Theme: The Bridge

TEDxAirlie will feature several talks centered around the event’s overlying theme: The Bridge.

Like Wilmington, NC bridges are iconic structures used to connect people, places and things – precisely what TEDxAirlie will be about.

Thalian Hall
310 Chestnut Street
Wilmington, North Carolina, 28401
United States

Ben David

Cliff is the Owner/Founder of P2P® RESCUE, a North Carolina-based company dedicated to building unique, innovative rescue products for various water safety and ocean rescue scenarios. Founded in 2014, P2P initially manufactured and sold competition training standup paddleboards with inset paddle storage. In August 2015 lifeguards on the North Shore of Oahu encouraged P2P to visit Hawaii and research ways to incorporate our unique technology into rescue products. Since then, P2P Rescue is honored to work with and provide rescue boards to over 40 lifeguard agencies in the US, and also fire departments, defense contractors, resorts and universities. At the age of 14, Cliff lost his father in a drowning accident. It was ultimately his father’s visionary, entrepreneurial spirit that led Cliff to leave his career as a real estate developer and take a leap of faith in creating P2P Rescue. P2P remains committed in its efforts towards drowning prevention and is honored to be working with some of the world’s most experienced water safety personnel to design and build its rescue products.

Ben Knight

Ben Knight, a Chicago native, has transitioned well to country, small town living. As a co-owner of Chef & the Farmer and the Vivian Howard Restaurant Group, he has established himself as a leader in small town investment and job creation. Teamed with his wife, Vivian Howard, the two have created businesses in Eastern North Carolina that employ over 120, and generate over 7M in annual revenue. Knight thrives on entrepreneurial and creative activities and has used he artistic qualities to combine thoughtful design into warm, fun and inviting restaurants. Most recently, Benny’s Big Time Pizzeria here in the South Front district, reinvents an old shirt factory into a bustling contemporary pizzeria, complete with wood burning ovens, exposed original terracotta walls, and old school Pizza Hut style Tiffany chandeliers. In addition, Knight serves as a board member to the NC Rural Center, and is an established contemporary NC artist. When not in his studio, or one of the restaurants, Knight can be found coaching his 7 year old twins basketball team.

Cedric Harrison

Cedric is a Media Specialist from Wilmington, North Carolina, who has spent over eight years working in the media industry, formerly serving as the Producer of The Exchange Radio Show on WWWE 1100 am (Atlanta) and iHeart radio, and as a Brand Strategist with The Resource Guild, a 360 degree brand management, strategy, and consulting agency in Atlanta, Georgia, that hosts clients like Millercoors, Ferrari/Maserati, Street Execs Management (Management company for 2 Chainz, Travis Porter, Young Dolph and many more.) Cedric currently serves as the Assistant Coordinator of The Nixon Minority Male Leaders Center, at Cape Fear Community College. In this role, he works on improving minority retention and graduation rates, supporting students in the program with free college tours of NC-based colleges, providing free tutors to ensure students are supported with their academic endeavors and hosting events such as monthly panel discussions on diversity, employment, and other relevant topics. This experience has propelled his growth as a trusted leader on minority issues in the community and aligns perfectly with his desire to support education and employment opportunities. Cedric is also the Founder and Executive Director of Support The Port Foundation, Inc. a 501(c)3 non profit organization that aims to “bridge” the communities of Wilmington together through philanthropy, scholarship, music, arts and culture. Through these roles Cedric strives to connect individuals with opportunities and expand their horizons, while creating a more equitable and harmonious community. His call to action began 15 years ago, when his best friend, who was just 17 years old at the time, shot and killed another boy in self-defense. News of a child killing another child in a gang-related crime was a shocking event in Wilmington, North Carolina and marked a tipping point toward the rapid escalation of gangs in the community. For Cedric, the shooting was a fork in the road that led him to dedicate his life to promoting social justice, violence prevention, and improving economic opportunities for young African Americans in Wilmington. He has taken many steps toward becoming a leader on these issues in Wilmington, including leading anti-violence campaigns and forming a non-profit agency called Support the Port, whose mission is “to enhance, cultivate and provide a renewed sense of community ownership and excellence for residents of Wilmington, North Carolina.” Ultimately, Cedric’s vision is to develop a more peaceful, integrated, and prosperous society for all residents. Cedric has a strong track record of building bridges to connect people and ideas, and a long history of implementing interventions to help those in need in Wilmington. Cedric grew up in deeply under-served areas in Wilmington, and has first-hand experience with what it takes to overcome the barriers to success. The strategies he uses form a multi-pronged approach, to improve connectivity, economic opportunity and self worth.

Cliff Ray

Cliff is the Owner/Founder of P2P® RESCUE, a North Carolina-based company dedicated to building unique, innovative rescue products for various water safety and ocean rescue scenarios. Founded in 2014, P2P initially manufactured and sold competition training standup paddleboards with inset paddle storage. In August 2015 lifeguards on the North Shore of Oahu encouraged P2P to visit Hawaii and research ways to incorporate our unique technology into rescue products. Since then, P2P Rescue is honored to work with and provide rescue boards to over 40 lifeguard agencies in the US, and also fire departments, defense contractors, resorts and universities. At the age of 14, Cliff lost his father in a drowning accident. It was ultimately his father’s visionary, entrepreneurial spirit that led Cliff to leave his career as a real estate developer and take a leap of faith in creating P2P Rescue. P2P remains committed in its efforts towards drowning prevention and is honored to be working with some of the world’s most experienced water safety personnel to design and build its rescue products.

David Wise

David Wise believes tapping the consciousness through modern technology can create experiences that heal the emotional and relational connections in us all. As a multimedia producer, David has an expansive history in advertising, network & reality television, corporate communications, SEO marketing, filmmaking and now a primary focus on instructional design and virtual reality development. Passionate about the science of design and its effects on human perception and behaviors, intermingled with his autodidact pursuits in cognitive sciences and spiritual concepts, a new life path has emerged to design experiences that promote behavioral changes and bridge the gaps in our empathy and compassion for one another.

Evan Folds

Evan believes in exploring ways to bring abundance to humanity, primarily through agriculture and the integration of technology with the natural and spiritual world. He has done that over time through founding and operating businesses including a retail garden center in Wilmington for 15 years called Progressive Gardens, a manufacturing/wholesale company called Progressive Farms that pioneered compost tea technology, an organic lawn care company called A Natural Approach, a commercial wheatgrass business, and an organic farm in Castle Hayne that operated a community supported agriculture (CSA) program. He pays the last 16+ years of experience forward through his consulting platform called Be Agriculture. “Everyone is a part of agriculture, whether we realize it or not. Not everyone can grow their own food, but as the great Wendell Berry said, ‘Eating is an agricultural act.’ The reality is that we are further from our food than we have ever been before, what we eat has become unconscious resulting in agriculture being conducted for the wrong reasons – food is no longer our medicine. We are at an inflection point of diet and disease in our society and agriculture is at the center of the conversation.” states Evan. Evan was recently elected Supervisor of New Hanover Soil & Water Conservation District. He is interested in developing projects to enhance agriculture in the county and ensure the protection and enhancement of the soil and water supply. Evan believes wholeheartedly that if we fix the soil, we fix ourselves.

Jason Graham

For nearly 20 years, Jason has dedicated his life to the arts and culture in Oregon. With his home based in Bend, he has sought to challenge his own personal views and improve his levels of participation, patronage and change agency within the town. As a person of mixed ethnicity, a person of color in Bend, Jason has become uniquely proficient in a ‘kind of’ communal diplomacy. It has been vital to his success as an artist to understand other viewpoints and to incorporate them into his work. He believes in unification through diversity and that no one person or one group will ever have all the answers. He believes art is a necessity more than a luxury and that we need art that represents the status quo and challenges the status quo with careful, compassionate consideration for the viewer. Jason understands these two things need not be mutually exclusive. He seeks to find voices that need to be heard within this state, and beyond, through the mediums that best carry their messages. He has helped to create, run, and compete in poetry slams, open-mic competitions, and juried art shows throughout Central Oregon. With the help of his local community theater, Cascades Theatrical Company, Jason produced two multimedia Hip Hop performances entitled “Question your Beliefs” and “Smartyrdom.” He was also commissioned to have his visual art work on permanent public display in Downtown Bend. Jason’s interests in the up and coming voices of Oregon has taken him around the state to work with middle schools, high schools, and colleges. For 2018 and 2019, Jason has been an invited Artist-in-Residence at Fishtrap Writing Community. In collaboration with the Deschutes Public Library, he has interviewed internationally known and critically acclaimed authors for the ‘A Novel Idea Community Read’ and the ‘Author! Author! literary series.’ Through these literary events, he was introduced to former NAACP Chairman of the Board, Myrlie Evers-Williams. Jason is a four-time TEDxBend performer and winner of Best Band in Central Oregon.

Julie-Ann Scott Pollock

Julie-Ann is a professor of Communication Studies at UNC-Wilmington with specialization in storytelling, performance and stigmatized identity. She is the recipient of the UNCW Distinguished Professorship, the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence, Distinguished Scholar and Public Service award, Wilma Magazine’s woman to watch in education and the YWCA’s woman of achievement in education. In addition her book ‘Embodied Performance as Applied art and pedagogy’ received the 2018 book of the year in Ethnography from the National Communication Association. As a disabled woman, her storytelling research focuses on how we can learn to embrace our mortality and accept our movement across the unstable “bridge of ability” throughout our lifetimes. Embracing instead of fearing our embodied vulnerability can lead to empathy, human connection and social justice. Her book explores this topic, using the term “hyper-embodiment” to describe the body they embraced rather than the fears of their mortality. It seeks to create a culture that adapts with our changing embodiments.

Mona Badie

Mona Badie, a 14-year GE veteran, is Chief Information Officer and Chief Digital Officer for GE Hitachi Nuclear, a $1B Global business based in Wilmington. In this role, Mona is responsible for all Information Technology systems as well as Digital Transformation and Commercial Software, including the Industrial Internet efforts. Mona is a big advocate of Women in Technology. Amongst other initiatives, she leads the “Girls in Technology” program to encourage girls to participate in STEM fields. Mona earned her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. She is married with two children and resides in Wilmington with her husband.

Skip Johnstone

Cliff is the Owner/Founder of P2P® RESCUE, a North Carolina-based company dedicated to building unique, innovative rescue products for various water safety and ocean rescue scenarios. Founded in 2014, P2P initially manufactured and sold competition training standup paddleboards with inset paddle storage. In August 2015 lifeguards on the North Shore of Oahu encouraged P2P to visit Hawaii and research ways to incorporate our unique technology into rescue products. Since then, P2P Rescue is honored to work with and provide rescue boards to over 40 lifeguard agencies in the US, and also fire departments, defense contractors, resorts and universities. At the age of 14, Cliff lost his father in a drowning accident. It was ultimately his father’s visionary, entrepreneurial spirit that led Cliff to leave his career as a real estate developer and take a leap of faith in creating P2P Rescue. P2P remains committed in its efforts towards drowning prevention and is honored to be working with some of the world’s most experienced water safety personnel to design and build its rescue products.

Stephanie Lanier

One of Stephanie Lanier’s core beliefs: when you have hardship in your life, you shouldn’t waste it. Many words describe Lanier: wife, mom, realtor, entrepreneur, blogger, special needs advocate. Yet, being a “wholehearted tribe builder” is the thread connecting the experiences of and creations in her life. Life-changing moments fueled a search for connection, purpose and spaces for vulnerability. In 2012, Lanier co-founded Wilmington-based Lanier Property Group alongside her husband, Andrew. She also created The Inspiration Lab, a membership community for women encouraging work-life integration, deeper friendships and the design of more manageable and meaningful lives.