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).

Tesla STEM High School
4301 228th Ave NE
Redmond, Washington, 98053
United States

Amrutha Gujjar

Amrutha is a junior at the University of Washington studying computer science. She has completed multiple software engineering internships at Google and Microsoft, and has worked on a wide range of projects, including Google Maps and Windows Core Hypervisor. Amrutha is most passionate about bringing the reach of technology to all people in the world and democratizing the availability of information to make people's lives better. She truly believes that many of the world's problems today can be tackled by access to information. She wants to work towards coming up with creative solutions to overcome the technical, social, cultural, and political barriers to making the world a truly connected and inclusive place. Previously, Amrutha has given talks on technology and education, including at TEDxRedmond and the Northshore Schools Foundation Gala. She had the chance to advocate for tech education during her time at Girls Nation in Washington D.C., where he had the opportunity to meet and talk to many politicians and lawmakers about the importance of technology in our society today. Amrutha is also passionate about making the tech industry a more diverse incubator for innovation, because different perspectives and opinions are important to developing software that all people use. She has gotten the chance to be involved in a variety of technology conferences, including the Grace Hopper Conference in Houston, and the Google Women Engineers Summit in New York City.

Eric Chudler

Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D. is a research neuroscientist at the University of Washington where he is a research associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering. He is also the Executive Director/Education Director at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. In addition to Eric’s basic research into the how the brain processes sensory information, Eric has worked with precollege students and teachers for more than 20 years to develop resources and materials to help people learn about the brain. In 1997, with support from the National Institutes of Health, Eric established “Neuroscience for Kids,” a website with information and interactive activities about neuroscience that can be used in the classroom or at home.

Florence Sum

Florence is a native Seattleite. Florence received both her Bachelors' and Masters Degree at the University of Washington. Her academic background was focused on American Ethnic Studies, Education Policy, and Nonprofit Management. A youth advocate and educator who worked with people on leadership development, higher education access (not limited to 4-year institutions), and higher education retention and other social services for the last 8 years. They have an enormous capacity for liberation work at the individual, grassroots, and institutional level. She believes in shared leadership, racial equity, building cross-cultural, cross-generational, and cross-issue movements, and tapping into the power and agencies of communities of color. When she is not immersed in combating systemic injustice, Florence enjoys skipping in the mountains, playing video games, and training in Muay Thai and Krav Maga.

Tyler Menezes

Tyler Menezes is the Executive Director at SRND, where he works to increase diverse Computer Science enrollment across North America by inspiring underrepresented students to give coding a try. Born in Canada but raised in the Pacific Northwest, he briefly attended the University of Washington before dropping out to start a Y Combinator and venture-backed social video startup in 2011. This, combined with stints working in machine learning at Microsoft Research and as a programmer at several Seattle startups, led to his work finding data-driven solutions to increasing CS diversity and enrollment since 2014. In his free time, Tyler helps run the Projects in CS class at Garfield High School, and organizes the public speaking event Ignite Seattle.