Theme: Crossroads

These past four years, we have helped a lot of ideas to spread —while embracing the past, present and the future of our community. From Tehran En Route and On the Verge of Breakthrough, to The New Paradigm and Good Morning Tehran, our previous themes tapped into almost forty different angles to examine our collective challenges and address them with emotional as well as rational viewpoints and solutions.

Yet, we are not satisfied with the ratio of problems versus solutions around us. The reason is simple: with the world getting more complex, the challenges we are facing grow more critical than ever. At times like this, the existence of multi-disciplinary solutions is a must. Thus, we have chosen the Crossroads theme to spark our collective creativity this year.

The literal definitions of crossroads include "an intersection or junction" and "a place where two or more roads meet". However, metaphorical definitions of crossroads include, "a point at which a crucial decision must be made that will have far-reaching consequences", "convergence", and "a place of common ground". For us, cross roads are about choices and mixtures. We believe innovation happens at the crossroads between good and bad, risk and reward, truth and lie, past and future.

So for the TEDxTehran 2017, we will be tapping into the minds of responsible optimist individuals who have the will, knowledge, resources, and most importantly the ideas to foster positive changes in our collective future. We will include critics and point out challenges, but we will also give voice to quiet doers and hidden treasures. And through it all, we will seek an adventurous and insightful road to step in.
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در طی چهارسالی که گذشت، با توجه به گذشته، حال و آیندهی جامعهمان، به انتشار ایدههای بسیاری پرداختیم. زمینههای موضوعی پیشین تداکستهران که شامل تهران در مسیر، بر آستانهی شکوفایی، پارادایم نو و صبح بخیر تهران بوده تقریبا چهل زاویهی مختلف را پوشش دادند تا بوسیلهی آنها به چالش های جمعیمان بپردازیم و آنها را با دیدگاهها و راهکارهای احساسی و منطقی هدف گیریم.

اما همچنان، از نسبت مشکلات و راهحلهای ارایهداده شده رضایت نداریم. دلیل آن ساده است: با وجود دنیایی که روز به روز در حال پیچیدهتر شدن است، چالشهای پیشروی، بحرانیتر رشد میکنند و بیشتر از پیش میشوند. در این مواقع وجود راهحلهای میان رشتهای و چند رشتهای ضروری است. بنابراین برای امسال زمینهی موضوعی «تقاطع» را انتخاب کردیم تا خلاقیت جمعیمان بیشتر فعال گردد.

معنی لغوی تقاطع، چهارراه و یا برخورد دو یا چند راه است. اما معنی استعاری آن تقارب، مقصد مشترک و نقطهیی است که در آن باید تصمیمی گرفته شود که پیامدهای بلند مدت و حساسی خواهد داشت. تقاطع از نظر ما در مورد انتخاب و ترکیب است. بر این باور هستیم که نوآوری، در تقاطع خوبی و بدی، خطر و پاداش، حقیقت و کذب، و آینده و گذشته اتفاق میافتد.

در تداکس تهران ۲۰۱۷ قصد داریم تلنگری بر ذهنهای افراد نیکبین و مسئولیتپذیر که اراده، دانش، منابع و از همه مهمتر ایده هایی برای بهبود و ایجاد تغییرات مثبت برای جمع مان دارند، بزنیم. نقد خواهیم داشت و چالشها را نمایان خواهیم کرد. همچنین به عملگرایان کم سر و صدا، که هر یک گنجینهای پنهان هستند، صدا خواهیم داد. و در میان همهی آنچه گفته شد، به دنبال راههای نوین، هیجانانگیز و ماجراجویانه میگردیم تا در آنها قدم نهیم.

Milad Tower Conference Hall
Private Road of Milad Tower, Northern Angle of Hemmat Cross | Shahid Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri Highway
Tehran, Tehrān, 1449617471
Iran

Christopher Patrick Peterka

Entrepreneur & Futurist

Christopher Peterka (38) from Cologne, Germany considers himself a human being, a father of two and a futurist entrepreneur. Since 1996 he has founded ten companies. Three are still active and profitable businesses today. His real interest lies in the global interplay of men-machine and nature in a fully digitized world. To find out about it he has travelled 53 countries and interviewed more than 1200 decision makers for the last 15 years.

Ehsan Jahandarpour

Growth Hacker

Ehsan Jahandarpour, a globally recognized growth hacker, and startup coach were born in 1982 in Shiraz. While he helped companies like Microsoft, PETRONAS, and other big players, Ehsan had worked on crafting a new, practical, plug and play framework that enables businesses of all size, and startups to plug into their business and grow faster. In 2016, Forbes magazine has ranked Ehsan among the top 20 growth hackers in the world. Ehsan also contributes to prestigious magazines like Entrepreneur Magazine (US, and Spain), Business.com, Asia Times, and many more. He recently established the growth hacking center in Iran to bring the knowledge of growth hacking to Iran's eco-system, help companies grow smarter, and also give back to the community.

Farid Shokrieh

Entrepreneur that Never Stopped Being a Teacher

Farid Shokrieh is the Managing Director of an advertising agency that went from a start-up company in 2008 to a grown-up SME by 2017. Before co-founding this company, Farid studied and practiced teaching methodologies and was an educational advisor and teacher trainer besides teaching himself. He only later understood to what extent this background had shaped his management style, and that as a Managing Director, he essentially never stopped being a teacher. Once he understood this, he started to consciously apply educational methods in a business environment and witnessed results that he shared in his talk. As the world is changing fast, and in particular Iranian business culture changes even faster, he discusses how the needs of a new global generation are not fulfilled with classic organizational culture and bureaucracy, and how methods derived from teaching can bring the drastic changes that need to be applied in leadership and management.

Hamidreza Keshavarz Mohammadian

Artificial Intelligence Expert

Hamidreza Keshavarz was born in Tehran in 1983. He attended the Allameh Helli school (NODET) where he later became a teacher and head of the department. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Tarbiat Modares University. His main interest areas are data science and artificial intelligence and his thesis, entitled “Sentiment analysis based on the extraction of lexicon features” is about opinion mining on social media. He has published 12 papers and is a reviewer for international journals and conferences. He was awarded for presenting his thesis in the countrywide “Presenting your thesis in three minutes” competition. He has been in love with computers since early childhood when computers were not as widespread as today. His love with computers was intensified when he started programming at age 11. He wrote a Paintbrush program in the Assembly language at age 12, which cemented his desire to become active in this field.

Kiarash Aramesh

Healthcare Ethics & Community Medicine Expert

Kiarash Aramesh is a Scholar in Residence at the Center for Healthcare Ethics at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and an Associate Professor at the Medical Ethics and History of Medicine at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). He is a medical doctor and holds a specialty in community medicine and a Ph.D. in healthcare ethics. He has previously worked as a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Hastings Center in the USA. He has served as a member of various committees, including the Specialized Research Ethics Committee of TUMS and the National Committee of Ethics in Science and Technology and Bioethics at the National Commission of UNESCO in Iran.

Mohammad Kazem Ghanbari

Entrepreneur

"Mohammad Kazem Ghanbari was born in 1970, he holds a BA in computer engineering from Sharif University and a master in MBA from Industrial management institute. He was a part of Iranian companies like Iran System, Data Processing Iran(DPI), Safineh and Procom Technology for almost 10 years and now he manages his own company Ghasedak Samaneh for two decades. He was one of the first Iran internet users and he turned Safineh company to a pioneer ISP in Iran and then he found Ghasedak Samaneh to use his experience for solving problems of other ISPs in Iran by creating and presenting comprehensive solutions for them. Since 1989 he had an active role in some national projects and Since 1999, the CEO of Ghasedak Samaneh has been working on providing key solutions for TELECOM companies. He was honored in 2010 as the “competent Director of Informatics” in Iran.

Paniez Paykari

Cosmologist

Dr Paniez Paykari, born in London in 1982, is a cosmologist who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) at University College London (UCL). She spent her childhood in Iran & fascinated by the cosmos from a young age, she knew by the age of 10 that she wanted to study astrophysics and never doubted that choice in her life. She received her Diploma in Mathematics in Iran in 1999 and moved to London for higher education. She received her M.Sci. (Master of Science) degree in Astrophysics from University College London (UCL) in 2006. She then moved to the Imperial College London for her Ph.D. degree in Cosmology, which she completed in 2009. Paniez then moved to France in 2010 to start her first postdoctoral position at Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA). She was a Planck Scientist while at CEA — Planck is a telescope sent into space in 2009 to take pictures of our baby Universe when it was only 400,000 years old.

Reza Sayah

Journalist and Reporter

Reza Sayah is a journalist and filmmaker based in Tehran. For the past 20 years, Reza has reported for international news organizations including CNN, Al Jazeera, and France 24. Most recently, Sayah reported on this year’s Iranian presidential elections for American news network PBS. In 2008, he helped launch CNN’s bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan where for the next five years he reported on the country’s ongoing political turmoil, the government campaign against the Taliban, and the search for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. In 2013, Sayah moved to Cairo, Egypt where he covered the crisis that followed the Egyptian revolution, the uprising that toppled former president Mohammad Morsy, and the election of current president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Sayah has also covered the conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Prior to working for CNN, he spent more than ten years reporting for major news networks in the United States.

Shahrzad Ensemble

String Quartet

Shahrzad Ensemble was founded in 2011 by good friends Tina Jamehgarmi & Negar Norad. After the success of their first album, “To the Earth and the Sun” -- which was based on ensemble works of "Mohammad Saeed Sharifian" -- Shahrzad Ensemble collaborated with renowned musicians such as “Shahrdad Rohani”, "Kiawasch Sahebaassagh" and "Karen Keyhani". In the summer of 2017, after collaborating with international musicians such as "Yann Merker" and "Yegor Shevtsov" and several performances at the Fajr Musical Festival, Shahrzad Ensemble, alongside "Homayoun Shajarian" and "Sohrab Pournazeri" participated in “C Project” one of the most important post-revolution multimedia events in Iran.