Theme: The Time is Now

On 20 May 2017 Aston University will host its third TEDx event. This year the theme of the event is “The Time is Now”. We are looking forward exploring “Time” as a precious resource of the 21st century and get inspired by the speakers talking about the importance of taking action now, not waiting for tomorrow or looking back at yesterday.

iCentrum, Innovation Birmingham Campus
6 Holt Street
Birmingham, Birmingham, B7 4BP
United Kingdom

Dixon Jones

Marketing Director at Majestic

Since 2009 Dixon Jones has been the Marketing Director of the world’s largest link analysis engine, Majestic. This is the transformation of Search and digital world by providing link intelligence on a scale not previously open to the industry. Majestic won countless awards including best of breed search engine awards in the UK, USA and Europe, entry into the Deloitte technology Fast 50 list.” In 2016 Majestic became the winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation. On top of this, Dixon has the personal accolade of being a “UK Search Personality of the Year”. Dixon has helped clients all over the world in all sectors – including national papers and international search engines themselves to understand their own search strategy.

Gary Hutt

Professional in High Performance Sport, CEO of Volleyscience

Gary Hutt is an elite strength and conditioning coach and online entrepreneur. His current focus is on making knowledge from the sports sciences accessible to benefit the widest possible audience worldwide. Gary has a wealth of experience helping athletes competing across the full spectrum of performance levels from grassroots right up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games to achieve their performance goals. His work in elite sport currently centers around supporting athletes in volleyball and disability sport to be physically prepared to reach their potential.

Jodie Cook

Co-founder of Clever Tykes enterprise education storybooks and teaching resources. Owner of JC Social Media.

Jodie Cook. Co-founder of Clever Tykes enterprise education storybooks and teaching resources. Owner of JC Social Media. After starting a social media agency at the age of 22, Jodie Cook became fascinated with the childhood influences that encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship. This led to her co-creating Clever Tykes: a series of children’s storybooks that inspire positive, resourceful and creative behaviour in primary school children. In January 2017 Jodie, along with her Clever Tykes cofounder, secured sponsorship to gift the storybooks and teaching resources to all 23,000 primary schools in the United Kingdom and they are now determined to do this in countries across the world.

Joel Blake OBE

Multi award-winning Entrepreneur

Joel is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, speaker and diversity consultant. Born and bred in Birmingham, Joel has developed over 15 years of experience in helping businesses and people to harness their difference, to grow commercially and personally whilst increasing social impact. He was awarded an OBE by the Royal Family in 2016 for Services to Business Support and Enterprise.

Karen Newman

Founder and Director of Birmingham Open Media

Karen is Founder and Director of BOM (Birmingham Open Media). BOM is forging a new model of practice at the intersection of art, technology and science with measurable social impact. Together with its Fellows, BOM tests pioneering ideas that investigate the transformative value of the arts across education, health and society.

Katie Buckingham

Founder of Altruist Enterprises

Katie Buckingham is an award-winning social entrepreneur and Founder of Altruist Enterprises; a passionate and caring provider of Resilience, Stress Management and Mental Health Awareness training to organisations and schools. Following personal experience of mental ill-health, Katie campaigns nationally to increase knowledge and encourage conversations around the subject.

Masha Cheriakova

Program developer and coordinator Biz4All Social entrepreneurship Training Program Belarus; Co-founder and writer of Heta Belarus Dzietka

Masha Cheriakova is a social entrepreneur who was born in Belarus and grew up in the Netherlands. Her passion for social entrepreneurship and mission to promote her home country, Belarus, in the world has brought her to being the author of a bestselling book in Belarus. Now Masha is the author of 4 books with 3 new books coming in 2017. She is also a full-time consultant of a social entrepreneurship incubator project called Biz4All in Belarus managing a three-year education programme for 300 businesses.

Max Little

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) Mathematics Group, Aston University. TED speaker in 2012, TED Fellow. Visiting Associate Professor MIT Media Lab, Human Dynamics Group.

Max Little is an applied mathematician with a background in computer sciences and statistics. He is part of the TED Fellows program, which means he has been selected as one of the 400 international visionaries who are supported by TED and collaborate to create positive change around the world. He is known for his multi-disciplinary research, which includes the use of telephones and smartphones to detect the symptoms of Parkinson's remotely. He gave a talk on this topic at the TEDGlobal Conference in 2012

Ruth Page

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics in the University of Birmingham

Ruth is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics. She spends her time teaching and writing about storytelling, especially focusing on the stories that people tell in social media contexts. She has published many books and articles about the language people use when they tell stories, including 'Narratives Online' (2017) and 'Stories and Social Media: Identities and Interaction' (2012).

Sukhi Wahiwala

Founder and Director of Synergy Marketing Solutions, Investor, Mentor

Sukhi Wahiwala is a successful British born Sikh, who has been schooled in business by his parents, with “7 Generations of Family Business Ancestry”. As a successful serial Entrepreneur, he was able to build and establish a “Small Business Empire”.