Theme: Big Ideas Under the Big Sky

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).

Warren Miller Performing Arts Center
45465 Gallatin Road
Big Sky, Montana, 59716
United States

Andrew Crawford

Rocket scientist + engineer

Andrew Crawford’s story sounds like fiction the first time you hear it. The Montana native was a symphony violinist and spent a decade as a professional snowboarder. Crawford then began an academic journey at Flathead Valley Community College, earned a mechanical engineering degree with a minor in aerospace from Montana State University, and interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Crawford then was offered a job at X, Google’s “moonshot factory,” working as a program manager on Google’s self driving cars—that program has now become its own company called Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi

Author, CEO of Herrmann International

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi travels the world as a speaker, author and thought leader helping people, teams and organizations apply what we know about the brain to improve personal and business performance. As CEO of Herrmann International, she continues to build on the pioneering research of her father, whose studies revealed four patterns in how the brain perceives and processes information. This led to the development of a system to understand one’s preferred mode of thinking and maximize the use of one’s entire brain to improve performance and results.

Linda Wortman

Founder of Wortman Lung Cancer Foundation

Linda is an avid bicyclist, cross country skier, hiker and runner. Linda, whom has never smoked, was shockingly diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008. Since then Linda became inspired to run a 5K race in 50 states, and a 10K race in every continent - a fear she nearly accomplished but got side tracked when asked by Mayo Clinic and Conrad Anker to climb Mt Kilimanjaro's 19,341 peak. Passionate about ending the stigma associated with lung cancer, Linda dedicates much of her time to raising awareness about the disease and started the Wortman Lung Cancer Foundation and Running Lungs events to raise critical funds for lung cancer health and research.

Lukas Nelson

Musician

Lukas Nelson has no more footsteps to follow other than his own. As with all creative artists, Nelson’s course has been somewhat unpredictable. Though born to country music royalty, he has followed a different muse. Or, more accurately, he has introduced a bunch of muses to each other and locked them into an imaginary room to spend some wild time together.

Parisa Khosravi

Journalist

Parisa Khosravi reported for CNN from nearly every major world event in the last three decades. She and her family immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in 1979, working her way up from an entry-level position to senior vice president for Ted Turner at the world’s first 24-hour news network. Khosravi, who won numerous distinguished awards for her journalism, now owns a consulting company and speaks to audiences about a variety of topics from Iran and Cuba to women in leadership roles, journalism and team building.

Scott Wyatt

Partner and CEO of NBBJ

As a partner at NBBJ—the tech industry’s architecture firm of choice according to Wired and Popular Science magazines—Scott Wyatt oversees the talents, accomplishments and business strategies of the company’s corporate workplace design practice. Wyatt is recognized for highly functional, sophisticated designs that translate a client’s vision, purpose and culture into an elegant expression of interiors, structure and landscape. These designs foster inspiring environments for businesses, employees and the community at large. Wyatt has led the creation of new global headquarters for some of the world’s foremost corporations including Google, Boeing, Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft, among many others.