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).

Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University
1834 wake forest rd
Winston Salem, North Carolina, 27109
United States

Ben Sutton

Ben Sutton, Jr. is a well accomplished philanthropist and entrepreneur. A graduate of Wake Forest University and its School of Law, Ben founded and currently serves as Chairman of Teall Capital, which manages a diverse investment portfolio of businesses. Additionally, he was the previous Chairman and CEO of IMG College, the nation’s largest college sports marketing company, which also provides opportunities for tomorrow’s student-athlete leaders. Ben has been recognized as one of the top sports executives in the United States and awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the Wake Forest University Distinguished Alumni Award, and induction into the North Carolina Sports, National Football Foundation, and NACMA Halls of Fame.

Derrick Day

Derrick Day is currently a Senior Forensic Examiner for a successful computer forensics company. He is a retired Senior Special Agent with the US Secret Service. He has participated in the investigation and prosecution of countless financial and cyber crime investigations.

Dr. Lorraine Gudas

Dr. Gudas is a powerful voice in the pharmacology and pharmaceutical industry and was the first woman to chair a basic science department at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University. She has now been Chairman and Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the Pharmacology Department at Weill Cornell Medical College for 25 years. She has held positions in several prestigious research organizations, including the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the Board of Directors of the American Association of Cancer Research, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Disorders- part of the National Institutes of Health, the external advisory boards of various cancer centers, and the editorial boards of several scientific journals. She has also been a member of an FDA Advisory Committee. Her research has included studies of the cancer preventive uses of Vitamin A and related retinoid compounds, therapeutic uses of stem cells, drugs to treat prostate and kidney cancers, and much more.

Elizabeth Clendinning

Dr. Elizabeth Clendinning is an Assistant Professor of Music at Wake Forest University, is an accomplished scholar of ethnomusicology specializing in gamelan, the traditional music of Indonesia involving gongs, drums, and other percussion. After her interest was piqued by taking classes from a Balinese dancer in 2010, Dr. Clendinning has traveled to Bali several times to study the art and its global cultural impact. Today, she teaches world music at Wake Forest and is creator and director of the WFU gamelan ensemble. Based on her studies in Bali and using live musical examples, she will discuss music-making, leadership, and building cross-cultural communities.

Jay Schroeder

After a severe motorcycle accident, Jay Schroeder suffered a broken neck and back, and was left paralyzed from the chest down with doctors doubting he’d ever walk again. However, Jay was not only able to train himself to walk again, but also able to travel the world and expand on his Kinesiology background with sports theory and training techniques that have helped him develop unique methods that are revolutionizing what it means to be an athlete, and how to heal from injury. Jay’s career has included physical therapy in a hospital setting, training professional athletes from around the world, and most recently the training staff for the Washington Nationals. Jay will speak on movement, health, and the keys to peak physical performance.

Jim Otteson

Jim Otteson is a renowned economist and philosopher of economics specializing in political economy and the history of economic thought. His research and publications span multiple fields of economics and have become well read by his peers and the community. Jim’s work is greatly focused on Adam Smith’s ideas and seventeenth/eighteenth century liberalism. He is now the Presidential Chair for Wake Forest University's Business Ethics and Executive Director of the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University.

Mastin Kipp

After leaving his executive position in the music industry at age 21, Mastin Kipp began his transformational journey into trauma-based healing. As a best-selling author of books, Daily Love: Growing into Grace and Claim Your Power, an influential voice in the mental health industry, and an Oprah-approved “Soul Leader,” Mastin aims to change the way people think about mental health disorders, and reframe what are deemed to be stationary states to trauma induced stepping stones on a path to healing. In his talk, “United States of Differentiation,” Mastin will discuss what it means to understand and celebrate differences in the context of traumas that inform our opinions and decisions.

Michelle Johnson

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an activist, author, yogi, healer and social change influencer. She has an understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit and heart. Her awareness of the world through her experience as a black woman allows her to know first hand how privilege and power operate. She understands the toll that oppression can take on individuals and the collective physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Whether in an anti-oppression training, yoga space, individual or group intuitive healing session, healing and wholeness are at the center of how she approaches all of her work. Michelle has spent many years on the front lines of justice movements craving a space for healing through ritual, ceremony and sacred practice. A yoga teacher for over ten years, she has sat in many spiritual spaces and yoga communities who lacked an awareness of justice and activism. She is interested in spiritual spaces that center activism and social change spaces that center spiritual practice. In 2013, Michelle created Skill in Action, a training program, focused on the intersection of social justice and yoga.