring the world with the hit cabaret La Soiree. Originally from Norway he now calls Australia home.

Charlie Teo

Charlie Teo is an inspirational neurosurgeon, pushing the boundaries to the point where the medical fraternity shun him. He gives people hope, time and life. Charlie is an internationally acclaimed neurosurgeon and a pioneer in keyhole minimally invasive techniques. He founded the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (formerly the Cure for Life Foundation) in 2003, which, for the last 10 years, has been the largest funder of brain cancer research in Australia and which supports the Neuro-oncology wing of the Lowy Cancer Centre. As passionate about teaching as performing surgery, Charlie has been awarded Best Teacher awards in both the USA and Australia and devotes three months of every year instructing and doing live surgery pro bono in developing countries. In 2013, he was the first non-politician Australian to address the US Congress on the need for more funding for brain cancer research.

Chi Udaka

Since 1997 Taikoz has developed an international reputation for vibrant performances that couple explosive energy and extreme dynamism with refinement and grace. From the most delicate melodies of the shakuhachi to the thunderous impact of the odaiko, Taikoz is at once meditative and free-spirited, primal and dramatic. Lingalayam is an Australian dance company, whose focus is the nurturing and strengthening of the appreciation and knowledge of Indian culture, through art works of traditional genesis, presented in the context of our contemporary society’s cultural tapestry.

Chris Darwin

Chris Darwin is a great great grandson of Charles Darwin. He has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and Physical Geography. Two of his expeditions were world firsts, the first Round Britain Windsurf expedition and the World’s highest dinner party on top of Peru’s highest mountain – an event that was only marred by the wine freezing and two of the guests getting hypothermia during dessert. He has written two books and taken the photographs for three books. He started the first London bicycle rickshaw company, then worked in advertising, following by 20 years as a mountain guide. He financed the creation of the 68,000 hectare Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia, he has raised over $1.3 million for charities and is the Ambassador of Bush Heritage Australia.

Dylan Alcott

Dylan Alcott OAM is a Paralympic gold medalist, World Champion, Grand Slam champion and world record holder for both wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis. In 2008, Dylan won Gold at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic games at the age of 17, the youngest ever winner of a wheelchair basketball gold medal. In 2013, Dylan switched sports to wheelchair tennis, and in 2015 won his first grand slam title at the Australian Open. Dylan was born with a large tumor wrapped around his spinal cord, leaving him a paraplegic. He is a keen advocate for people with disabilities, and is an ambassador for the charities Starlight Foundation and Variety which help change the lives of kids with disabilities across the country. Dylan is also a music enthusiast, and is well known for his wheelchair crowdsurfing at music festivals.

Frank Yamma

A traditional Pitjantjatjara man from Australia's central desert, Frank is regarded as one of Australia’s most significant Indigenous singer/ songwriters who sings in language as well as English.

Hamish Skermer

The king of the compost toilet, Hamish Skermer knows a thing or two about how to deal with human waste. The Australian entrepreneur invented his own environmentally friendly dry toilet 15 years ago which has since been used at some of the world’s biggest music festivals including Glastonbury, the Falls and Meredith festivals in Australia.

Helen Durham

Australian born and raised, Dr Helen Durham is the first woman to head International Law and Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Jack Ladder

Jack Ladder (real name Tim Rogers) is a singer / songwriter / composer based in The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Since 2005 he has released four albums: Not Worth Waiting For, Love is Gone, HURTSVILLE (the last two shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize) and Playmates. Each album has seen a stylistic shift musically, but always there are his distinct baritone voice, well-honed songwriting craft and an ability to draw the listener into his narratives, holding them there to the end. Backed again by his band The Dreamlanders, Playmates was his most acclaimed album to date, and saw a release in early 2015 by the esteemed label Fat Possum in North America and Japan.

Julian Burnside

Julian Burnside joined the Bar in 1976 and took silk in 1989. He specialises in commercial litigation and human rights. He acted for the Ok Tedi natives against BHP, for Alan Bond in fraud trials, for Rose Porteous in numerous actions against Gina Rinehart, and for the Maritime Union of Australia in the 1998 waterfront dispute against Patrick Stevedores. He was the Senior Counsel assisting the Australian Broadcasting Authority in the “Cash for Comment” inquiry. He has acted pro bono in many human rights cases, in particular concerning the treatment of refugees. He is passionately involved in the arts. He collects contemporary paintings and sculptures and regularly commissions music. He is Chair of Fortyfive Downstairs and Chair of Chamber Music Australia. In 2014 he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. He is married to artist Kate Durham.

Michael Hing

Michael Hing is a Sydney-based comedian. He is the host of Good Game Well Played, a weekly show made about e-sports and professional gaming for the ABC, as well as the occasional Mid-Dawn on triple j. He has performed at music festivals Falls, Harvest, and Secret Garden, and is the Artistic Director of comedy at Splendour in the Grass.

Munjed Al Muderis

Munjed is an Australian-trained Orthopaedic Surgeon and Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor with Notre Dame University School of Medicine, Sydney. Born in Baghdad, he fled to Australia as a refugee and embarked on his journey to become an Orthopaedic Surgeon on his release from a detention centre on 26 August 2000. Munjed’s ambition to become a world leader in osseointegration surgery started when he was a young child watching “The Terminator” movie. How to combine robotics and humans? This passion inspired him to develop and expand this technology for amputees, to enable mobility, to enhance comfort, reduce pain and to facilitate a better quality of life. To date Munjed has helped more than 108 amputees mobilize and function with greater ease, comfort and control.

Nadine Champion

Sensei Nadine Champion is a martial artist with almost 30 years experience. An undefeated fighter and inspirational teacher, she is dedicated to applying what she has learned in and out of the boxing ring to transform not only people's physical health but the way they think and feel about themselves.

Richard Bourke

Richard Bourke works in Louisiana – America's Deep South – as a Death Row lawyer, defending people who are facing or have already received a death sentence.

Sandy Evans

Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned ARIA award winning saxophonist, composer and music researcher with a passion for improvisation and new music. She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s and has toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia. In 2014 Sandy received her PhD from Macquarie University for research in Carnatic jazz intercultural music, and a Churchill Fellowship to continue her research in India. Her latest CD, 'Kapture', a fusion of jazz and Indian music, is a tribute to South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada. In 'Transcendent Arc' she is joined by two of Australia's leading wind players, James Greening, pocket trumpet and trombone, and Boyd, contrabass clarinet, to explore and celebrate the beauty of breath and melody.

Sibo Bangoura

Sibo Bangoura is a Griot (musicial family lineage) from Guinea, West Africa now living in Australia and sharing the traditions of his musical heritage with people all over the world.

Stephanie Trigg

Prof. Stephanie Trigg is Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Melbourne. She is also interested in the long afterlife of medieval literature and culture and has published studies on the reading history of Geoffrey Chaucer (Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern) and the cultural history of the Order of the Garter (Shame and Honor: A Vulgar History of the Order of the Garter), as well as her book, Gwen Harwood and her edited collection, Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture. She is a Chief Investigator and one of four program leaders with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, and is working on several projects for the centre: a study of the representation of emotion on the human face in English literature; and an affective history of bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria.

Susan Butler

Susan Butler is the Editor of the Macquarie Dictionary. After starting out as a research assistant in 1970, she has been at the helm of the dictionary for more than 30 years.

Tega Brain

Tega Brain is an artist working at the intersection of art, ecology and engineering. Creating eccentric engineering, her work reimagines quotidian technologies to address and reveal their politics. Her projects have taken the form of site-specific interventions, dysfunctional devices, experimental infrastructures and information representations. They explore the institutions, technologies and interfaces that shape our relationship with environmental systems. Tega is currently a resident at Eyebeam, the leading art and technology center in the United States. She also teaches at the School for Poetic Computation and at the State University of New York. She was recently awarded a Creative Australia Fellowship for early career artists from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Tom Uglow

Tom Uglow has worked at Google for nearly 8 years, starting Google's Creative Lab in Europe and, since 2012, building a Creative Lab in Sydney, Australia. His team work on experimental projects that help connect people and that use Google, Android and YouTube's products in creative ways. Previous projects include Hangouts in History, Dream40 with the RSC, buildwithchrome.com, Web Lab, Life in a Day, and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. Most of his projects are collaborations with charities, agencies and cultural organizations around the world that help artists and creators explore new forms of creative practice using digital tools. Tom speaks on innovation around the world; tweets, posts and blogs on digital creativity; he is a trustee of D&AD and AWARD and has judged, presented, and enthused on TV, online, and in print. He is a Sunday-coder, a traditional creative, and a fuzzy strategist. Occasionally he knits.