Theme: Into the Machine

On October 24th, we invite you to enter Into the Machine.
Today we are in the infancy of a second Machine Age, one with profoundly disruptive potential. Man and machine have melded. Artificial intelligence is real. Virtual communities feel authentic. We enjoy near-boundless access to information that enriches our lives, in exchange for allowing invisible machines to decrypt our every impulse and keystroke.
Our perceptions of reality, our structures of meaning, our sense of identity—all are touched and transformed by the machines we have built to mediate between our world and ourselves. But whether it’s the public relations machines curating our culture, or the therapeutic implants transforming our biological limitations, or the social machines crowdsourcing solutions to intractable problems, we are right to wonder which of us—man or machine—is truly in control.
Machines are the essential engines of our future progress. Advances in manufacturing, communications, computer technology, and processing power will dramatically accelerate the brilliant reinvention of our world, and fundamentally transform our lives. But the question remains: in this new age, what role will humanity play?

WJCT Studios
WJCT Public Broadcasting
100 Festival Park Avenue
Jacksonville, Florida, 32202
United States

Canary In The Coalmine

Canary in the Coalmine is an Americana Folk band based out of Jacksonville, Florida. A haunting quality underscores striking vocal harmonies that provide a focal point for the band’s signature sound. The band released their first full-length album “Who Fears the Devil?” in March of 2015. Because of the vast collection of musical influences the writers share, Canary’s sound is a melding together of different genres of American roots music, including Country, Bluegrass, Old Spirituals, and Appalachian Folk, tinged with the flavors of blues, soul, and a little bit of rock and roll.

Closing Jam

Collaboration by Canary in the Coalmine, Peter Carney, Ritz Chamber Players & Wise River

Complicated Animals

Complicated Animals’ music has been featured on ESPN during the World Cup 2014, and licensed by Putumayo World Music for their compilation “Brazilian Beat.” They just released a new EP, “In This Game,” which premiered on PopMatters and NPR.

Ritz Chamber Players

The Ritz Chamber Players includes some of the world’s preeminent musicians spanning the African diaspora, it brings a fresh, new energy to the classical music genre. Its members perform with prestigious organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the London Symphony. The following three members of the Players will perform at TEDxJacksonville 2015:Kelly Hall-Tompkins – Violin: One of New York City’s most in-demand violinists, Kelly Hall-Tompkins’ dynamic career spans solo, chamber, and orchestral performance. Orlando Wells – Violin/Viola: He has performed frequently on Broadway, and currently is the violist on the new Broadway show Crybaby. Tahirah Whittington – Cello: Tahirah Whittington, has performed for audiences all over the world. Solo engagements include a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, as a result of winning 1st prize at the 1999 Sphinx Competition.

Fatene Ben-Hamza

Fatène Ben-Hamza is a French-Tunisian business strategist who moved to Tunisia in 2009. She is passionate about building spaces for people to create, express and exchange ideas. After six years in the advertising industry as a brand strategist working with many international and local clients, Ben-Hamza has joined Cogite, a coworking community of change-makers and entrepreneurs in Tunisia. She has also recently co-founded the Afkar conference, a think & action tank bridging spaces between government and civil society to promote concrete solutions to concrete problems in Tunisia. Fatène is also the organizer and co-curator of TEDxCarthage since 2011, and TEDxCarthageWomen.

Jennifer Adler

Jennifer Adler spent her childhood in a permanently salty state–from exploring tide pools and splashing in the waves, to sailing competitively throughout college, the ocean defined her. Two days later, with visions of sandy beaches and palm trees in her mind, she arrived 1,244 miles south . . . and 74 miles inland. She studied the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and dinosaur-like sturgeon fish in the Suwannee River, and it was the sweltering summer field days of netting sturgeon in the foreign fresh waters of north Florida that first acquainted her with the springs. These incredible ecosystems immediately swept her off her feet, and she started exploring, researching, and documenting them through photography. To see a little deeper, she eventually earned her cave diving certification and is endlessly fascinated by the winding tunnels of the aquifer.

Jim Barbaresso

Jim Barbaresso is an internationally renowned expert in intelligent transportation systems. He has more than 37 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, giving him a unique perspective on transportation challenges and how to overcome them. Throughout his career, Jim has demonstrated leadership in the development and application of emerging technologies to enhance mobility and transportation safety. In recognition of Jim's career achievements and leadership in Intelligent Transportation Systems, he was selected to chair the 2014 World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, held last September in Detroit.

John Phillips

John Phillips attended the University of Alabama for college and law school, and shortly after moved to Jacksonville in 2001, which has become home to not only his own law firm, but also his wife Angela and two children – Bennett (age 3) and Weston (age 1). Phillips is licensed to practice law in Florida, Georgia and Alabama and is the youngest in northeast Florida to be both Board Certified in Civil Trial law and have obtained the highest rating available of AV Preeminent by Martindale, which has been rating lawyers since the 1800s. John also has been recognized as one of the best lawyers in Jacksonville by readers of Folio Weekly, Void Magazine, and as the “Face of Justice” by Jacksonville Magazine, and has received many national awards and recognitions. He is most known for his association with the Michael Dunn/Jordan Davis case, where he represented the family of Jordan Davis who was shot and killed in November 2012.

Jordan Edelheit

While an undergrad at Ohio State, Jordan Edelheit fell in love with TED’s mission of “ideas worth spreading” and began organizing TEDx events. In addition to TEDxOhioStateUniversity, Jordan was on the founding team of the first TEDx to take place in an adult prison, TEDxMarionCorrectional. She has since spent the past three years striving to learn and share stories within the justice system, and now works with The Mayerson Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio leading their young professional and social change programs. She is inspired by countless incarcerated men who lead by example that spoken word poetry can be a tool of expression, possibly even the answer to sharing our most random beautiful thoughts. Jordan believes in building empathy by listening to one story at a time. She finds herself smiling most after experiencing shared humanity in unexpected spaces . . . like prison.

Kevin Gover

Kevin Gover is the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. Gover began as director in December 2007. Gover returned to New Mexico in 1986, where he established Gover, Stetson, Williams & West, P.C., which grew into the largest Indian-owned law firm in the country and represented tribes and tribal agencies in a dozen states. His advocacy brought him to the attention of the Clinton White House, and in 1997, Gover was nominated by President Clinton to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the United States Department of the Interior. His tenure as Assistant Secretary is perhaps best-known for his apology to Native American people for the historical conduct of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Mark McCombs

Over the past twelve years, Mark McCombs has been a part of FIRST Robotics as a student on a high school team, as a college mentor, a head coach, volunteer, tournament director, and now Affiliate Partner for FIRST Lego League in the North Florida Region. As a student in the program, Mark was profoundly impacted by mentors and engineering idols who turned his curiosities towards the field of Mechanical Engineering. Now the founder of a machine design, engineering, and fabrication company, McCombs spends most of his time working on Renaissance Jax, a nonprofit he founded with the mission of expanding access to the very program that shaped his experiences as a young engineer.

Peter Carney

Pete Carney was a music history teacher at City Colleges of Chicago from 2007 to 2013, and was frustrated with the boring textbooks available for his students. Knowing his students would rather read their smartphones than textbooks, Carney worked for two years in his basement to design a new approach that reached and challenged his students. He and fellow adjunct music professor Brian Felix created a groundbreaking new iBook called Interactive Listening that was immediately named by Apple Inc. in 2014 as the #1 Editor’s Choice in all categories of iBooks. Created for digital-savvy students, Interactive Listening is now taught in over 100 schools nationwide, featuring Hollywood-style graphics, an orchestra of 3-D instruments, and interactive games.

Peter Rummell

Peter Rummell has been active in the real estate development industry for over 40 years, creating some of the most recognized and interesting projects in the world. His career began in real estate in 1971 with the Sea Pines Company, developers of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Amelia Island, Florida. In 1977, he became general manager of Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the Arvida Corporation. He joined the Rockefeller Center Management Corporation in New York as vice chairman in 1983, leaving in 1985 to become president of Disney Development Company. Disney Development Company and Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s design and creative division responsible for theme park development, were later merged and Rummell became chairman of the combined group, Walt Disney Imagineering. He is also the founding board chair and chief patron of One Spark, the World’s Largest Crowdfunding Festival.

Tessa Duvall

Tessa Duvall joined The Florida Times-Union as the education, children and families reporter in December 2014. She graduated with Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and sociology from Western Kentucky University in December 2013 and spent a year reporting on education from the dusty oil fields of West Texas before moving to the Sunshine State. Her reporting focuses on the issues that affect children and families living in Northeast Florida.

Tim Harris

Born in 1986 with Down Syndrome, Tim Harris’s life has been defined by exceeding expectations and inspiring those around him. His lifelong dream of owning his own restaurant came true in October 2010 when “Tim’s Place” opened its doors in Albuquerque, serving breakfast, lunch . . . and hugs. To date Tim has given out more than 70,000 hugs, reaching everyone from music legend Stevie Wonder to the President of the United States. Tim’s successful determination to own a restaurant, live a happy life and inspire others has captured the attention of people all over the world. His goal is to help other individuals with intellectual disabilities lead meaningful and fulfilling lives via entrepreneurship and inclusion in their communities.

Wise River

Wise River is a 3 piece dream-pop/synth-pop band fronted by brother and sister duo John and Laura Shannon from Jacksonville, FL. All three members also perform together in the indie-folk band Fort Stories.