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).

Teatro Olimpico
piazza Gentile da Fabriano, 17
Rome, Lazio, 00196
Italy

ALESSANDRO GUAGNI

Alessandro Guagni è un ingegnere e attivo nelle ristrutturazioni. Insieme a Lorenzo Bianchi ha in comune una passione: l’agricoltura, e rappresentano sicuramente il fenomeno contemporaneo dei Modern Farmers, ovvero persone di tutto il mondo che tolgono tempo alle proprie attività professionali per riscoprire la bellezza del coltivare la terra recuperando le antiche tradizioni in chiave contemporanea. Insieme hanno dato vita alla “Kissing.lab”, azienda agricola innovativa che si dedica alla riscoperta e “rifioritura” di quei prodotti agricoli che la cultura della grande distribuzione ha confinato a piccolissime aree di coltivazione, fino a farne rischiare l’estinzione.

Amedeo Balbi

Amedeo Balbi is considered one of the main Italian science communicators in the field of astrophysics. He is a member of the International Astronomical Union and the Foundational Questions Institute ( FQXi ) and is the author of over 90 scientific publications . His studies range from the origin of the universe , to the problem of matter and dark energy to the search for life in the cosmos . Balbi stimulates the entire scientific community to consider the path of science not as automatic and impersonal, but as a human emotional experience. “A dynamic process fuelled by people in the flesh , rather than as a collection of recipes or acquisitions ” ; with the hope that the scientific mind , as a tool to achieve progress , can become a prerequisite ” for an education that truly prepares people for life.”

Carl Craig

Craig is often described as a creative visionary, an icon of electronic music, a world famous DJ and an ambassador of his native Detroit. Craig is considered the artist who, has been able to define the esthetics of the “sound of Detroit”. Experimenting with the sounds of jazz and soul, Craig has always cultivated, a powerful fascination with the futuristic dimension in his work. This allowed him to build a unique path as an artist and music entrepreneur, producing numerous albums, often in collaboration with other established electronic music artists, and to receive a nomination for a Grammy Award. The Craig style, encompasses a wide range of influences and musical trends. Among his many projects, one of the most innovative was Innerzone Orchestra, with which he first published his influential single bug in the Bassbin, then the album Programmed , in which Craig directed a live jazz orchestra. Carl Craig has been named by critics as “the Miles Davis of electronic music”.

Catalina Oana Curceanu

Catalina Curceanu is a researcher of “impossible atoms” As Head Researcher of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, she deals with the planning and management of experiments of nuclear and hadronic physics in Italy’s National Laboratories of Gran Sasso. As the 2016 prize recipient of the “Women in Physics Lecturer” awarded by the Australian Institute of Physics, she received her doctorate in research in the field of spectroscopic meson physics in the OBELIX (CERN) experiment. For this work, she received the prestigious, scientific prize awarded by the Romanian Academy in Rome. Oana believes that although a phenomen or success achieved in physics is considered a given, there is always the chance on the horizon for its opposite to be discovered. As Oana herself says, “the most important thing is to keep one’s curiosity and desire to discover alive.”

Derrick de Kerckhove

Belgian, a naturalized Canadian, he is considered a leading expert in the world of new media. Scientific director of the digital culture magazine Media Duemila, Scientific Director of the Association TuttiMedia Observatory and Supervisor of the Planetary Collegium T-Node in Trento research. Already full professor at the University of Toronto in Canada and the University Federico II of Naples. After working with Marhsall McLuhan as an assistant and co-author, he was the director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, from 1983 until 2008. de Kerckhove is known for his many academic works which laid the foundations for the modern theory of communication in the digital age. For de Kerckhove, the Internet is similar to a brain that learns and restructures continuosly, the conscience of the world, the common public space that breaks down limits and geographical boundaries.

Giuseppe Testa

Giuseppe Testa is a biomolecular scientist , Professor at the University of Milan and Director of the Epigenetics Laboratory at the Institute of Stem Cells, European Institute of Oncology in Milan. After his studies at EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Heidelberg and his scientific activities at the Universities of Manchester and Harvard, he returned to Italy to complete his bimolecular research aimed at creating “mobile avatar” in order to study and cure -in a not so distant future – diseases such as tumors, autism and Williams syndrome. Scientists of the Giuseppe Testa team ,using the technique of “Disease modeling” have conducted clinical studies not on actual people anymore, but on their “external” model, exactly an avatar, and gathered important findings fundamental to understand the mechanisms underlying genetic diseases.

Guglielmo Lanzani

GUGLIELMO LANZANI is the Coordinator of the Center for Nano Science and Technology of the Italian Institute of Technology at the Politecnico di Milano and teaches in the Department of Physics. Lanzani has long been involved in cutting-edge research in the field of organic conductors based on carbon and nanotechnology with potential revolutionary applications, including the study on the artificial retina, of which its results were published in Nature Communications. The objective of this study is the development of a device that permits recovery of vision in people who have suffered damage to photoreceptors. Lanzani is also one of the scientists who will be at the helm of the laboratories of the “Human Technopole”, a research center that will be housed in the area that hosted the Expo Milan World’s Fair in 2015. Lanzani has co-authored over 200 publications in international journals, and authored the book “Photophysics – behind photovoltaics and photonics” (Wiley, 2012).

Jeremy Wyatt

A scientist in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, he uses algorithms to teach robots to learn from their experience, getting closer and closer to the frontier of the singularity point, in which the distinctions between human and artificial intelligence could be torn down and the concept of ” superintelligence ” could become a reality. A Professor of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham, and a member of the School of Computer Science , where he is working on learning and self- planning artificial intelligence , he is perfecting prototypes of robots that can , literally , teach themselves . One of the objectives of his work is to equip a robot of explicit representations of what it does and does not know so that his knowledge can be changed as a result of the new activities it performs. This capability allows the programming of robots in harsh environments where they know little.

Julien Anfruns

Julien Anfruns has been General Council of the Louvre Museum, and a member of the French Council of State and Secretary for the Council for the Public Publications for the French Prime Minister. In his career, he stood out for creativity and expertise that led him to innovate in a revolutionary way the exploitation strategies of cultural goods and to create the brand for the France Abu Dhabi Louvre project. He is actively involved as a member of several think tank groups, including Global Agenda Council on the role of arts in society for the World Economic Forum in Davos, and, from 2013, in the French National Commission on Trademarks-European heritage for the European Commission. Trained at l ‘Ecole Nationale d’Administration and the EDHEC Business School between 2008 and 2013, he was general director of the International Council of Museums and Chairman of the Inter-national Committee of the Blue Shield , which deals with the protection of heritage in times of armed conflict.

Laura Kriefman

Laura Kriefman is an award-winning choreographer. Her work, the Guerilla Dance Project, uses the creation of installations and beyond scale shows, to achieve an unusual goal: help restore the contact between the body and the environment through the fusion of movement and technology. With her performances, Laura manages to change the way in which to observe our surroundings and release our new and unexplored sense of movement.

Laurens Martens

A scholar of Sociology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Martens analyzes the economic and social impact that technological change has been as an architect of our times. Focusing his attention on the start up and the value they produce, he created his own marketing company in order to help start up in what he believed, and to underline the importance of the growing phenomenon in the international scene. He succeeded thanks to his “philosophy of the future” – which speaks on his philosophical platform MindMedley technology – to attract the attention of large multinational companies and create winning partnerships between these and the small innovative start-ups towards the creation of a production system , oriented towards a virtuous growth of shared values.

LORENZO BIANCHI

Lorenzo Bianchi è un avvocato e lavora nella materia della logistica. Insieme ad Alessandro Guagni ha in comune una passione: l’agricoltura, e rappresentano sicuramente il fenomeno contemporaneo dei Modern Farmers, ovvero persone di tutto il mondo che tolgono tempo alle proprie attività professionali per riscoprire la bellezza del coltivare la terra recuperando le antiche tradizioni in chiave contemporanea. Insieme hanno dato vita alla “Kissing.lab”, azienda agricola innovativa che si dedica alla riscoperta e “rifioritura” di quei prodotti agricoli che la cultura della grande distribuzione ha confinato a piccolissime aree di coltivazione, fino a farne rischiare l’estinzione.

Samson Kambalu

Born in 1975 in Malawi, received his degree in Fine Arts and Ethnomusicology at the University of Malawi,followed by a Masters in Fine Arts from Nottingham Trent University and a Ph.D from the Chelsea College of Art and Design.He has shown his work around the world, including at the Dakar Biennale (2014),the Tokyo Int. Art Festival (2009) and the Liverpool Biennial (2004, 2016).He has won research fellowships with Yale University and Smithsonian Institution,and was included in All the World’s Futures,Venice Biennale 2015.Kambalu works in a variety of media.His work is auto-biographical.His first novel,a portrait of the artist growing up in Africa,The Jive Talker or How to Get A British Passport, was awarded Winner of the National Book Tokens ‘Global Reads’ Prize (2010). Kambalu’s recent novel, Uccello’s Vineyard, is a narrative about photography and art set in the Middle Ages.

Sir David Payne

World-renowned scientist and inventor of the revolutionary fiber erbium. He is Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton and from the 70s to today his contributions to optical fiber technology are the backbone of the Internet and the contemporary digital world. UK Rank Prize for Optics, the 2001 Mountbatten Medal, the 2004 Kelvin Medal for the application of engineering science, 2007 IEEE Photonics Award,1991 IEEE/LEOS Tyndall Award,the 1998 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Engineering,Laureate of the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize.He is also Eduard Rhein Laureate and member of the Academies of Sciences of Russia and Norway and member of the UK Royal Society, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America. He founded the York Technologies and SPI Lasers.He was named in 2013 in the Knight of Honor List for services to applied photonics research.

Stefano Pepe

An expert of blockchain technology, Pepe works in both Silicon Valley and Italy, and founded UniquID Inc, a start-up company dedicated to the verification of objects and web services for consenting its use in an easy, secure way. For many years, Pepe has worked with passion to allow others to understand and take advantage of the capabilities of Bitcoin, the virtual money that allows for economic transactions with intermediary banking, and of blockchain, the working chain at the base of Bitcoin that enables the development of potentially unlimited, economic relations. Bitcoin and Blockchain offer a new and often unexplored world,that Pepe has described in his book, “Investire BITCOIN,” published in the fall of 2014. Pepe describes himself as a “growth hacker,” and his goal is to bring Blockchain all over the world, helping people, institutions, and organizations to bring out the best of his impressive innovation.