Theme: Endeavor

Join us on June 18th in Portland, Oregon for our 6th annual TEDx event!

Your admission includes a full day of awesome experiences:

Talks and performances by 13 incredible community members who have an idea worth spreading
A delicious breakfast complete with plenty of coffee to get your day started right!
A wonderful lunch for you to enjoy outside in the park with fellow attendees
Specially curated TED Talks around the theme "Endeavor"
Two action breaks designed to give your body and brain a break while you connect with alumni speakers and partners, enjoy some fresh air, or chat with your favorite speaker or other attendees
The chance to celebrate the end of the day with a beer or glass of wine at Revolution Hall's no host bar
This is going to be an experience you won't soon forget!

Want to know more? Take a look at our website to see our full list of speakers and performers for this year!

Questions? Concerns? General excitement to share? Let us know at hello@tedxmthood.com!

Please note: TEDxMtHood tickets are non-refundable

Revolution Hall at Washington High School
531 SE 14th Avenue
Portland, Oregon, 97214
United States

Mbrascatu

Italian Indie Rock Band

PDX with a Calabrian twist. A musical product of the creative melting pot of Portland, Mbrascatu is an indie rock band that draws from diverse European and American roots to create a uniquely signature sound. Blending together dynamics ranging from delicate to explosive; expressive Italian lyrics; hook-laden melodies; inventive arrangements; and energetic rhythms to dance to; the band has performed extensively throughout the Pacific Northwest, delighting audiences at the hottest music venues, outdoor festivals, bars, clubs and local radio stations.

Bill Deresiewicz

Author, Essayist and Critic

Bill Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. Before becoming a full-time writer (and moving to Portland) in 2008, he taught English at Columbia and Yale.

Chris Goldfinger

Seismological Prophet

Dr. Chris Goldfinger is a marine geologist and geophysicist whose focus is on great earthquakes and the structure of subduction zones around the world. He is experienced using deep submersibles, multi-beam and side scan sonar, seismic reflection, and other marine geophysical tools all over the world. Recently, Chris was in the national spotlight after being featured in Kathryn Schulz’s article in The New Yorker, “The Really Big One.” His extensive research on the Cascadia subduction zone yielded an earthquake record extending through the Holocene epoch helping to develop a model of segmentation and earthquake recurrence. Conclusion: our area is overdue for a major earthquake.

Kristofor Lofgren

Ecopreneur

Kristofor Lofgren is the founder and CEO of Bamboo Sushi, the world’s first certified sustainable sushi restaurant. A consummate creator, Kristofor likes thinking of new ways to disrupt what he views as old and outdated business models. His goal with Bamboo is to create the most innovative and creative restaurant group in America. Bamboo Sushi and Bamboo Izakaya (“izakaya” is an informal Japanese gastropub) are the living embodiment of this drive — aligning environment, people, community, and profits all to the highest level, in a harmony not seen before in the food industry.

Michael Allen Harrison

Legendary Pianist

Michael Allen Harrison delivers music to the heart. His classical contemporary style carves a distinct niche of timeless music that has connected with thousands throughout his three-decade career. Michael is an American composer, songwriter and pianist from Portland, Oregon. As an iconic artist, he is known for his magical piano solo performances and recordings, his upbeat sound with his band, his work with inspiring vocalist Julianne Johnson, his skills producing and creating music for ballet, theater and film, his love for teaching and for his giving spirit. Michael is the founder and president of the Snowman Foundation, the Ten Grands concert series, and the beloved Christmas at the Old Church concert series, approaching its 25th season. He has created over fifty albums released through MAH Records.

Pippin Beard Kristen Kingsbury

Filmmakers

Husband and wife filmmaker duo, Pippin Beard and Kristen Kingsbury, have been creating together for the last decade. Pippin, a camera toting Oregonian, is equipped with endless energy and the non-stop pursuit of optimism. This includes getting that impossible shot and the improbable interview. Kristen, a New York transplant who moved here to work on Coraline, has a knack for telling challenging, outrageous stories. They’ve combined their talents and ceaseless energy to tell the most compelling and timely tale imaginable in the film Portland, Inc. – the story on Portland as it faces its own endeavor: change. They have conducted more than 40 interviews, bringing Portland’s paramount voices under one lens to explore the past; to look critically at what’s happening now as our city faces rapid transformation; to examine the result when equity is dropped from the city livability conversation; and to seek the answer: Is the future that’s being designed for us, good enough?

Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater

Contemporary Dance

Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater is an ensemble of multi dimensional dancers and musicians under the artistic direction of Oluyinka Akinjiola. Rejoice! looks at tradition through a contemporary lens bridging our vast history with our complex present. Using folkloric movement as a basis of communication to our immediate surroundings, Rejoice! weaves stories from movements and music of the past and present to navigate through modern day issues and current topics that are steeped through generations.

Richard Cawley Gustav Sculptor

Artist in Residence

Manifestion PDX was founded in 2013 by Gustav Sculptor and Richard Cawley. It's a 8,000 sq. ft. Art (ware)House that facilitates and encourages the creation of art and ideas for the beautification and betterment of our world, and a more sustainable future. They build sculptures primarily out of steel, and incorporate as much post consumer waste as possible in their designs. They have built interactive sculptural installations for many art festivals such as: Oregon Country Fair, Portland Winter Lights Festival, Winter Fest NW, What The Festival, and the Burning Man Arts and Culture Festival.

Rukaiyah Adams

Financial and Cultural Idealist

Rukaiyah Adams is the Chief Investment Officer at Meyer Memorial Trust. Her job is to ensure the long-term strength of the organization. But, Rukaiyah is not a typical investor. She pushes for transformation in finance that will require radical transparency and broader views on cost, risk and return that take into consideration impact on many stakeholders. Before joining Meyer, she ran the $6.5 Billion capital markets fund at The Standard. She is the Vice Chair of the Oregon Investment Council, which oversees approximately $90 Billion for the State of Oregon and PERS. Rukaiyah holds a BA with academic distinction from Carleton College and a Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School, where she served on the Law and Policy Review and as Co-President of the Law Student Association. She has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Stephen Manning

Human Rights Strategist

Attorney Stephen W. Manning is a founding partner of Immigrant Law Group PC and the founder and director of the Innovation Law Lab, a non-profit that combines technology and litigation to create next generation activism against mass incarceration of refugees and immigrants.

Tiana Tozer

Champion and Advocate

A former humanitarian aid worker, Tiana Tozer developed and implemented an innovative program in Iraq that taught advocacy to people with disabilities. She also ran a program that taught 10,000 women to read and write. Tiana served as State Director in Southern Kordofan, Sudan, until being extracted from the civil war in 2011. Since saving the world didn’t work out, she now makes her living as a speaker, consultant and author, addressing topics such as tenacity, leadership and disability and consulting on 503 (disability) compliance for federal contractors.

Victoria Lara

Resilient Community Changemaker

Founder and CEO of Lara Media Services LLC, Victoria Lara has been a tireless community leader and civil rights advocate for more than a decade. The growth of the Latino community and the potential for culturally sensitive engagement prompted her decision to open her own agency. Lara Media is the only Latina woman-owned marketing agency in the Pacific Northwest.