Theme: Empower Now

Now matters.
So be conscious, mindful and bold.
In the sharpest of realities, the only thing that will affect your future are the decisions you make in the present. Opportunities and ideas you engage with alter the next moment you will be in. Your choices shapeshift you, your goals and the world we live in.
We are all running a marathon with technology while speed reading our way through megabytes of feed. In this world wide web of swipe and like, we are prone to lose the moment: gazing at our past or wondering about the future...
Still this moment and observe your Now.
The 5th TEDxMacquarieUniversity seeks to bring together the empowered ones and those who wish to empower others, evoking action through their ideas and stories. We will explore the Now from a diverse community of upcoming researchers, artists, known professionals and inventors.
On Saturday the 26th of September 2015, TEDxMacquarieUniversity seeks to engage and change your perspective in what you can achieve in each moment.
Activate your education, experiences and excitement. Empower yourself and empower others.
Empower Now.

Macquarie University
Balaclava Road
Sydney, New South Wales, 2114
Australia

African Beat

African Beat are an high energy drumming ensemble who bring the sound of Africa everywhere they go. They've got rhythm, and insist they can get you dancing even if you don't. Using traditional instruments to bring a tribal sound to a modern audience, it's hard to stay still when African Beat start drumming.

Buchanan

Buchanan are an Australian four-piece, based in Melbourne. Having spent time recording in London they are about to release their second full length album, to add to to their three EPs and acclaimed debut album 'Human Spring'.

The Consouls

The Consouls are a Sydney six-piece who combine their two loves of jazz music and video games to create a unique sound for music fans and gamers alike. It’s a bit smooth, a bit funky, and alot like nothing you’ve ever heard before

The Idea of North

The Idea of North are an ARIA award winning a cappella group. Comprised of Sally Cameron, Naomi Crellin, Nick Begbie and Andrew Piper, they are Australia's longest-standing and most awarded contemporary a cappella group in history. The Idea of North have performed with some of Australia's greatest jazz musicians, and sold out shows on home soil and around the world.

Ben Ross

Ben Ross spent his childhood pulling electronic devices apart but luckily in adulthood he’s expanded into building; building technology, specifically. As a User Experience and Product Management leader at MYOB, he works with his team to put together technology solutions that make life easier for small businesses and accountants. Ben is passionate about the power of automation and artificial intelligence, but his intelligence is all real.

Craig Errey

Organisational Psychologist and Entrepreneur Craig Errey learned the value of time when he fell off the corporate treadmill. Finally able to make room for the things that mattered, big and small, he began to question why everyone couldn't have the same. As CEO of The Solve Group, Craig helps others unlock the gift of time... with a four day work week...

Douglas Nicol

Douglas is a self confessed, data geek. He is passionate about its power to tell stories, uncover patterns, and paint descriptions of people. As the owner of data-driven advertising agency The Works, and a key player in the Datification Project, he's an advocate for data in the fight against data-fear. We told you he loved data.

Ellie Laing

Award winning news reporter Ellie Laing has spent the best part of a decade working in the media industry. She's covered natural disasters, Royal Commissions, corruption inquiries, Royal visits, military events, major crime, court cases and everything in between. She's passionate about maintaining the magic and integrity of the news, in an era focused on headlines, shock power and clickbait.

Harry Lancaster

Harry Lancaster is passionate about using whole foods to create good food, and celebrates taste and experience over diets that champion self-denial. After spending years exploring and studying whole foods cooking, he is working hard to reintroduce this food philosophy to the modern world whose pursuit for the perfect diet has lead to less than perfect outcomes. He walks the talk at Egg Of The Universe, the cafe and yoga studio he owns and runs with his wife, Bryony.

Jack Delosa

Potentially a dangerous person to introduce to any students, Jack Delosa dropped out of university, and never looked back. Without a degree behind him he’s gone on to become an entrepreneur, investor, best-selling author, and the founder and managing director of entrepreneurial educator, The Entourage. Jack is passionate about empowering and supporting budding entrepreneurs to follow his path by forging their own path.

Jeremy Chapman

Thought about your kidneys recently? Most of us don't have to, but as a kidney specialist at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, Dr Jeremy Chapman is not most of us. Regarded one of the top kidney transplant experts in the world, Dr Chapman is also an is an expert Adviser to the World Health Organisation on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation and chairs the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly has experienced something that no mother ever should: the loss of a child. In 2012 her son Thomas lost his life in an unprovoked attack in Kings Cross, and the Kelly family’s lives were forever changed. The Thomas Kelly Youth Foundation was born, and Kathy got to work fighting back; lobbying to change sentencing laws and becoming a vocal advocate for challenging the alcohol steeped culture that is hurting Australians, young and old.

Katrina Webb

Born into a family of sports starts, naturally sporty Katrina Webb was selected for a netball scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sport by the age of eighteen. While training at The Institute, doctors and trainers discovered that she had Cerebral Palsy. Her sporting journey continued, but on a slightly unexpected path: as a Paralympic athlete. She’s a gold medal athlete and a gold medal woman; a role model for young sports stars

Kawsar Ali

Kawsar Ali is the winner of the TEDxMacquarieUniversity Student Speaker Competition. She is a law and media student, an undergraduate researcher investigating constructions of Muslim women from a mainstream feminist lens, and a volunteer for not one, but a handful of NGOs. She has a self professed flair for poetry, ethnic comedy and answering questions such as "so do you shower with that headscarf on?" on a regular basis.

Kevin McGrath

Kevin McGrath is a PhD student within the School of Education at Macquarie University, and the winner of the Macquarie University round of the Three Minute Thesis competition. Three Minute Thesis is a world-wide competition that challenges PhD students to turn years of research, and thousands words into just three minutes. His thesis focuses on how students with disruptive behaviour perceive the student/teacher relationship.

Ruven Govender

Ruven Govender is a South African born Indian, who grew up in New Zealand and since moved to Australia. It's a colourful and diverse path that has provided him with a lot of fodder for stand-up comedy, which he has has been writing, performing and directing since he was 16 years old. Today Ruven is the Director of Laugh Mob Entertainment, who get people laughing all around Australia.

Sakkie Pretorius

Sakkie Pretorius is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Macquarie University. Having forged a career of senior academic roles in South Africa, the US and Europe, Sakkie is the author of over two hundred peer reviewed research papers, and one of the top ranked Agricultural Science researchers in the world. And doesn't stop at research, he's renowned for translating it into innovative real-world applications.

Sara Rickards

Sara Rickards is a clean, mean green machine... except she’s really quite lovely. She is a Sustainability Advisor at Macquarie University, and developed the methodology for the first campus eco-footprint calculator, which has since been used at Macquarie University, and many other universities around the world. Passionate about empowering others to understand and reduce their eco-footprint, she's making the world a better place; making her mark by leaving no trace.