Theme: A world on the move

TEDxThessaloniki brings the TED experience to Thessaloniki maintaining the non-profit nature and the innovative spirit of TED. The first event was held in 2010 and since then we have brought leading thinkers and practitioners to Greece, formed a community of thousands TEDxSters, whose main trait is their passion for change, and contribute a series of interesting and inspiring stories to the TEDx project. TEDx Thessaloniki is organized by a team of approximately 40 volunteers along with an additional number of 60 volunteers contributing on the day of the conference. As a team we share a common purpose to present ideas and stories that matter and offer to each and every TEDxster the best TED like experience we can.

Thessaloniki Music Hall
25 Martiou & Paralia
Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 54646
Greece

GANG

Music Band

The GANG were created in Thessaloniki and their music is a mixture of indie- Rock and Jangle Pop. They have performed in Berlin, in concerts, in festivals and in significant venues in the whole Greece, in Italy and Istanbul. The GANG do not hesitate to merge with artists from different types of music such as their cooperation with the internationally renowned tenor Michael Kleitman, their participation in the musical “Broadway nights” and their on stage performance with the Swiss-French group Groov Tank! The first English song of the band “Driver”, recorded in London, is part of their forthcoming work “Find that place”, and was released on iTunes in 2012. The word “playlist” is relatively unknown to them and thus their concerts are never similar. The frontman of the group Nikolaos Dimitriadis along the GAND is completing his international tour entitled “Smile. A concept on Ethics, Environment and Music”.

RE_ACT

3D Video mapping dance performance

A three dimensional audio-visual dance performance

Alex Loizou

Entrepreneur

Alex Loizou is the CTO & cofounder of Trouva, an online emporium showcasing products from the UK’s finest independent retailers. Through the website shoppers find a handpicked selection of homeware, fashion & lifestyle items from over 350 boutiques. The brand offers worldwide shipping and the option to have purchases delivered in 90 minutes within London. Founded in 2013, Trouva has raised $3.8m to date by Octopus Investments, Index Ventures and Playfair Capital with Angel Investors from companies including Net-A-Porter, eBay and Google. A computer scientist turned entrepreneur, Alex leads the development of technology that enables independent retailers to compete against the larger chains. He holds an MSc in ISM from the London School of Economics and completed his undergrad in Computer Science at the University of Cologne in Germany. Previously, he was a member of the inaugural cohort of EntrepreneurFirst Europe’s leading pre-seed investment programme for technical founders.

Alexis Pantazis

Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hellas Direct

Alexis is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hellas Direct, a new insurance company founded in 2011 with the view of changing the way Greek car insurance companies service their clients. The company specialises in car insurance, selling policies directly via the web and over the phone. Prior to Hellas Direct, Alexis was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs where he led principal investing and new strategic initiatives for the firm in the European investment management field. A former strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, Alexis also worked for Miramax Films in New York and the Competition Directorate General of the European Commission in Brussels. Over the past few years, Alexis has privately invested in a number of different ventures, focusing on angel financing and the strategic use of technology in the financial services space. He has held advisory roles and participated at Board level across a number of different start-up companies.

Andrew Bastawrous

Eye-surgeon / Social entrepreneur

Andrew Bastawrous is an eye surgeon and a social entrepreneur, based at the International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He has worked and undertaken research in Sierra Leone, Peru, Belize, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Uganda and has recently returned from living in Kenya where he was leading a major eye disease study and the development and testing of Peek, the Portable Eye Examination Kit, a new smartphone based tool (Peek) to detect eye diseases in the world’s most challenging areas. Peek recently ran one of the top-ten of all time crowd-funding campaigns in the health sector on Indiegogo, together with prize money this has enabled them to bring Peek Retina to market. He was made a TED Fellow in 2014 and his TED talk has now been viewed close to one million times.

Constantine Emmanouilidis

Supernova hunter

Constantinos Emmanouilidis is a self-taught amateur astronomer born and raised in Thessaloniki. For the past eighteen years he has been managing his greenhouse manufacturing company and his fully autonomous astronomical observatory, which he designed and manufactured himself. Since the age of 18 Constantinos has been trying to find answers to all the big questions in life and this has taken him travelling all around the world so as to observe total solar eclipses and also to create and organize a team of researchers who detect supernovae explosions in distant galaxies. In his free time he reaches remote dark locations in Greece and abroad trying to capture through photography the beauty of the earth’s landscape combined with the splendour of the night sky. He believes that a combination of science and art is the best way to share the vastness of the Cosmos and the uniqueness of the human spirit .

Dimitri Zenghelis

Climate Economist

Dimitri Zenghelis is Co-Head Policy at the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE. In 2014 he was Acting Chief Economist for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. He was recently Senior Economic Advisor to Cisco’s long term innovation group and an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. Previously, he headed the Stern Review Team at the Office of Climate Change, London, and was a senior economist on the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, commissioned by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown. Before working on climate change, Dimitri was Head of Economic Forecasting at HM Treasury. He has provided regular briefings to the Chancellor Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has also worked at Oxford Economics, the Institute of International Finance, Washington DC, and Tokai Bank Europe, London.

Ermis Chalvatzis

Architect

Natassa Lianou and Ermis Chalvatzis are directors of Lianou Chalvatzis Architects (LC-A), based in London. Through their practice they promote their vision about “Smart Design Elegance” as they call their philosophy and design process. They design efficient architectural solutions to real-world problems, which respond and adapt to the current socio-economic environment of each place, time and constrains, connecting people and enabling social interaction. Efficiency, economy, sustainability, materiality and high-aesthetics are the key parameters in their design process. The practice’s work focuses οn commercial building projects, masterplanning and infrastructure schemes as well as high profile smaller scale designs, aiming to bring meaningful design to the everyday lives of a broader audience. Prior to establishing their firm, they gained rich experience through their trajectory at Zaha Hadid Architects as Senior Architects.

George Eleftheriou

Tech Entrepreneur

George Eleftheriou is the Co-founder & CEO of Sentio Solutions. The company, based in Palo Alto, California, focuses on the development of Feel, the first wristband that recognizes and tracks human emotions throughout the day, to help users develop positive emotional habits and improve wellbeing. In the past, George has been a management consultant with McKinsey & Cisco in NY & London, with expertise in Big Data and Analytics. He gained significant experience of working with C-level executives and Fortune 100 clients in a variety of industries such as Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail and Financial Services. Prior to that, he was a Project Manager with a technology-consulting firm in Greece, where he was managing engagements and relationships with the top players in the Telecommunications space across 6 countries of SE Europe. George has a background in Engineering and Business, and holds 3 Master’s degrees including a MSc in Management Science & Engineering from Columbia University.

Ione Wells

Activist

Ione Wells, 21, is in her second year reading for an undergraduate degree in English Language & Literature at the University of Oxford in the UK, though she is originally from London. Ione set up the international #NotGuilty campaign against sexual violence and victim blaming in April 2015, and has since then also written about these issues for multiple publications including The Guardian and the National Union of Students, taken parts in debates on BBC Radio and at multiple festivals including The Lughnasa International Friel Festival in Belfast and the Clear Lines festival in London, and taught workshops on these issues in schools across the UK. Ione is the Editor of The Isis magazine – Oxford University’s student magazine – and has an active interest in human rights, international relations and theatre.

Loukis Agrotis

Speed-painter/Performer

Loukis Ari Agroti was born in Limassol in 1976. He was an assistant at the atelier of the painter and sculptor Pambos Michlis where he attended courses in painting and design, and practiced sculpture and pottery which helped him explore the anatomy of the human body. At the age of 25 he was admitted to the Cyprus College of Arts (in collaboration with the Bristol University, England). He studied painting for two years under the supervision of instructors such as Antros Efstathiou and Grahame Parry. In 2008 he started working on live speed painting. In 2010 he participated in the reality show “Greece’s Got Talent 2010” and came in second place. Loukis has presented two individual exhibitions and taken part in numerous others. He has painted more than 500 paintings live on stage. He is also working on construction and installed painting in space, sculpture and decoration.

Melissa Fleming

Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Melissa Fleming is a leading communications professional, working to draw attention, drive empathy and generate support for the world’s 50 million refugees and displaced people. As Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), she leads media teams to bring news and stories of people on the run to the public consciousness. She is a champion for public communication through social media, including on her own Twitter account. She also leads an innovative multi-media production team producing refugee stories of survival and resilience. She believes in the power of public speaking to move audiences. Her TED talk, “Let’s help refugees thrive, not just survive,” has been viewed over 700,000 times around the world and has been subtitled in 20 languages. She is also co-organizer of TEDxPlaceDesNations in Geneva. She writes a regular column for the Guardian and is a contributor to UNHCR’s blog.

Michael Green

Social progress expert

Michael Green is Executive Director of the Social Progress Imperative. An economist by training, he is co-author (with Matthew Bishop of ‘The Economist’) of Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World and The Road from Ruin: A New Capitalism for a Big Society. Previously Michael served as a senior official in the U.K. Government’s Department for International Development, where he managed British aid programs to Russia and Ukraine and headed the communications department. He taught Economics at Warsaw University in Poland in the early 1990s. His TED Talks have been viewed more than 1.8 million times, and his 2014 Talk was chosen by the TED organization as one of the ‘most powerful ideas’ of 2014 and by The Telegraph as one of the 10 best ever. Michael is @shepleygreen on Twitter.

Michalis Agathos

Theoretical physicist

Michalis Agathos is a PhD candidate in gravitational physics at Nikhef Amsterdam, and member of the international LIGO-Virgo Collaboration of gravitational wave detectors. He studied Applied Mathematics and Physics at NTUA (Athens) and obtained his master degrees in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics at the University of Utrecht, working in the fields of Quantum Gravity and Noncommutative Geometry. In his PhD dissertation he specialises in the study of gravitational waves sourced by coalescing binary systems consisting of black holes and neutron stars. He is exploring how gravitational waves can be coerced to testify on the nature of gravity, on the properties of black holes and super-dense matter, on the beginning and the evolution of our Universe. In the recent discovery of gravitational waves, his analyses contributed to the proof that the detected signal verifies Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, and set the most stringent upper bound to date on the mass of the graviton.

Minas Liarokapis

Robotics researcher

Dr. Minas Liarokapis was born in Athens in 1984. He received an MSc degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Patras (Greece), an MSc degree in Information Technologies in Medicine and Biology from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece) and a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (Greece). He is currently a Postdoc Associate with the GRAB Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Yale University (USA). Minas is the founder of the OpenBionics initiative and a co-founder of HandCorpus and OpenRobotHardware. His research focuses on human robot interaction, robot grasping and manipulation, robot hands design, non-invasive brain machine interfaces, prosthetics, machine learning & pattern recognition. He passion is to provide robotics solutions to everyday life problems, synthesizing sophisticated analytical, machine learning & optimisation schemes, developing novel robotics & bionics hardare

Natassa Lianou

Architect

Natassa Lianou and Ermis Chalvatzis are directors of Lianou Chalvatzis Architects (LC-A), based in London. Through their practice they promote their vision about “Smart Design Elegance” as they call their philosophy and design process. They design efficient architectural solutions to real-world problems, which respond and adapt to the current socio-economic environment of each place, time and constrains, connecting people and enabling social interaction. Efficiency, economy, sustainability, materiality and high-aesthetics are the key parameters in their design process. The practice’s work focuses οn commercial building projects, masterplanning and infrastructure schemes as well as high profile smaller scale designs, aiming to bring meaningful design to the everyday lives of a broader audience. Prior to establishing their firm, they gained rich experience through their trajectory at Zaha Hadid Architects as Senior Architects.

Stergios Parizas

Teacher

Stergios Parizas was born and raised in Naousa. As a child he studied music (guitar and theory of music). In 2010 he graduated from the Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly. In his attempt to integrate music in the classroom he observed the positive psychological effect this had on the students. In 2014 he was assigned a student with special educational needs in Rhodes island. Without any expertise he brought the student closer to school by making it as attractive as possible, based on values such as love and mutual respect, while using music as a means to positively affect his psychology. At the end of the school year they created and sang a song about what they had learned during their common journey. This year, Stergios teaches at the primary school of Kalymnos island. He believes in motivational learning, promoting creativity and encouraging free expression. He also trusts in teachers and students creating a better and more inspired world.

Stylianos Antonarakis

He is a medical, molecular, human geneticist, physician-scientist.

Stylianos E. Antonarakis is currently Professor and Chairman of Genetic Medicine at the Univ. of Geneva Medical School, President of HUGO, and the founding director of iGE3 (institute of Genetics and Genomics of Geneva). He received his MD(1975) and DSc(1982) from the University of Athens Medical School. He is a medical, molecular, human geneticist, physician-scientist.He joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University in 1983 and rose to full professor of Pediatric Genetics, Biology and Medicine in 1990. He has published more than 660 papers and he is listed as one of the highly cited scientists by the ISI institute with more than 51,000 citations. He received numerous awards including the commander of the Order of Phoenix medal from the Hellenic Democracy(2007). Some of his current interests and research projects are the functional analysis of the genome, effect of human genetic variation to phenotypic variation, and the molecular pathogenesis of trisomy 21 & polygenic phenotypes.

Vasilis Sotiropoulos

Attorney at Law

Vasilis Sotiropoulos was born in Athens in 1978. He is a lawyer at the Supreme Court (Court of Cassation) of Greece and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Law. In 2005 he founded the first Greek legal blog, e-lawyer, in an attempt to generate debate on the protection of personal data and respect for civil liberties on the Internet. He is always looking for ideas for institutional innovations that bring people closer to their constitutional freedoms. With that in mind, he was the first elected Ombudsman of the City of Athens in 2012. Alongside a group of co- workers they created this structure from scratch in Athens for the prompt resolution of disputes between the citizens and the City of Athens. Having been elected Ombudsman of the Region of Attica, his mission is to strengthen the relations between citizens and public services and to achieve the resolution of disputes between them, acting as a mediator, without having to go to court.

Zrinka Bralo

Human rights advocate

Zrinka Bralo is Chief Executive of Migrants Organise, a community organizing platform for migrants and refugees. She herself is a refugee from Sarajevo (Bosnia), where she was a journalist and worked with leading war correspondents during the siege in the 90’s. Zrinka is a founder of the “Women on the Move Awards”. She won the 2011 “Voices of Courage Award” by the Women’s Refugee Commission in New York and joined their Board in 2012. She successfully campaigned to end immigration detention of children and currently campaigns to end indefinite immigration detention. In September 2015 she became founding Chair of the National Refugee Welcome Board. She is also founding Trustee of the Bridge of Peace, a reconciliation charity supporting young people working for peace in North Bosnia, in towns were notorious concentration camps were discovered during the 90’s war. Zrinka holds an MSc in Media and Communications from London School of Economics and is a 2014 Churchill Fellow.