Theme: The Future Ahead

The theme of the TEDxLakeForestCollege 2018 event is "The Future Ahead". The Future looks different to everybody and we are hoping to create a platform for people to share their great ideas from today on tomorrow. The ideas we create today can have an unforeseen impact on the future. TEDxLakeForestCollege is going to look ahead and see that unforeseen impact.

Lily Reid Memorial Chapel
555 North Sheridan
Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045
United States

Danielle Cohen

How will China impact global politics over the next 20 years? After 25 years of stunning economic growth, China is now claiming its seat at the international table. As the United States pulls back from global governance, China is stepping up to write the rules of the international system.

Emily Harburg

Dr. Emily Kathryn Harburg is a co-founder of Brave Initiatives, a nonprofit dedicated to helping girls build confidence in coding for a better world. She has worked as a behavioral researcher at Facebook and Walt Disney Imagineering. She received her PhD in Technology and Social Behavior from Northwestern, and her BA in Social Anthropology and Psychology from Harvard.

Jacob Levin

Jacob Levin is a Double Major in Chemistry and Music at Lake Forest College. He is the concertmaster of the Lake Forest College Chamber Orchestra and the Secretary of the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society (SAACS). His future plans are to pursue a PhD in Organic Chemistry and eventually teach Chemistry at the university level.

Jason Reid

Jason Reid is a the Co-Founder of National Services Group, a nationwide company that employs over 2000 people at the peak of it’s season each year. He is also a partner at CEO Coaching International. Jason has written seven books including 2 kids book and a book about family conversations. He is also and Ironman and black belt.

Jeff Leitner

Jeff Leitner is a social innovator, taking on challenges around the world. He developed the first methodology for altering norms to effect social change, the first sequence for solutions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the first doctorate in social innovation. He is a fellow at New America, founder of Insight Labs, co-founder of UX for Good, and author of See Think Solve: A Simple Way to Tackle Tough Problems.

Kent Grote

State lotteries are currently offered in 44 states, soon to become 45 with Mississippi recently passing legislation to authorize a lottery in that state. The state lottery industry has experienced tremendous growth over the past 50 years when states began offering lottery games again, but looking forward there are some definite challenges that states are facing. This talk examines some of those challenges, as well as ways that states have responded to and are continuing to respond to those challenges.

Kristen Sanders

Kristen Sanders is a senior studying Organizational Change and Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University. She is the founder and CEO of People6 a student-led digital marketing agency that specializes in branding, generation z consulting, and social media.

Madeleine Karlsson

Madeleine left a career working with senior politicians in the British Parliament to study Holistic Health & Nutrition after seeing the state of an overburdened healthcare system. As a Nutrition Coach, Madeleine empowers her clients to be active participants in their own health care. In her practice, she helps people get off the dieting roller coaster and empowers them with the knowledge required to start trusting their gut. Madeleine is a passionate advocate of whole foods & intuitive eating, inspiring people she works with to trust themselves instead of a diet.

Michelle Silverthorn

Michelle Silverthorn is the Founder and CEO of Inclusion Nation, a diversity consulting and education firm. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Michigan Law School, Michelle spent four years practicing for two large law firms in New York and Chicago. She then transitioned into the legal education field where she spent six years training thousands of attorneys – in-person and online – about implicit bias, diversity and inclusion, and millennials in the workplace. She has written numerous articles on those topics, including a well-received op-ed for the Chicago Tribune on implicit bias. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, Your Organization is Not a Melting Pot: How to Recruit, Train and Lead a Diverse Workforce (Routledge Press, 2019).

Richard Thomas

Richard is an accomplished CEO, entrepreneur and marketer with more than 25 years of experience in creating sustainable growth across multiple industries. He led two high-growth, internationally recognized marketing agencies before founding his own agency, Trisect, in 2005. Dick founded Trisect for the sole purpose of creating a fearless, inventive and humanistic place for people to work and clients to flourish, resulting in one of America’s Fastest-Growing privately-held companies that was regularly featured on several “Best Places To Work” lists. Dick sold Trisect in 2016 but remains active in the marketing agency business, and he consults and speaks on the topic of Operational Purpose™.

Tony Wilkins

I enjoy helping people flourish in whatever way makes sense for them. I am an early stage private investor. This job requires functioning as a mentor, executive coach, connector and trusted advisor to help my portfolio teams shorten their learning curves and avoid avoidable mistakes to improve the probability of a good outcome for my fellow investors and the founders of the companies in which I invest.