Theme: TEDxTbilisi

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).

Tbilisi State Conservatoire
8-10 Griboedov Stree
Tbilisi, T'bilisi, 0108
Georgia

Tete Noise

Tete Noise (Sandro Chinchaladze) makes ambient and experimental music often using sounds he records in the streets of Tbilisi. He performs regularly at events in Georgia. More of his audio creations can be heard at tetenoise.com along with a number of original video productions.

Boris Kiknadze

Boris Kiknadze is a young entrepreneur passionate about social entrepreneurship. Boris has worked on and set up a series of start-ups focusing on community development – MusicPro, BeActive, Rest Group. He co-founded WeHelp.ge, a crowd-funding and innovative charity platform, which raises money for people in critical medical conditions. Boris is also regional representative of the San Francisco-based Kairos Society, a global network of young people seeking to foster innovation-driven social entrepreneurship.

Eric Livny

Eric is an economist who has worked for 20 years at the interface of economics education, research and policy. He is the founding director of the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET) and the affiliated ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI), the first university-based economic policy think tank in the South Caucasus. Eric helped design and managed the implementation of numerous research projects focusing on a broad range of issues.

Iain Webb

Iain Webb is a teacher of mathematics whose goal it to get people passionate about the subject. A graduate with an MA in mathematics from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Iain has taught at universities and schools in Great Britain, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Georgia. He has previously co-authored courses for students taking non-mathematical academic routes and he aims to show people, and specifically his students, the hidden number-related patterns around us.

Maya Todua

Maya Todua has been passionate about astronomy and the space-earth connection since she was a child growing up in Sukhumi, Abkhazia. Today she is an astronomer specializing in atmospheric physics and solar-terrestrial coupling. She heads Georgia's Abastubani Astrophysical Observatory, the former Soviet Union's first mountain observatory, where scientists have been working on observational and theoretical solar physics as well as numerical fluid dynamics since 1932.

Natali Kenkadze

Natali Kenkadze is a social entrepreneur and co-founder of the social enterprise Generator 9.8. She has long been interested in the concept of the shared economy and social entrepreneurship. In 2014 after graduating in non-profit management in Rome, Italy, she returned to her native Tbilisi determined to develop a model of social enterprise for the Georgian context. With a group of other young professionals, she co-founded Generator 9.8, an innovative model of co-working space and social bar which was awarded Georgia’s most innovative social enterprise by the Ministry of Sports and Youth. She also co-founded the youth organization International Centre for Peace and Integration and has been involved in youth-led conflict dialogue activities for over a decade.

Shota Adamashvili

Shota Adamashvili is Georgia’s only Country and Western singer/songwriter. Sydney Pollack’s film “The Electric Horseman” opened a window on a musical world that eighteen-year-old Shota Adamashvili instantly fell in love with. Ten years on, he performs covers of classic and contemporary country music as well as his own original songs. Shota, who is from Bolnisi, a small village in southern Georgia, has never been to the places where his favorite musical genre originates.

Simon Janashia

Simon Janashia is an education researcher and reformer who has led key education changes in his native Georgia. He advocates for schools that are active learning environments where children develop an understanding of the world they live and operate in through their dynamic involvement. He has helped design curricula, textbooks, and teacher development, and coordinated the development of BA and MA programs for teachers and education administration specialists at Ilia State University in Tbilisi.

Tekuna Gachechiladze

Tekuna Gachechiladze is one of Georgia’s leading and most innovative chefs. After training in New York she served as the head chef at several establishments in Tbilisi before opening her own restaurants. Tekuna regularly promotes Georgian cuisine and culture at home and abroad and is the creator of the “Supra Nova” concept, which seeks to update and renew traditional Georgian dishes.

Timothy Blauvelt

Timothy Blauvelt is an American historian who specializes in the former Soviet Union. He is an associate professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi and country director of the American Councils for International Education, and has published numerous articles about the Caucasus and the former Soviet Union.