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).

Brighton Dome
Church Street
Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1UE
United Kingdom

Alex Ntung

Alex Ntung is an author and a PhD researcher. Alex was born into a family of cattle herders, semi-nomadic, pastoralist people in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Growing up, he survived extreme hardship and violence on a terrifying scale as he lost many members of his family. Alex experienced wartime violence, genocide first-hand and has been forcibly displaced from his home, country and family. As refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has journeyed to the UK to make a new home, Alex is story is a dangerous and daring, as it is insightful and inspiring.

Alex Stephany

Alex Stephany is the CEO of Beam, the world’s 1st crowdfunding platform that allows anyone to help a homeless person to train up and get into work. Beam is funded by The Mayor of London, Nesta and some leading UK entrepreneurs. Before founding Beam, Alex ran tech startup, JustPark, for which he raised the largest ever equity crowdfunding round for a tech startup. That was when it first occurred to him that crowdfunding might be a powerful tool to achieve more social ends. Alex has also written a book on the sharing economy, The Business of Sharing, published by Macmillan.

Amy Oulton

Amy has been a wheelchair user for the past ten years; she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes weak tissues, joint dislocation, chronic pain and fatigue. In spite of this, Amy lives an exciting and hugely positive life, travelling the world, working as a graphic designer for a charity and campaigning to change the way society understands disability. Most recently, Amy has published for Buzzfeed on her three-month adventure around South East Asia, writing about, filming, and photo-documenting her experiences in her wheelchair.

Azeem Amir

Azeem, is 19 and has been visually impaired since birth. However, he has NEVER let it be a barrier to success. Azeem plays Blind Football professionally and is a member of the GB and England national team and is working towards qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.In 2016 Azeem became the first blind person to complete Tough Mudder; a gruelling 12 mile obstacle course, featuring muddy ditch, huge walls and electric fences! Since running Tough Mudder, Azeem has risen to fame as a highly respected advocate for disability rights. He is now an ambassador for several disability organisations and through talks, coaching and workshops aims to inspire as many young people as possible to achieve their own version of success.

Ben Clench

Ben trained in International Development and was about to go on placement to work in Rwanda for a 2-year placement on the East African Community. However, 2 weeks before he was meant to start he went to visit his girlfriend in Haiti, where they were involved in traffic accident. Ben’s girlfriend was killed and he was left with a brain injury. After coming out of a coma and making his way back to the UK, Ben has been on a long, complex and emotional journey of recovery. This year at TEDxBrighton, Ben will tell his story and share with the audience and important lesson around the way we provide and ask for support.

Brandon Relph

18-year-old Brandon Relph is one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs and the World’s Leading Youth Marketers, specialising in work with Fortune 100 companies and government bodies. He was formally the youngest CEO in the UK, for a year and a half. Described as the marketer that does what marketers hope to do in a lifetime, Brandon hopes to revolutionise the marketing industry as we know it and build an internet forward approach, like no other.

Christian de Boisredon

Christian is the founder of Sparknews, a social business of 17 people dedicated to amplifying initiatives with a positive outcome on the world at large. The team works with news media, social entrepreneurs and the corporate world to impact on all levels of society. Sparknews spearheads solutions journalism programmes uniting news media from 50 countries (including the FT, The Hindu, El Pais, Asahi Shimbun or Folha de Sao Paolo) and reaching 120 million people.

Dom Joly

[Satire] Dom Joly disguises himself as 'Tim Horlick-Joyce'. A larger than life 'Thinkfluencer', who's ready to give you some hard to swallow advice about success and failure.

Dr Linda Papadopoulos

Dr. Linda is one the most well-known and respected Psychologists in the UK, specialising in self-esteem and self-image. During her 14 years as a Chartered Psychologist, Dr Linda gained extensive experience counselling individuals, couples and families and her work has informed government policy.In 2010 she headed up a highly-acclaimed independent review for the Home Office on the effects of sexualisation on young people.Dr Linda’s success in psychology has led to her work being published in some of the most well-regarded academic journals and gave rise to a high-profile media-career. She hosts a weekly radio show on Talk Radio and her podcast The Psychology Behind as well as being a regular guest on Sky News, ITN and BBC News.

Dr Sarah Garfinkel

Sarah is a Neuroscientist interested in the biological basis of emotion and empathy. Sarah has published a wide range of ground-breaking research, exploring how our body’s signals and sensations can shape our thoughts and feelings, and even synchronize with others’ around us to improve empathy and increase community building.

Freddie Harrel

Freddie is a businesswoman, confidence consultant as well as a top UK fashion blogger. The Paris born entrepreneur, now based London runs a wealth of events, workshops and activities designed to help women fulfil their potential in all areas of life using tools such as fashion, identity and experimentation.

Holly Budge

Holly Budge is a world record adventurer, conservationist and storyteller. Holly was quite literally on top of the world when she summited Mount Everest last year. Her passion for adventure is evident with two world records under her belt so far, including being the first woman to skydive from Everest! Holly is also the founder of ‘How Many Elephants’, an award-winning charity raising awareness of the plight of elephants in Africa. Holly’s mission is to inspire others to daydream, meander, run, climb and jump into their own adventures.

Jacob Berkson PHD

Jacob is a trustee and founder of thousand41000.org – a community response to enforced homelessness among forced migrants. Completing a PhD on the nature of truth at the University of Sussex in 2014, Jacob works on providing solidarity to with those trapped on the wrong side of the UK’s border policy.

Jake Tyler

Jake is 31 and lives with Depression. Last year Jake embarked on a journey to manage his mental health in a new way, through exercise, sharing and the great outdoors. Jake has now walked over 2000 miles around the UK, vlogging his experiences with thousands of online followers as he goes and attracting the attention of both the BBC and the Royal Family.

Jen Brister

en Brister is a critically acclaimed stand up comedian and writer who has performed on BBC’s Live at the Apollo and Comedy Central’s Live at the Comedy Store. She is a regular performer on the UK and international comedy circuits and has written and performed on BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show & The News Quiz. Jen is currently on tour with her brand new show, ‘Meaningless’.

Joe Wade

Joe Wade is a BAFTA winning filmmaker, TV writer and the MD and co-founder of multi-award winning creative agency Don’t Panic. As MD of Don’t Panic, Joe has lead the company on a journey that saw it transition from creating the famous flyer packs to being a leading creative agency, best known for making viral content such as the most successful charity video ever made – ‘Most Shocking Second a Day’.

Jules White

Jules White is a professional sales coach whose business allows her to do what she loves, helping entrepreneurs and businesses to succeed at sales and to fall in love with selling. She has over 30 years’ experience of business and sales, including winning investment from Peter Jones on Dragons’ Den, making her a real dragon slayer. She published her first book in October 2018 and tells her story of resilience and overcoming adversity to realise that there is no such word as can’t.

Kate Griggs

Kate is passionate about helping the world understand dyslexia as a different way of thinking, not a disadvantage. In 2005 Kate founded dyslexia charity Xtraordinary People, uniting the UK dyslexia charities and devising and leading a high-profile campaign, which culminated in the UK government’s Dyslexia Review. Kate was given an award by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in recognition of her campaigning work.

Mr Gee Mr Gee

Gee is a Poet & Radio Presenter. Well known for presenting BBC Radio 4’s ‘Rhyme & Reason’, ‘Bespoken Word’ & ‘Poetic Justice’. Gee wrote & appeared in the Barbour International 2017 Spring Season campaign and is known as the “poet laureate” on Russell Brand’s Radio Show where Gee writes and improvises poems to conclude each show. Gee also uses his poetry and his music to engage with hard reach communities, often working with young people, the elderly and prisons.

Natasha Pearlman

Natasha has spent nearly a decade editing some of the country’s leading women’s titles. After starting her career in newspapers she moved to The Sun on Sunday’s Fabulous Magazine as Deputy Editor before becoming Deputy Editor of Elle Magazine. In 2015 she joined Grazia, editing the UK’s leading women’s fashion title for three years. Natasha is currently writing her first novel and is expecting her second child in summer 2018.

Neil Laughton

Neil is an adventure-holic who has spent most of his spare time outside of a military and business career organising and leading adventurous journeys on 7 continents – by land, sea and air. He summited Mt Everest with Bear Grylls, was the first person to circumnavigate the UK & Ireland on a jet-ski and he piloted the world’s first road legal flying car on a 10,000 km journey from London to Timbuktu including crossing the Sahara Desert.This year at TEDxBrighton, Neil will being sharing a message of looking after our planet.

Nicholas Reynolds

Nicholas has led and worked on the design of some of the world’s most important and iconic venues; including the O2 Arena (Millennium Dome), the Sochi 2014 Olympic Stadium and the Sydney 2000 Olympics Telstra Stadium. Nicholas has a fascinating talent for, and insight into how such large and significant buildings can successfully provide long-lasting benefits to communities, far beyond their initial purpose.

Prashan Paramanathan

Prashan launched Chuffed.org in October 2013 with the help of a seed grant from the Telstra Foundation. Since then, Chuffed.org has grown to be one of the largest crowdfunding platforms for social causes in Australia, UK, US and Europe. It has raised over $18M for over 5,000 projects in 27 countries.

Rod Downie

Rod is WWF’s Chief Advisor, Polar Regions. He has been working in the polar regions for two decades, initially at the British Antarctic Survey and for the last 6 years with WWF. He has most recently returned from his 15th field season in Antarctica, where he has spent a total of 2 ½ years living and working on the ice. He has also worked in the Canadian, Russian and Norwegian Arctic. As such, he is one of very few in the UK to have undertaken scientific fieldwork with polar bears in the Arctic in recent years.

Sanderson Jones

Sanderson is the CEO and co-founder of Sunday Assembly, a worldwide movement of secular communities. The movement is now in 6 countries and 70 cities with 5 000 people attending a month. Sanderson won a Catalyst Award from the RSA in 2013, was one of Nesta’s 50 New Radicals in 2015 while also winning UnLtd’s Big Venture Challenge.

Simon Fanshawe

Simon co-founded Stonewall, the UK lesbian and gay lobby and has recently co-founded The Kaleidoscope Trust which supports LGBTI activists abroad. He was an award-winning comic for ten years, Chair of Sussex University for six, has been a journalist and columnist for several national newspapers, broadcasts regularly and seven years ago co-founded Diversity by Design, the ground-breaking consultancy, that works with organizations in original ways to make real progress in diversifying staff rather than just talking about it.

Simon Fanshawe OBE

Simon co-founded Stonewall, the UK lesbian and gay lobby and has recently co-founded The Kaleidoscope Trust which supports LGBTI activists abroad. He was an award-winning comic for ten years, Chair of Sussex University for six, has been a journalist and columnist for several national newspapers, broadcasts regularly and seven years ago co-founded Diversity by Design, the ground-breaking consultancy, that works with organizations in original ways to make real progress in diversifying staff rather than just talking about it.

Sophie Cook

Sophie Cook is a media personality and activist whose wide portfolio of work includes presenting, producing, writing and photography. She became the first transgender woman to work in football’s Premier League as club photographer for AFC Bournemouth following her transition from Steve to Sophie in the summer of 2015. Europe’s first trans TV newscaster, Sophie has hosted her own TV and radio chat shows and is an experienced broadcaster.

Steven Day

Steven is the co-founder of Pure Planet, a revolutionary new 100% renewable energy brand, which aims to change the way we buy, consume and think about energy. Steven began his career in telecoms, as part of the team that launched Virgin Mobile and was later part of the team that created and launched the EE brand. He and his co-founders harnessed their experience in telecoms, to see if they could use this insight to look at renewable energy differently and make it accessible to everyone. The result was Pure Planet, which launched in May 2017

Tim Holtam

Tim Holtam co-founded the Brighton Table Tennis Club (BTTC) in 2007, it has grown since then into a community of over 1000 players a week, including a Downs Syndrome Champion, a world over 80 competitor, boys from Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, a former UK Chinese Champion, top junior players from all over Brighton and local club players.

Tom Ravenscroft

Tom is the founder of Enabling Enterprise, a fast growing organisation working to change the way we teach young people skills such as teamwork, leadership and communication. Having now worked with over 85,000 students across the UK and built partnerships with the likes of NHS and PwC.

Vanessa Barret

Vanessa – aka Coco Deville – is a critically-acclaimed, award-winning artist and performer with over a decade of experience in the cabaret industry. She has performed her unique, captivating, creative routines all over Europe including Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.

VARUN MAHATME

Varun is a young film maker and homelessness campaigner.