Theme: In Plain Sight

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).

Covey Center for the Arts
425 West Center Street
Provo, Utah, 84601
United States

Book on Tape Worm

Musicians

Book on Tape Worm is a chamber pop quartet grown up in the loving arms of Provo, Utah's music scene. Their sound combines the ebb and flow of cinematic arrangements with narratives, both familiar and fantastical, to create a soundtrack for the day-to-day. Their album "All the World's a Stage" is tied together by four acts, utilizing the three act arc, but adding a fourth act as the question— what comes after the story has "ended"? Accompanying the themes and concepts of the music is the unique album artwork—a pop-up book featuring the band living and on the other side of the curtain. "All the World's a Stage" is full of secrets for the conscientious reader to find, created with a love and nostalgia for when an album was not only just a listening experience, but something you could hold in your hands and be a part of. Book on Tape Worm creates music intended to take you somewhere. Music that paints dark clouds but hints at the silver lining.

Alicia Gettys

Communications Manager / BYU

Alicia Gettys works for the BYU Ballard Center, a social innovation center. She equips students with tools to decipher which charitable organizations are having a high positive impact on society—or in other words, helps students Do Good Better.

Bill Somerville

CEO / Philanthropic Ventures Foundation

His writing hailed as a "philanthropic force of nature," Bill Somerville’s career as a maverick grantmaker spans 50 years in nonprofit work. Somerville founded Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), which specializes in creative giving programs customized to donor’s interests. Under his stewardship, PVF has distinguished itself as a leader in “venture philanthropy,” a term coined by Somerville to describe the foundation's quick-response, high-impact grant model - including immediate response grants and paperless giving. As the West Coast’s senior foundation executive, Somerville has consulted with over 400 community and family foundations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Somerville has been called on by several universities to advise on philanthropy curriculum, taught philanthropy at Stanford University, authored Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker with Fred Setterberg.

Daniel Blake

CEO / EcoScraps

Daniel Blake founded EcoScraps in 2010 and was CEO until it was acquired by the Hawthorne Gardening Company in 2014 (a fully owned subsidiary of Scott's Miracle-Gro). EcoScraps recycles food waste into organic gardening products.

Dave Vance

Comedy Writer

Dave Vance is the lead ad writer behind Squatty Potty’s unicorn ad and Purple’s Goldilocks ad. He also markets for VidAngel, a fast-growing tech startup, and writes comedy for Studio C, a sketch comedy show.

Jeff Clark

CEO / Surfer

Jeff Clark is one of the most renowned and respected big wave surfers in the world, regarded by the surf community to be a member of a small group of pioneer watermen. Jeff is best known for successfully pioneering the massive waves of Mavericks alone for years before it was discovered by the big-wave surfing community. Mavericks, located south of San Francisco, is considered to be one of the most dangerous big waves on the planet. In 1975, as a hard-charging 17 year-old, Clark first paddled out to this monstrous wave detonating just ½ mile off the coast in his own back yard in Half Moon Bay. For 15 years, he was the area’s lone surfer, inventing a form of highly committed surfing in which there can be no mistakes - or you pay with your life. Clark also mastered the art of surfboard shaping, using his skills as a carpenter, his experience as a surfer, and Mavericks as his testing ground.

Jennifer Nielson

Professor

Dr. Jennifer Nielson is actively engaged in the international chemistry education community. She has spent the last five summers in Uganda, Africa, where she and her team have designed and facilitated Learning Chemistry Through Experimentation workshops. These are professional development courses for chemistry teachers funded by a Global Innovation Grant from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the largest scientific society in the world. Her work in Uganda, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports, is helping design and implement a new chemistry curriculum for the country in 2017. Dr. Nielson is chair of the ACS task force on International Chemistry Education, the co-chair of the Society’s Committee on Education, Councilor for the American Chemical Society representing the Central Utah Section, and a member of Chemists Without Borders. Prof. Nielson’s true passion is teaching chemistry to all ages. She has taught more than 10,000 students.

Kate Hansen

Olympian / Student

Kate Hansen is a luge athlete, wannabe dancer, and world traveler. She competed for seven years around the world and her last stop was in Sochi, Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. She is currently attending college at Brigham Young University where she studies public relations and business. She loves skiing, people, and making fun of herself.

Lisa DeLong

Educator / The Prince's School of Traditional Arts

Dr Lisa DeLong is an artist and educator who currently works for The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. As International Outreach Programme Manager she designs curricula and conducts art educational programs, teacher training, and product development workshops for a wide variety of audiences throughout the world. She also teaches courses in the art of geometry, symbolism, and traditional design in many parts of the world including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Syria, Egypt, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, and China. Lisa received her PhD in Traditional Art from The Prince’s School, where she studied the principles of geometric design common to Islamic and Western traditions. Lisa exhibits her paintings internationally and her paintings are in several important collections, including that of HRH The Prince of Wales. Lisa's first book Curves: Flowers, Foliates, and Flourishes in the Formal Decorative Arts was published by Wooden Books in 2013.

Misan Rewane

Co-Founder / WAVE Academy

Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Misan Rewane is no stranger to the challenges of education and social mobility in Nigeria. When her parents, unable to ignore the education system's breakdown, were compelled to send her to the U.S. for university, Rewane resolved to play a role in transforming the region's education system so that one day she would have the choice to send her own children to local schools. After earning her Economics degree from Stanford University, she worked in management consulting with The Monitor Group in New York and London on a wide spectrum of projects in both the private and public sector. Post-Monitor, she worked as a consultant for TechnoServe, Cote d'Ivoire and with the Center for Public Policy Alternatives in her native Nigeria. While getting her MBA at the Harvard Business School in 2012, Rewane interned with Bridge International Academies. It was also during her MBA that she developed a disruptive entrepreneurial lens to tackling youth unemployment.

Randall Bell

CEO / Landmark Research Group

The strategic and problem-solving skills of Dr. Bell are well-established. He consulted on the World Trade Center, the Flight 93 Crash Sites, the BP Oil Spill, Hurricane Katrina, the Nuclear Testing on the Bikini Atoll, and several tragedies including JonBenét Ramsey, O.J. Simpson, and the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide. Dr. Bell's research has taken him to all fifty states and seven continents, and he is known for his ability to analyze complex situations and present his findings in an interesting, organized, and intelligent way. The author of the bestseller Rich Habits Rich Life, Dr. Bell’s career has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and every major U.S. television network. He is a popular speaker at events around the globe. Dr. Bell earn his Ph.D. from Fielding, a MBA from UCLA and BS from BYU. He is married and has four children.

Zach Atherton

CEO / ImprovBroadway

Zach Atherton is the owner and director of ImprovBroadway—an award winning Utah based comedy theater—and has been teaching improvisational theater for over twelve years.