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).

The Creativity Gym
Lange Ridderstraat 44
Mechelen, Antwerpen (nl), 2800
Belgium

Bram Vanderborght

Bram Vanderborght is an absolute authority in the field of robotics. The top researcher has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the Vrije University of Brussels (VUB) with the highest distinction, and received his doctorate in applied sciences in 2007. Vanderborght conducted research at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova, the Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca (Romania), and Japanese / French robo- tics laboratory in Tsukuba (Japan). Recently, his research on self-healing robots are still getting attention in the national media. His research interests include cognitive and physical human robot interaction, robot-assisted therapy, humanoids and rehabilitation robotics such as exoskeletons.

Lidewij Nuitten

Lidewij Nuitten is a television maker, who is the past couple of years made numerous amount of very intriguing series. Nuitten studied journalism at the Erasmushogeschool Brussel, and did an internship at Brussels Week. Then she went to work for the VRT, and she made the now famous reporter series ‘Iedereen Beroemd’. ‘Always straight’ - in which she walked in a straight line from Limburg until the coast - and ‘De Laatstejaars’. Her most recent work is ‘My Street’. Setup of this project was to interview as many of the people as possible in her very diverse street in Schaarbeek. Armed with 2 cameras she was able to capture the most fantastic stories.

Nico Huybrechts

Entrepreneurial professional with a background in Data Management, Analytics and Business Intelligence. Co-founder of dataSHIFT. Convinced that everything can be measured. People, performance, success. Historically, currently, predictively. His personal ambition is to make measuring motivational in order to lead to better business decisions and outcomes.

Nilesh Madhu

Nilesh was born in the beautiful, cosmopolitan Bombay (now Mumbai), India. Wanderlust (and a scholarship) led him, at the end of his Bachelors (in Electrical Engineering), to München where, in addition to sampling the pleasures of the Bavarian Alps and German delicacies, he obtained a Master's in Communications Engineering. He then followed his degree collecting spree to acquire a Dr.-Ing. from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. A post-doc enticed him to the quaint and lovely city of Leuven, where he happily remains to this day. After his post-doc he worked at NXP Semiconductors (Leuven) in the Mobile Audio Systems division. He held several roles here, from senior engineer to principal researcher to resident genius (unfortunately, not an official designation). At some point, people convinced him that he was good at explaining his stuff to the layman, at which point he decided he wanted to teach. Happily, he found a suitable opening within the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at Ghent University and moved there at the beginning of December last year. His studies and research over the years have inculcated and reinforced his love of signal processing. He believes this is a fantastic field and is driven to convince hapless students of the same. His work has been focussed in the domain of audio and speech signal detection, analysis and enhancement, and his modest contributions may be found under the bonnet of several contemporary smart, mobile devices. In his current position, he is looking forward to extending his technical repertoire and developing technologies around (but not limited to) audio and speech that would be of help to society. He has several papers to his name but values, most of all, that internal pleasure and satisfaction that comes from understanding or building something new.

Rik Vera

Having gathered years of C-level experience in sales and marketing related functions, he now inspires companies to develop customer-centric strategies fit for a connected world. Rik has given more than 350 keynote sessions around the world, in more than 15 countries, divided over 3 continents, to international pioneers like Assa Abloy, Cisco, Volvo, Swedbank, Telia, Baloise, Mastercard, Mundiphar- ma, Sogeti and Microsoft. He is a renowned thought-leader, worldwide keynote spea- ker, acclaimed author and trusted advisor on the topics of extreme customer-centricity, disruption, business model change, sales, marketing and making companies ready for the Day After Tomorrow.

Ward Bosmans

A freelance journalist, caring about green mobility & sustainability.