Theme: The Path Untrodden

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).

University of Bath
Bath, Bath and North East Somerset, BA27AY
United Kingdom

Ali McCloskey

After a 13 year career in banking Ali became dissatisfied with the demand of juggling part time work and raising a family. She quit her job after her second child was born and started her own Pilates and Fitness business. She discovered her love of helping people and trained as a life coach, studying NLP/TLT and hypnosis. Since qualifying in 2005 she has since build up a buy one to one practice, has created and taught parenting workshops and work with couples. Her passion is helping people live fulfilling lives, particularly in the area of work and relationships.

Barbara Hawkins

Barbara lives and works with her husband Bill, surrounded by all of their family in Cornwall, making pots, jewellery and painting pictures. Officially, she could be defined as being in her sixties, a mum and a grandma! She is very proud of all those things, but she hopes she is also a person who has had a life well lived, with some lessons learned and a few grains of wisdom acquired.

Caroline Hickman

Caroline has a background in social work and psychotherapy, currently working at the University of Bath as a Teaching Fellow in Social Work in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences. She has worked in social work since 1983 and as an Integrative Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist with children, couples and adults for 20 years. She qualified as a psychotherapist with Revision and studied archetypal & cultural psychology for three years with Thiasos in London. She is a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Bath researching children’s relationships with nature and climate change, use of therapy dogs working with people with Alzheimer’s’, and issues of identity affecting refugee and asylum seeking children. Her Psychotherapy dissertation explored grief and depression and our relationship with the sea and salt water, both real and imaginal. She is also a PADI diving instructor and has spent many therapeutic hours hanging out with fish working underwater in the Sinai, Egypt.

Elizabeth Gowing

Elizabeth Gowing worked as a teacher in primary education in inner London before moving to Kosovo in 2006. She is an education consultant, translator from Albanian to English, and the author of three books about Kosovo - Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013) and The Rubbish-Picker's Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015). She is the co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity working with volunteers to address education challenges in Kosovo, and particularly to support the excluded Roma and Ashkali community of rubbish-pickers.

James Cullen

A social entrepreneur who has a passion for both motivational speech and for sport development

In this talk, James Cullen reveals how we can turn a negative into a positive through what he calls ‘motivational talk’. Imagine if we could use words not to create discord but instead to foster a sense of united purpose throughout our communities, our organisations and our world. James will share a deep insight from his research into group discourse and how his findings resonate with his own personal quest to motivate himself as well as to inspire humanity. This talk will motivate the world to embark upon paths untrodden.

Jason Hart

Jason Hart is an anthropologist who lectures on international development at the University of Bath. His work over the last 20 years has focussed on refugee and war-affected children, attending particularly to the forms of support provided by aid organisations.

Meltem Avcil

Human rights activist

Meltem Avcil is an ex child detainee. She was woken up at 6am by 8 immigration officers who rushed in to her house occupying every room on the 27th of August 2007. She was then put in a caged van and taken to the police station and from there to the B class prison Yarlswood detention centre in Bedfordshire. Now she is an award winning human rights activist. She started her first campaign while still in prison to stop children’s detention which was won in 2010 and now she is campaigning with Natasha Walter to ‪#‎SETHERFREE‬. Her first was Liberty Human Rights; Christie Jackson young person of the year award 2014 and her second award was Cosmopolitan ultimate campaigner of the year 2015. Now Meltem is 22 years old and studying Psychology at the University of Goldsmiths. She is an amateur author, poet and script writer and a part time worker. Her essay writing was published by Virago books in ‘I call myself a feminist.’ Meltem lives, works and studies in London.

Richard Mattison

Richard is CEO of Trucost Plc and has advised various UN bodies and governments on environmental reporting and ecosystem services and has led ground-breaking projects including developing the world’s first Environmental Profit and Loss account for PUMA, valuing the environmental costs of the world’s 3,000 largest companies for the UN-led Principles for Responsible Investment, and producing the UK Government’s Environmental Reporting Guidelines for Business. Richard is an honourary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of the Global Stranded Assets Advisory Council, advisor to The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) coalition, and has contributed to the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council. Previously Richard held a number of senior positions as a strategy consultant with Mitchell Madison Group and began his career as a neuroscientist. Richard holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh.

Rob Ormerod

A designer with a passion for natural building

Rob Ormerod is a designer with a passion for natural building. After receiving a master’s degree in Product Design he left the UK in search of a new path. Since then he has been volunteering his time building houses and practicing Permaculture. He dreams of a life in the country in a house made of earth. He’s currently looking for projects to work on, people to collaborate with and countries to travel to. Traveling the world doesn’t have to cost a fortune, there are many places where you can volunteer your time for food and a bed. Rob Ormerod has been working with volunteers from around the globe to create an Earthbag community centre in the Andes. This is the story of how over 400 people came together over a 2 year period to live, work and learn together.

Sonia Shomalzadeh

An artist with a passion for wildlife conservation

An artist with a passion for wildlife conservation. Born in Portsmouth in 1987, she grew up always wanting to be by the sea, with a keen interest in marine biology and the environment. She is best known for her life size drawings of endangered marine life. She won the Young Marine Artist Award 2012. She has completed a residency aboard RV Song of the Whale, studying marine mammals in the North Atlantic Ocean with Marine Conservation Research (MCR) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Most recently she collaborated with schools doing art workshops- in October last year we made a Humpback whale calf by planting 2500 crocus bulbs, blooming this spring. She exhibits her work in London at ocean conservation events and is a patron of Marine Conservation Research International.