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).

169 11h Street
San Francisco, California, 94103
United States

Amit Garg

Hospital for Hope & Norwest Venture Partners Amit worked as a teacher in Jagriti Vihara (the NGO that Hospital for Hope serves) in the summer of his freshman year, in 2000. He has been connected to them since and helped raise funds to build a library and a high school lab, start a course in college to prepare students for volunteer work, and sent 30 peers to India over the course of 4 years. Amit believes in sustainable development and has co-founded a program to teach computer skills to disadvantaged high school students, volunteered for many years at hospitals, co-founded a social enterprise to promote literacy, and been honored with the James W Lyon Award for his commitment to leadership and service. Amit did his undergraduate and masters at Stanford focusing on technology and life sciences, was a product manager and business analyst at Google, did his MBA at Harvard Business School, and is currently working in venture capital at Norwest Ventures. He was born and raised in Vitória, a city on the southeastern coast of Brazil, and is a die-hard fan of Brazilian soccer.

Dan Serfaty

Dan has been a serial entrepreneur, working in several sectors before founding Agregator in 2003. Agregator was a club dedicated to helping entrepreneurs share their experience, ideas and contacts with other club members and connecting them to venture capital. Within this context he set out to develop a business orientated social network which eventually grew into Viadeo. Today Vidaeo has over 35 million users worldwide, making it the second largest professional social network.

Eugene Kim

Eugene is the cofounder and principal of Blue Oxen Associates, a do-tank focused on helping groups maximizing their collaborative potential. He has developed collaborative strategies and tackled collaborative challenges for groups from all sectors — startups, Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, nonprofits and philanthropic foundations. Past clients have included NASA, Institute for International Education, and the Wikimedia Foundation. In addition to his work at Blue Oxen Associates, Eugene serves on the boards of the Leadership Learning Community and WiserEarth. Eugene received his A.B. in History and Science from Harvard University.

Jay Nath

Jay Nath joined the City & County of San Francisco in September 2006 as Director of CRM where he successfully deployed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software enterprise-wide. The technology has played a critical role in managing over 8 million calls and nearly a 1 million requests for service through the SF 311 service. In 2007 he established the City’s first Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) deployment which serves as a real-time bi-directional communication hub managing millions of messages. In his more recent role as Director of Innovation he led an effort to make San Francisco the first large city in the nation to use Twitter as a new channel for taking public requests. This idea soon led to an effort to establish aninternational standard for 311 services allowing interoperability with third-party applications. As a result there are now five apps available and many more in the pipeline. He is now focused on growing adoption of Open311. His efforts have yielded two large players, Lagan and Microsoft partner ISC to adopt Open311.

Randy White

Randy White is the founder of Bright Neighbor, an organization that creates and implements cohesive community systems that enhance hyper-local economies and reduce group impacts on the environment. Bright Neighbor helps build communities that thrive, and their successes include implementing group cultural behavior shifts to foster local trade, community asset pools, food production, fuel production, living soils, ride sharing, lending, and resource maximization among communities.

Ligaya Tichy

Ligaya has been building and managing startup communities since 2006. As one of the first Community Managers at Yelp, she crossed the country and back to lead the charge in two markets, and is now the Head of Community for Airbnb. She has handled boa constrictors, tracked a Sasquatch, and stuffed miracle fruit in a thousand gift bags, all in the name of community. Ligaya is ever fascinated by people, an interest which fueled her studies in Anthropology and International Relations at Tufts University. She credits her childhood experience as part of a meditation community in Iowa to be the most enlightening case study on how to create a movement.

Alex Hillman

Alex started as a web developer 10 years ago, first with an agency before he created his own web development consulting business WeKnowHTML.com. Inspired by the birth of the coworking movement, he co-founded IndyHall in 2007, the first coworking space in sunny Philadelphia. So needless to say he is all about technology, community, and how to bring people together. He is also running the blog Dangerously Awesome, and already spoke at various events like BarCamps, or SXSW Ineractive.

Hilary Austen

Dr. Hilary Austen is an adjunct professor and member of the dean’s advisory board of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Cofounder of Catalyst Consulting Team in Santa Cruz, California, she has worked with such clients as Monitor Group, Oracle Corporation, Stanford University’s Intelligent Systems Lab, Shell Oil, Proctor & Gamble, Lockheed Martin, and Merck Pharmaceutical. Dr. Austen also cofounded the Brain Integration Center in San Diego, which offered programs in personal development, art, communication, and learning based on brain research. Austen’s research into personal artistry—the ability to harness originality and mastery to enhance performance and help solve today’s most demanding problems—is an interdisciplinary challenge she’s pursued all her life. 25 years of studying with advanced and developing practitioners in activities ranging from organizational strategy and watercolor painting to horsemanship and culinary mastery, has revealed a universal approach to learning artistry in any discipline. Austen received a doctorate at Stanford University with her dissertation called Artistry in Practice. In her book Artistry Unleashed: A Guide to Pursuing Great Performance in Work and Life, she shares what she discovered then, and since, about artistry.