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).

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Adam Wilber

As a keynote speaker and creative thinking workshop leader, Adam engages, challenges, and inspires audiences with the promise that everyone can learn how to be creative. The impacts of innovation range from success in business to personal fulfillment and happiness. Adam brings compelling energy to the stage with the perfect mix of magic entertainment and unique creativity concepts that will revolutionize the way that you think and dream. Adam performed his very first magic trick at the age of six and instantly fell in love with the art form. Magic is a wide category with dozens of specialties and he was eager to master all of them. Adam practiced diligently to perfect the classic, iconic tricks of mentalism, illusionism, and sleight of hand, but it wasn’t enough – the real thrill was rooted in invention and innovation. Upgraded magic tricks and brand-new illusions skyrocketed Adam’s career as a professional magician. The never-before-seen inventions and illusions were highlighted on national television shows, including Penn & Teller, and in front of thousands of awestruck audiences at private and corporate events. In addition to inventing tricks and props for himself, Adam is the GM of Ellusionist, a company that invents tricks for other magicians. With the creative capacity to think through both sides of the illusion, Adam not only fooled audiences, but he also stunned his fellow magicians. Today, Ellusionist is the world’s largest magic company with a line of must-have magic essentials. Adam sits at the helm as general manager with full creative control and marketing experience for multi-million dollar products. Magic gave Adam an outlet to grow, challenge, and refine his creative skills. Through every invention, revolutionary business decision, and real-time improvisational quip on stage, he cemented his position as the authority on creativity and innovation. Now, he’s on a mission to teach others and spark an inferno of creativity in every audience.

Chris Nowinski

Chris Nowinski, Ph.D., is founding CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation (ConcussionFoundation.org) a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to solving the concussion & CTE crisis through research, advocacy, and education. He is also co-founder of the Boston University (BU) CTE Center and the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. A former Harvard football player and WWE Superstar, he wrote Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis after post-concussion syndrome ended his career in 2003. He received his doctorate in behavioral neuroscience from Boston University School of Medicine.

Christian Bailey

Christian Bailey is the Founder and Chief Scientist of Curated Innovation. Curated builds commercial prototypes to solve challenges set by sponsors and impact investors, based on breakthrough university science. Curated has delivered inventions for companies such as Genentech, Panasonic, and Walmart; and for impact investors in the fields of skin cancer, breast cancer, the human brain, and human flight. Christian is an investor in applied-science spinouts from MIT and Harvard, and previously founded and led two technology companies. He holds a BA and MA in Economics and Management from the University of Oxford, and completed studies in molecular biology and materials science as a Fellow at MIT. Christian is dedicated to leaving behind four inventions that make the world a better place.

Daisy Robinton

Daisy Robinton is a Harvard University scientist who focusses on gene editing and developmental biology. She’s made waves around the world for her impressive TED talks that tackle normally hard-to-understand topics such as how and why we age. She believes that science may be able to one day engineer the end of aging as we know it. Daisy’s work at Harvard University focusses on researching mechanisms of stem cell identity, with a focus on cancer and developmental biology. She believes passionately in helping others understand more about science which she fulfills through teaching and public speaking events, as well as publishing her own research. Even more impressively, Daisy founded the ‘Science in the News Spring Public Lecture Series’ at Harvard and consults on various biotech start-ups both in the US and the UK. Her most recent endeavor has included a feature film screenplay on the future of medicine and its longevity. Daisy grew up in Palo Alto, CA before moving to Los Angeles to complete her B.S. in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA. She completed her doctorate at Harvard University under the mentorship of Dr. George Q. Daley, where her research focused on the Lin28/let-7 axis and its role in stem cell maintenance and cancer progression using murine models and cell culture. In particular, her work described a critical function of the oncofetal gene Lin28b in driving tumorigenesis, followed by the discovery of a novel role of the Lin28/let-7 network in regulating development of the body plan during embryogenesis. Her current work in the Stevens lab is focused on mechanisms of microglial development and dysfunction during normal development and neurodegenerative disease.

Dave Troy

Dave Troy is a serial entrepreneur and community activist in Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently CEO and product architect at 410 Labs, maker of the popular e-mail management tools Mailstrom.co and Chuck. He has been acknowledged by the founding team at Twitter as the first developer to utilize the Twitter API, with his project “Twittervision,” which was featured in the 2008 MoMA exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind,” curated by Paola Antonelli. His current projects use social network data to map cities. He is also organizer of TEDxMidAtlantic in Washington, DC and is passionate about data, cities, and entrepreneurship. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and two children.

James Ford

James Ford is a reporter for the PIX11 News at 5 and 6 p.m. James joined WPIX in 2007, serving as the lead live reporter for the PIX11 Morning News, covering breaking news and feature stories. Prior to his position at WPIX, Ford was a reporter for six years at WNYW Channel 5 in New York, where his reporting on Sept. 11 was the subject of the documentary “Dreams Without Sleep,” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. Ford, an Emmy Award-winning reporter, began his television career at WTOC-TV in Savannah, Ga., where he was a reporter and fill-in anchor. He later moved to WFTV, Channel 9 in Orlando, Fla. He was the station’s Space Coast bureau chief, covering news in Brevard County, which is known as Florida’s Space Coast. There, he anchored coverage of 41 space shuttle launches at the Kennedy Space Center. Ford’s next move was to WRTV Channel 6 in Indianapolis, where he anchored the morning news and was a consumer investigative reporter. James is proud to have grown up in an Air Force family who moved to six different states and the U.K. over the course of 25 years. He, his wife and daughter live in Manhattan. Ford is a graduate of Yale University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also studied Arabic at the International Language Institute of Cairo.

Lynn Rothschild

Lynn Rothschild is passionate about the evolution of life on Earth or elsewhere, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. Just as travel abroad permits new insights into home, so too the search for life elsewhere allows a more mature scientific, philosophical and ethical perception of life on Earth. She is a scientist NASA and Adjunct Professor at Brown, and the UC Santa Cruz. Her research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. She founded and ran the first three Astrobiology Science Conferences (AbSciCon), was the founding co-editor of the Intl Journal of Astrobiology, and is the former director of the Astrobiology Strategic Analysis and Support Office. Astrobiology research includes examining a protein-based scenario for the origin of life, hunting for extremophiles, and determining signatures for life elsewhere. Rothschild has brought her creativity to the field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the use of synthetic biology for NASA’s missions. She is the Bio and Bio-Inspired Technologies, Research and Technology Lead for NASA’s Science Technology Mission Directorate. Since 2011 she has been the faculty advisor of the award-winning Stanford-Brown iGEM team, which has pioneered the use of synthetic biology to accomplish NASA’s mission, particularly focusing on the human settlement of Mars, astrobiology and such innovative technologies as BioWires and making a biodegradable UAS (drone) and bioballoon. Her lab will move these ideas into space in the form of the PowerCell synthetic biology secondary payload on a DLR satellite, EuCROPIS. She is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, The California Academy of Sciences and the Explorer’s Club. In 2015, she was awarded the Isaac Asimov Award from the American Humanist Association, and was the recipient of the Horace Mann Award from Brown.

Marcie Black

Marcie is the Co-Founder & CEO of Advanced Silicon Group. Marcie is using silicon nanotechnology to make solar electricity cost less and to enable doctors to monitor cancer treatments by a rapid and low-cost blood test.

Misha Sra

Misha graduated in June 2018 from the MIT Media Lab where she worked in the Fluid Interfaces group with Prof Pattie Maes. Misha works in the area of human-computer interaction (HCI), specifically related to virtual, augmented and mixed reality. The goal of her work is to create systems that use the entire body for input and output and automatically adapt to each user’s unique state and context. Misha calls her concept perceptual engineering, i.e., immersive systems that alter the user’s perception (or more specifically the input signals to their perception) and influence or manipulate it in subtle ways. For example, they modify a user’s sense of balance or orientation, manipulate their visual attention and more, all without the user’s explicit awareness, and in order to assist or guide their interactive experience in an effortless way. The systems Misha builds use the entire body for input and output, i.e., they can use movement, like walking, or a physiological signal, like breathing as input, and can output signals that actuate the user’s vestibular system with electrical pulses, causing the individual to move or turn involuntarily. HCI up to now has relied upon deliberate, intentional usage, both for input (e.g., touch, voice, typing) and for output (interpreting what the system tells you, shows you, etc.). In contrast, Misha develops techniques and build systems that do not require this deliberate, intentional user interface but are able to use the body as the interface for more implicit and natural interactions. Misha’s perceptual engineering approach has been shown to (1) increase the user’s sense of presence in VR/MR, (2) provide novel ways to communicate between the user and the digital system using proprioception and other sensory modalities, and (3) serve as a platform to question the boundaries of our sense of agency and trust. Misha enjoys doodling, photography and playing video games. She also likes glass blowing and kyudo.