Theme: A Reimagined Future

The theme for 2019 is ‘A Reimagined Future’. We have encouraged our speakers to explore their ideas and interpretations of our future; taking into account their own personal experiences and ideologies, and how they would like to use these to change the world (or just the community).

We have never lived in times of such change, or tumult, and it is vital that we as individuals are examining our place in the present, as well as our role in providing a better future for ourselves, our community, and the planet. What wasn’t possible previously that may be considered now?

TedxFolkestone is offering an opportunity to explore how we can change the way we look at the future. To find out more about this year’s event, make sure you sign up to the newsletter and stay tuned for updates at www.TEDxFolkestone.com

The Quarterhouse
49 Tontine St
Folkestone, Kent, CT20 1BN
United Kingdom

Alex M H Smith

Strategist

Alex is a strategist and founder of Basic Arts, where he helps businesses create monopolies within their market categories. For him, the theme of “a reimagined future” at TEDxFolkestone connected perfectly with a new vision of business that are unfolding all around us, and which his talk addresses.

Caroline Strachan

Managing Partner

Caroline has spent the majority of her career in the travel industry working for companies such as American Express, Cisco, Yahoo and AstraZeneca. Caroline co-founded consultancy Festive Road and has also volunteered as the Institute of Travel Management Chairman, Global Business Travel Association Europe President and has received a number of awards in recognition of her services to the industry. Most recently these include IBM iX everywoman Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 and Business Travel News Top 25 most influential people 2018. In her spare time Caroline co-leads support network Women at Work, and delivers a number of industry education programmes.

ConfiCo Jo Frater

Founder / Artistic Director - Inclusive Dance Company.

Confidance, lead by Founder and Artistic Director Jo Frater, is an organisation that shares high quality dance work with integrity, curiosity and inclusion at it's heart. Working in schools, community settings and theatres Confidance makes dance and performance for, with and by dancers with and without learning disabilities. Confidance has recently undertaken a research project that redefines dance, following the belief that we are all artists, we discovered the creative potential of children with complex disabilities who co-choreographed a piece with Confidance. Pushing the boundaries of what we consider dance to be... we create, educate and perform. Confidance’s new professional dance company ConfiCo, are delighted to be performing at TEDx Folkestone.

Dan Abbott

Underwater Cinematographer

Dan is an Underwater Cinematographer with a passion for sharks & marine life. Since a young age he has been fascinated by large marine predators, and after working with great white sharks in South Africa, began travelling around the world to film different species underwater. Dan has been as close as it’s possible to get to sharks and has learned a great deal about their behaviour, both with each other and with us.

Joanna Rawbone

Change Agent

Joanna Rawbone MSc is a lifelong learner filled with curiosity, the prospect of possibility and gratitude. She is the founder of Scintillo Ltd, an Ashford based training & coaching consultancy established in 2004. With a loyal international client list, she enables people to set themselves free from their limiting beliefs, own their natural talents and optimise potential. She chose to apply for TEDx Folkestone as her Reimagined Future is one where bias is removed so that the skills and talents associated with introversion are valued as highly as those of extraversion. Joanna is a wife, step-mother, step-grandmother and flourishing introvert.

Julia Bernard-Thompson

Sales & Business Coach

Julia Bernard-Thompson is a Business Coach who aims to help business owners grow to their first million in sales. As a coach, she has seen clients struggle with brand names, personal name, program names etc because of how various names are perceived and the impact that could/would have on their success. She says ‘I’d long been harbouring this secret utopian ideal of a time in the future when names didn’t matter and so this felt that a great opportunity to give that idea a voice and to open up the discussion. I chose to speak at TEDxFolkestone because the theme of A Re-Imagined Future really intrigued me. ‘

Katerina Johnson

Biologist & Science Communicator

Dr Katerina Johnson is a biologist and science communicator from the University of Oxford. Her PhD was on the science of that “gut feeling”, investigating how the community of microorganisms living in the gut, known as the gut microbiome, can affect the brain and behaviour. She enjoys engaging and informing both the public and the media… in fact, one of her mottos is “If you don’t think science is cool, you haven’t been taught it right!”

LUNATRAKTORS Clair Le Couteur & Carli Jefferson

Performers

LUNATRAKTORS brings together the choreographic, body percussion and tapdance expertise of former Stomp member Carli Jefferson with the conceptual talents and six-octave vocal range of overtone singer and research artist Clair Le Couteur. Jefferson has been performing and teaching Stepflow, her own style of percussive dance, for over fifteen years with clients ranging from musical theatre companies and street dance crews to youth groups and corporate teambuilding. Trans artist and academic Clair Le Couteur follows their research projects across media and disciplinary boundaries, whether producing museum installations, publishing in academic journals, performing in contemporary art spaces or teaching at postgraduate institutions. LUNATRAKTORS brings together years of research in bodily movement, intuitive expression, philosophical ideas and cultural theory to create a wonderfully accessible form of expression.

Rachel Davis

Mama Tiger/Founder of LaLa Tigers

Rachel is the founder of LaLa Tigers, an NLP Practitioner, musician and mother of two. She writes music to increase connection and self-esteem in children. Her idea for a reimagined future is that every child understands the power they hold inside of themselves to create the life of their dreams and that they also have the courage and the self-belief to step into it. She is fascinated by how the belief systems that we form in the first 7 years of our lives go on to shape the rest of it, mostly subconsciously …and how these can be positively influenced by music.

Robert Anderson

IT Strategist

Robert Anderson has been interested in how technology can improve humans’ lives ever since he can remember. He started programming computers at age 10 and has been working in IT for the past 20 years with blue-chip companies to develop IT strategies and roadmaps. Robert says he likes how ‘TEDxFolkstone cares about developing a group of people who are speakers, not just about people who are doing TED talks.’ He lives in Ashford and is happily married with four children who are ‘a delight to be around’.

Shane Record

Artist

Shane Record is a self-taught, professional artist and has run his own Studio Gallery in The Old High Street, Folkestone since 2005. Shane also visits schools, art societies and gives public demonstrations producing large scale works in short periods of time, further engaging people with the process of painting

Tim Box

Remedial Hypnotist

Tim is a remedial hypnotist and mind management expert. He helps people get back in control of the way they think, feel and behave. Having overcome his own social anxiety in the past, he now specialises in treating anxiety issues. In 2017 he published his first book; Clear Your Head: The simple guide to enjoying your life without anxiety getting in the way. This went on to become an Amazon number 1 bestseller in its category.