Theme: Good News

2016: A year marked by negative headlines. Global terrorism, the so-called refugee crisis, the conflict in Ukraine, panama papers, the almost ludicrous US election campaign. Just to name a few. Sometimes one thinks: We have not seen the world so crazy and conflictual for a very long time. It's time for some good news! Therefore TEDxMünchen 2016 will focus on positive topics. On solutions for acute problems. On sustainable, future-oriented ideas. On projects which give us hope. With their optimism our speakers will inspire the audience and send you off full of power and positive thoughts… into the last days and weeks of 2016

Münchner Kammerspiele
Maximilianstraße 26
München, Bayern, 80539
Germany

Angela Aux

Angela Aux is a bird on a wire. He’s a shape shifter - all about contrasts and opposite. Wu-Tang shirt and a girl’s wig, haiku and Dostojewski – it’s a tightrope but Angela Aux knows how to walk it. There’s too much going on in his head for him to follow a straight plan, something he’s got in common with a lot of great songwriters. He also shares with them a passion for lyrics and poetry and a head overflowing with ideas. He soaks up all the shit out there and spits it out in songs, too sensitive to cope, yet too full of energy not to deal with it.

Andreas Graefe

Andreas is the endowed Sky Research Professor at Macromedia University and a research fellow at Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism in New York City. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Karlsruhe and has held research positions at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and LMU Munich. He also spent two years as a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In his research, Andreas does not limit himself to a particular domain or method. Instead, he looks across many domains and uses different methods to address important problems. For example, he has studied topics such as forecasting, decision-making, leadership, advertising, technology assessment, automated journalism and public opinion. Since 2007, Andreas has lead the PollyVote.com project for evidence-based election forecasting, which has correctly predicted every U.S. presidential election since 2004. Twitter: @PollyVote

Aubrey De Grey

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world’s highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging. He received his BA in computer science and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Cambridge. His research interests encompass the characterisation of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage. Twitter: @aubreydegrey

Christiane Heinicke

Christiane has lived on Mars. Well, almost. The physicist and engineer has spent twelve months at a research base under Mars-like conditions. On the barren slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano, she has lived in isolation from the rest of humanity together with five other volunteers. They shared a small dome-shaped habitat which they only left dressed in mock space suits and all their communications with the outside world were restricted to time-delayed emails. Upon her return to her tiny terrestrial home town Bitterfeld in Eastern Germany, she now enjoys such simple pleasures like sleeping with her window open and eating fresh fruits whenever she likes. Yet to her own surprise, she found that life on Mars is not as appalling as it may seem and that she is actually missing some aspects of it. Twitter: @mars_christiane

Elisabeth Hahnke

Elisabeth Hahnke is an Educational Entrepreneur, Trainer and Coach. Her work is dedicated to support people from all walks of life to unfold their potential regardless of their social background. In 2008 she was one of the founders of ROCK YOUR LIFE!, a social enterprise based in Germany and Switzerland. The mentoring network that brings together university students with kids from under-privileged backgrounds to help them enter the job market has now spread to over 50 cities. Elisabeth also founded Bildungsrocker, an educational program for schools offering trainings that help young people discover their talents and realise their dreams. So far RYL! has reached more than 4000 youths and over 6000 students. Bildungsrocker currently reaches some 1000 young people in Germany. As an experienced coach and trainer, Elisabeth has worked with 3000 people so far. Twitter: @ElisabethHahnke

Fabian Wichmann

Fabian Wichmann works for the ZDK Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur gGmbH in Berlin. There he gives exit support as a member of the EXIT Germany team and is responsible for social media management. He is also the author of several publications and studies on the topics of right-wing extremism and threats to democracy and the initiator of the award-winning initiatives Rechts gegen Rechts and #HassHilft. Twitter: @RechtsgegRechts

Gabi Junklewitz

Gabi Junklewitz is a certified MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) teacher, as well as lecturer and supervisor in MBSR teacher training. As a successful executive in the advertising industry, where performance and overtime are standards, Gabi Junklewitz found the vital force in her life through yoga and meditation many years ago - and thus the way to her today's vocation and activities. On the basis of her long-term mindfulness practice and well-founded education, it is her concern to inspire people to rest in a troubled time and accompany them on their way to more self-responsibility, clarity, serenity and joy of life. She offers mindfulness training (MBSR), lectures, workshops and various seminars on stress management and personality development in her practice rooms and in other locations nationwide.

Jodie Patterson

Jodie is a mother of five and an active LGBTQI advocate. Professionally, she is a nationally recognized entrepreneur and distinctive voice within the beauty industry, having co-founded two companies, Doobop—an online beauty marketplace catered to women of color—and Georgia by Jodie Patterson—an all-natural line of skin care. Before entering the beauty industry, Jodie served as Director of PR for fashion designer Zac Posen. For years, she ran her own boutique PR agency, working closely with formidable brands like Nike, Virgin Records, Sean John, and Lincoln Center. She is also the co-owner of the acclaimed Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater and helped develop the marketing and promotion strategy for its groundbreaking launch. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where fellow entrepreneur Joseph Ghartey and she raises their children with love, education, and family solidarity.

Jona Christians

Jona Christians was schooled in the Rudolf-Steiner school in Munich-Schwabing. The Waldorf school system is known in particular for teaching its pupils in creativity, independence and objective thinking. In 2011 Jona was able to experience responsible and independent work with Greenpeace, whilst working in the even-supervision and public relations department. Ever since Jona is infected by the idea of a sustainable way of life. In 2013, together with Laurin Hahn, Jona founded "Coconut & smoothies GbR", a mobile, self-designed and realized smoothie bar, which was most often requested for large events. Since 2012 Jona and his friend Laurin are working on a solution for sustainable mobility. Twitter: @SonoMotors

Kwinten Crauwels

Already at a young age, Kwinten was extremely interested in the diversity of music and had always regarded music as the highest form of art, capable of dealing the strongest emotions. Besides his profession as an architect, he is highly passionate about creating and designing, particularly large and long-lasting projects. Musicmap is by far the biggest and most challenging of these projects so far. In dire search of the perfect overview of music genres, whilst motivated by the need of those around him for such a thing, Kwinten tried to assemble a framework of genres that balances accuracy, comprehensibility and accessibility. Together with his technically oriented brother and a number of enthusiasts, he spent almost eight years developing a satisfactory map and interactive encyclopedia of popular music genres. Twitter: @_musicmap

Lara Wernert

Born in 1986, Lara studied Fashion Design (BA) at HTW Berlin and Conceptual Textile Design (MA) at the academy of fine arts at Giebichenstein Castle in Halle. Her work is characterised by sustainable design approaches and the vision of enclosed textile cycles in the industry. Since 2012, she has been designing fashion concepts with her label "Sohreh" inter alia for the Fashion Upcycling store Berlin. Her masterpiece "Hotpot" was shown in the "Textildesign vom Experiment zur Serie" exhibition at the bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Museum für Gestaltung (05/16-09/16) and laid the foundation for the foundations for the carpet manufacturing company 13Rugs in June 2015.

Tony Hawks

Tony Hawks is a TV and radio comedian and bestselling author. He has written five books, the bestseller Round Ireland with a Fridge, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, One Hit Wonderland, A Piano in the Pyrenees, and The Fridgehiker's Guide To Life. His latest book, Once Upon A Time In The West...country, tells the story of how he and his partner Fran uproot from London and settle in a small Devonian village, and attempt to integrate themselves. It was released in March 2015. Twitter: @thefridgeman

Ulrich Eberl

Ulrich Eberl has spent 30 years studying future trends. He is one of the most prestigious German language science and technology journalists. Eberl holds a doctorate in biophysics from Technical University Munich. He worked at Daimler and was head of the Innovation Communications department at Siemens for 20 years. He is also founder and editor-in-chief of the international award-winning future magazine Pictures of the Future and author of the book Zukunft 2050 (Life in 2050). In 2016, he founded his own editorial office and wrote the book Smarte Maschinen (Smart machines - how artificial intelligence is changing our lives). More on www.zukunft2050.wordpress.com Twitter: @UlrichEberl1

Wolfgang Krach

Wolfgang Krach, 53, is Editor-in-Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), the paper that first published the Panama Papers. Wolfgang studied philosophy, worked for several news agencies (AP, Reuters, dpa) and served as Munich correspondent for the regional daily Donaukurier. From 1993 to 1997, he was a political reporter at STERN magazine in Hamburg. Following this post, Krach was deputy bureau chief in Berlin of the news magazine DER SPIEGEL, after which he headed the national desk at DER SPIEGEL based in Hamburg. In 2003, he came to Munich to the largest selling national newspaper in Germany to serve as the paper's managing editor, and in 2007, he was appointed to the role deputy Editor-in-Chief. Since April 1, 2015 he has been Editor-in-Chief.