Theme: Lead or Follow

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).

Clyde Auditorium, SEC
Congress Rd
Glasgow, Glasgow City, G3 8YW
United Kingdom

Colonel Mustard and The Dijon 5

We are the shiny disco ball hat wearing, ultimate genre hopping, twisted festival, live stage machine that puts the emphasis on music, entertaining and laughter. We are a party at its most outrageous and ridiculous. On Saturday 13 th May, we played our first gig of the year and a triumphant show in front of over 1,000 6th Dijons (the affectionate name for our loyal extended family) at the O2 Academy Glasgow as part of the Southside Fringe Festival. That started our Cross The Road Tour 2017 and we will be bringing our road safety message and Dijon brand of peace, love and Mustard to TEDxGlasgow before heading into the fields to play sixteen festivals across the UK and South Korea; from Liverpool Sound City to Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival to Boomtown Fair to Edinburgh Festival Fringe to Zandari Festa in Seoul.

Glasgow Philharmonia

Following a number of diverse sell out shows, Glasgow Philharmonia has achieved phenomenal success reaching a wide demographic throughout Scotland. Founded by Ross Gunning, the orchestra has seen over 400 young people perform with them since it was founded in 2012. Having performed at events such as Commonwealth Games Medal Unveiling 2014, Stars on Parade Remembrance event 2013, Scottish Variety Gala Performance 2016, Star Wars Premieres 2015 and 2016 in Glasgow, they have also sold out their Movies to Musicals events and collaborated with a number of West End, Broadway and TV stars.

Bob Keiller

Well-known for his innovation and leadership, Bob Keiller was appointed Chairman of Scottish Enterprise in January 2016. Previously, he was the CEO of Wood Group, a British multinational oil and gas company with $7 billion (USD) sales, over 40,000 employees, and operations in more than 50 countries. Bob has a Masters of Engineering from Heriot-Watt University and is a chartered engineer. Awarded Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and 2008, he was also named Scottish Businessman of the Year in 2007 and Grampian Industrialist of the Year in 2008. In 2011, Bob was voted “Scottish Male Business Leader of the Year” at the Scottish Leadership awards. Alongside his non-executive role in Scottish Enterprise, Bob is providing mentoring and support for ambitious business leaders and social enterprises. As a result, he has a busy calendar of public speaking engagements, delivering pitches, presentations and talks and successfully securing many contracts and raising lots of business funding. An open book, he claims to have made nearly every mistake possible, ever adding more to the list, and often shares his learning in this area in the hope of inspiring new business leaders. Married with three children, Bob currently resides in Aberdeen.

David Eustace

Leaving school at 16 with an Art O’level David worked in various jobs. At 18, he served on a Royal Navy Minesweeper, and at 21 became a prison officer at HM Prison Barlinnie. At 28, he returned, as a mature student, to full-time education at Edinburgh Napier University. He graduated 3 years later with a BA Distinction in Photographic Studies. At 32, David worked at GQ / Vogue and other London-based magazines. For 15 years he split his time between homes in Glasgow and New York City. He has travelled the globe and his work has been recognised both locally and internationally in terms of commissions and awards. In 2011, he received an Honorary Dr. of Arts for his contribution in his chosen field. In 2012, Panasonic based their global Lumix TV and print campaign around David’s work. His work is held in both private and public art collections and in 2015 he was the first photographic artist to have an exhibition in The Scottish Gallery’s 173-year history. In the same year, David became The Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University, a post he will serve in for 5 years.

Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE

Scientist and entrepreneur Dr Graeme Malcolm has led a productive career in photonics and laser technology, responsible for the growth of three successful photonics companies. Graeme is co-founder and CEO of M Squared, which develops and manufactures solid-state lasers and photonics applications. Graeme’s work with M Squared currently focuses on some of the greatest challenges in science, technology and society. These include remote sensing for security, counter-terrorism and civil infrastructure challenges, photonics technologies that help scientists develop techniques to diagnose and treat diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, systems to monitor climate change and food production from the Earth’s orbit and new ways to enhance cell science through microscopy. Most recently, M Squared have started working with the UK Quantum Technology Hubs and have successfully produced some of the UK’s first commercial quantum technologies including atom interferometry equipment and a single-pixel camera – a hybrid technology combining quantum sensing with infrared imaging. Graeme devotes himself to supporting the UK’s scientific base. He was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen for his services to science and innovation and a Swan Medal from the Institute of Physics for his outstanding contributions to the application of physics in a commercial context.

Dr Jane Bentley

Jane is a drummer, facilitator, consultant and trainer; specialising in music in communication, health and wellbeing settings. She believes that everyone can make music – piloting musical social innovation projects as diverse as a drumming group for people experiencing mental health difficulties; exploring musical communication skills with corporate trainers through the medium of paper; making music with prisoners and their children to encourage family bonding; sharing the delights of improvisation with orchestral musicians who want to play in hospitals; creating a spontaneous bicycle orchestra for the 2014 Commonwealth Games; investigating the potential for rhythm in aiding language learning, and articulating the potential of music in the lives of people with dementia. In 2011, she was awarded her PhD based on musical interaction, highlighting the effects and mechanisms of group music making in human wellbeing. She has since trained musicians, music therapists, educators, trainers, arts practitioners, occupational therapists, and nursing staff from Bathgate to Bangalore. In 2015, she was awarded a Winston Churchill travelling Fellowship, researching the role of music in the wellbeing of older adults in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, and in 2016, was named a BBC music ‘Unsung Hero’ for her community work.

Dr Liberty Vittert

Dr Liberty Vittert is currently the Mitchell Lecturer at the University of Glasgow in the School of Mathematics and Statistics. She has significant experience in explaining issues concerning mathematics, statistics, polling and voting techniques, and the topic of “big data” to the media, public, and government. She is a regular contributor to STV and BBC Scotland, as well as having her own show on STV called Liberty’s Great American Cookbook. Her work also includes issues of involving and energising young people in STEM subjects. She is currently an Ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society.

Gillian Docherty

Recently scooping CEO of the Year at the DigiTech Awards 2017, Gillian has been the CEO of The Data Lab for the last 2 years, a Scottish Innovation Centre helping organisations innovate through the use of data science and analytics. Gillian’s work leading The Data Lab includes working to bring translational research into new products, services and to enable operational and productivity efficiencies. A self-confessed technology geek and ex-IBMer, Gillian talks regularly on technology and specifically data and its impact on our lives, our businesses and our public sector. Gillian is passionate about enabling our children to embrace new opportunities and for them to have the skills and aptitude needed to thrive. Gillian is also on the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Board and Tech Partnership Board and has a degree in Computing Science from University of Glasgow.

Helen Minnis

Helen is Scotland’s only Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and one of fewer than 20 black female Professors in the UK. Curiosity led her into science after spending a year working as an orphanage doctor in Guatemala, before training in psychiatry. The children in the orphanage, who had experienced severe abuse and neglect, had very unusual social behaviour – now called “Attachment Disorders”. This Attachment Disorder behaviour – an over-friendliness with strangers or severe social withdrawal – put them at risk of further abuse and neglect. Helen has spent her subsequent career trying to find out why many abused and neglected children have Attachment Disorders and how to help them. Helen enjoys charting new territories and getting surprises. Most recently, she has been running a large randomised controlled trial of a specialist mental health service for pre-school children coming into foster care due to abuse and neglect. This has underlined to her just how little we know. One of the biggest surprises she has come across is that many people think we understand a lot more than we actually do, which presents a challenge in itself.

Helen Sang

Helen Sang received a degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Cambridge. She continued developing a research career with fellowships at Harvard and Edinburgh universities in molecular genetics and was then appointed as Principal Investigator at The Roslin Institute and now part of the Royal (Dick) School for Veterinary Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Her personal research focus at The Roslin Institute has been the development and application of technologies for genetic modification of the chicken, as a research tool in basic biology, in biotechnology for protein therapeutics production and investigating the potential for developing disease resistance in production chickens. This has lead to a broader interest in the potential of genome editing technologies in agriculture, and involvement in public engagement to discuss these opportunities with policy makers, industry and the wider public.

Jamie Cooke

As Head of RSA Scotland, Jamie leads on the development and delivery of a wide range of policy, research and thought leadership projects. Rooted in collaboration across a wide range of sectors, Jamie works to bring together individuals and organisations committed to progressive social chance and the concept of a better Scotland. He is a lead figure in the basic income movement in Scotland, and also has particular interests in the areas of design, public service reform, political engagement, education and politics. Jamie is a Director of the Melting Pot, Scotland’s Centre for Social Innovation; a Board Member of COSCA, Scotland’s Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy; and a Trustee of Citizens Basic Income Network Scotland (CBINS). He lives in Bishopbriggs with his wife, two children and cat.

Janice Kirkpatrick

In 1986 Janice co-founded design studio Graven in Glasgow with Ross Hunter. The studio employs 30 people and works for clients and projects in 32 countries. Janice is a designer who creates and manages brands and design projects for blue chip companies and ambitious start-ups, including British Airways, Radisson, Carlson Rezidor Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank, RBS, Martha’s and ROX. Janice is also a broadcaster and writer. She wrote and presented the BBC2 series ‘Designing Our Lives’. She was a Conran Foundation Archive Collector, a Governor of Glasgow School of Art, member of the British Council’s Creative Industries Advisory Group, Trustee of NESTA chairing the £20M Investment & Innovation seed fund, Trustee and Chairman of The Lighthouse and she is on the Advisory Board for V&A Dundee and The Scottish Government’s Creative Industries Advisory Group. Janice is also a horsewoman and beekeeper. She runs charitable project clydesdalehorse.org in conjunction with William Grant Foundation to ‘Preserve Clydesdale Horse Traditions’. She is also writing a book, ‘Brands for Boards’, to be published in 2017 that is based on her highly successful ‘BuildMyBrand’ process used in over 200 organisations.

Jessie Pavelka

Jessie Pavelka is an internationally recognised health and wellbeing expert, who hosts Sky TV’s “Obese: A Year to Save my Life” and “Fat: The Fight of my Life“. He has also been the fitness expert for ITV’s Good Morning Britain. He is currently the Ambassador for Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life and England Athletic’s Run Together Initiative. His UK company ‘Pavelka’ is the wellbeing partner for technology giants Cisco Systems, helping employees become more resilient and healthier in a fast moving, dynamic world. Texan born, Jessie has 15 years experience in working with people who want to make changes in their lives. Although he specialises in extreme weight loss his main aim is to assist people in regaining control and live the life they truly deserve.

Jonah Jones

Jonah Jones is a product designer who has had the privilege to design for two of the top five most used apps in the world today. He currently manages design teams across Facebook, and previously at Google. At Facebook, Jonah has led a number of diverse product design teams. From building tools to help nearly two billion people share on Facebook, through the launch of tools to connect the workplace, to creating solutions to help publishers to thrive, his unique design experience spans across the full spectrum of consumer and business domains. Prior to Facebook, Jonah worked at Google for 8 years in Mountain View, Sydney, and Zurich. He managed the design team for Google Maps, leading the biggest redesign in the company’s history. He has a passion for combining his love for design, technology, film, gaming, and travel to create innovative and delightful design solutions. This passion has led to Jonah being regularly asked to speak at events across the globe.

Lee Craigie

Lee Craigie is 38 years old and lives in the Highlands of Scotland. She competed for 10 years as an elite level mountain bike racer, representing GB in the World Championships and Scotland in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Lee is also a trained child and adolescent psychotherapist, who uses outdoor adventurous activities therapeutically to help socially excluded young people feel better about themselves. In 2015, tired of the way the media and cycling industry portrays athletic women, Lee co-founded The Adventure Syndicate; a collective of women who do extraordinary things by bike and who aim to inspire, encourage and enable more women and girls to challenge themselves on what they think they might be capable of. Through The Adventure Syndicate, Lee now writes, delivers talks, makes films, runs training courses and, most importantly, continues to undertake her own ultra endurance self-supported bike adventures in an effort to remain curious, engaged and humble.

Phil Grady

Phil Grady heads up CastLight who has built a real time Affordability & Financial Capability platform that aggregates the consumer credit data with their transactional data within their bank account(s). This products stops irresponsible lending and borrowing.

Quentin Sommerville

Quentin Sommerville is the BBC’s middle east correspondent, based in Beirut and covering, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Before that, he lived in the Kabul for three years as the Afghanistan correspondent. His first foreign reporting gig for the BBC was as Shanghai correspondent, before he headed north to Beijing. Born in Townhead, Glasgow, he later grew up in Stirling. He studied politics at the University of Edinburgh.

Richard Browning

Richard Browning is an ultra-marathon runner, an ex-Royal Marine reservist, ex-City Commodity Trader and a pioneering inventor. Richard is the Founder of human propulsion technology start-up Gravity. Launched in March 2017, Gravity has invented, built and patented an ‘iron man like’ flight system. The dream was to reimagine an entirely new authentic form of human flight leaning on an elegant collaboration of mind and body augmented by leading edge technology. Gravity has to date been experienced by over a billion people globally, with video views alone running at more than 60 million within 7 days of launch. Richard’s vision is to build Gravity into a world-class aeronautical engineering business, challenge perceived boundaries in human aviation, and inspire a generation to dare ask ‘what if…’.

Terry A'Hearn

After holding leadership jobs in Australia, England and Northern Ireland, Terry A’Hearn moved to Scotland in April 2015 as Chief Executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Terry hails from Melbourne, Australia. As a leader, he tries to use Australian informality to build trust and belief amongst his teams. Terry believes all people can achieve great things if you can create a great workplace for them. Terry also believes that organisations achieve a lot more when they form powerful and unexpected partnerships. In Australia, Terry worked with Australia’s four major banks and two major insurance companies to help them treat the environment as a serious commercial issue. In Northern Ireland, he created Prosperity Agreements in which a cement manufacturer, a poultry producer and used tyre operators combined efforts across supply chains to create environmental and commercial success. Terry believes the only chance for humanity to prosper is if those businesses which are environmentally brilliant make money and those who are environmentally poor go out of existence. In Scotland, Terry believes SEPA can make a powerful contribution to creating this new type of prosperity through its new One Planet Prosperity strategy.

Theo Priestley

Theo Priestley is a technology executive, advisor, recognised industry thought-leader and futurist, with special interests in virtual and augmented/mixed reality, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, big data and cloud technologies, and how they all connect. Over the last decade, Theo has presented to Business and IT audiences around the world, and written articles on emerging themes, such as digital transformation, fintech, big data, AI, the Internet of things, and future trends. He has spent time researching and advising clients on such topics and the challenges they face on technology culture changes within their organisations. He also gives back his time advising and mentoring tech startups in accelerator programmes. More recently, Theo has joined SAP as Vice President and Global Evangelist for S/4HANA Cloud.

Tracey Howe

Assistive products (e.g. supported seating, standing frames) enable people to live productive, independent and dignified lives. Adaptive Design Glasgow creates sustainable pipelines of therapists, local labor forces and empowered communities to co-create assistive products for people in Glasgow using mainly corrugated cardboard. Build for One, Engage Everyone, Change Everything.

Wafa Shaheen

Originally from Iraq, Wafa arrived in Glasgow in 1996. Wafa has been working since 2000 on immigration and asylum issues, programmes and projects providing information, advice, advocacy and support to refugees at different stages of the asylum and integration process. Her role as Head of Services involves development, management and delivery of Scottish Refugee Council’s direct services ensuring that they are of a good quality and support refugees to exercise their rights and rebuild their lives in Scotland. In Iraq, Wafa had a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering and worked for 8 years in a factory initially as a maintenance engineer, then production and her last job was as the assistant technical manager.