Theme: ...YET

TEDxBlaine is in its inaugural year of bringing TED’s movement of “ideas worth sharing” to a community brimming with our own thought-provoking ideas. This event will provide a forum in which extraordinary thinkers and doers can share ideas and spark meaningful change to our community and beyond.

For this year’s theme, ...YET, TEDxBlaine explores ideas that are not yet well understood in the context of our complex world and need to be brought to the forefront of our minds.

The TEDxBlaine Planning Committee is seeking proposals from individuals interested in making a presentation at the 2019 event; YET. The May 18th, 2019 program provides a 3.5 hour forum for seven speakers to share ideas and engage a curated and diverse live audience of 100 people and spark change in the way they view their world. Each talk will be professionally recorded and accessible to a global audience on the TED.com website.

We encourage applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds, fields, disciplines and experiences. Applications will be reviewed starting February 4th, and will be accepted until Feb 22nd. TEDxBlaine will select talks from a broad range of topics including science, technology, social development, entrepreneurship, education, medicine, culture and art. Talks should reflect actual personal and professional experience.

To apply to be a speaker, please complete the TEDxBlaine Speaker Application linked on the left side of the page.

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).

Blaine High School
12555 University Avenue Northeast
Blaine, Minnesota, 55434
United States

Alisha Perkins

Freelance Writer, Speaker

Freelance writer. Runner. Speaker. Mom to two daughters. Wife to Glen Perkins (3 time All-Star Minnesota Twins closer) Her work has appeared in Women's Running, Huffington Post, Like the Wind Magazine, Fitness Most Magazine, Scary Mommy, Another Mother Runner, The Red Current, Minneapolis Running, Star Tribune, Girls with Sole, and Minnesota Twins Magazine. Her first non-fiction book Running Home was released May 31st, 2016, hitting #1 on Amazon detailing her story of dealing with mental illness in a world full of insane stigma.

Baraa Al-Jasim

Robotics Engineer

Baraa Al-Jasim is a high school student and a member of their Speech and Robotics teams. She has participated in the Minnesota state science fair for 2 years and has been awarded by Intel in the category of computer science and by the U.S. Navy for her engineering project this year. Baraa has been improving her knowledge in the engineering field for the last 2 years and applied it to create robots such as a micro servo robot, obstacle avoiding, and most importantly her firefighting robot. She came up with the idea this year to design a robot that would be able to extinguish flames after hearing about a family friend’s kitchen being turned into ashes due to a fire in California. She has built a prototype to show the working principles of the robot in hopes in the near future to be able to build one that would be used by not only fire operators but by industrial owners and homeowners.

Fedhii Gobena

Business Consultant

Fedhii is a human-enthusiast. He is ever curious about how the human mind functions, and the implications that it has on how we relate with one another. Fedhii works as a business consultant for the human behavior research and brand strategy firm, Brandtrust which uses the applied social and behavioral sciences to solve complex business problems. Fedhii also serves on the board to the Justice Debate League, an organization committed to bringing debate into prisons across the country in order to give prisoners a voice - especially prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted.

Kelly Hettwer Olsen

Entrepreneur

Kelly Hettwer Olsen is a bakery owner, land developer, idea generator, and U.S. patent holder for ‘those cakes people jump out of at parties.’ At age 30, she lost her husband, Abstract American painter, Jeff Hettwer, in a car crash with a drunk driver. She has used the wisdom she gained from losing him to rewrite her idea of the future and everything she ever believed about risk. Kelly speaks at schools and victim impact panels about the dangers of drinking and driving. She also volunteers for the Phakamani Foundation, an organization that provides micro financing and education to female entrepreneurs in South Africa. In 2018, Kelly organized a relief effort for the victims of Hurricane Irma. Immediately after the storm, she and her parents personally delivered 9,000 pounds of emergency supplies to Southwest Florida and distributed them to those most affected by the storm.

Kevin Bowe

Songwriter, music producer, engineer and mixer.

Kevin Bowe is a Minneapolis-based songwriter, music producer, engineer and mixer. He has earned 3 platinum records and placed songs on 2 Grammy winning albums working with artists like Jonny Lang, Etta James, The Replacements, Paul Westerberg, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Cocker and many others. His songs have been performed by everyone from Lucinda Williams to Bruce Springsteen. Kevin has worked extensively in film/tv; placing music on The Sopranos, Shameless, Ray Donovan and many feature films. He is also a program chair at the Institute of Production and Recording, splitting his time between Minneapolis, Nashville and LA working on various projects.

Ross Bernstein

Inspirational Business Speaker & Best-Selling Sports Author

The best-selling author of nearly 50 sports books, Ross Bernstein is an award winning peak-performance business speaker who’s keynoted conferences on all seven continents. As a working member of the sports media, he has spent the better part of the past 20 years studying the DNA of championship teams and about what it is that truly makes the great ones great. Ross and his books have been featured on thousands of television and radio programs over his career including: CNN, “CBS This Morning,” ESPN, and Fox News, as well as in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today. Ross and his wife Sara have a 16 year old daughter and presently reside in Apple Valley, MN.

Sadhika Prabhu

Solutions Finder

Sadhika Prabhu is an outgoing student who loves to talk with her peers. She is an avid participant in various activities from Choir to Multicultural Club to Student Government. In those groups Sadhika has had many opportunities to observe and discuss the unique experience her generation has with the greater rights and equal chances that they have been given, but still haven’t reached the point of fully utilizing. Through her studies and focus on a STEM career Sadhika has always been taught to keep a positive outlook and search for solutions. In the different groups she participates in she enjoys having conversations with people who share her experiences and those who hold just the opposite beliefs to find those solutions. She is looking forward to studying engineering at the University of Minnesota and continuing to advocate for finding and creating solutions.

Sheba Coffey

Achievement Advisor

Sheba Coffey is an Achievement Advisor in the largest school district in Minnesota, Anoka-Hennepin. She is also a Transformational Speaker, Success Coach and Event Host. She is a Co-Chair for the Training Sub Committee for the 2019 Minneapolis Final Four. Sheba is the former Publisher of Women’s Business Minnesota Magazine. She is a two-time recipient of the People’s Choice Awards for “Most Dynamic TV Show Host”, and Executive Producer of a cable game show, Reel Experts. She is the author of many published articles and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Minnesota along with a Master of Arts Degree in Sport Management. Sheba is involved in many volunteer efforts and was formerly Board Chair of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota. She is a proud Mother of 3 children. She is a world traveler, basketball enthusiast, and loves movies, investing and life-long learning.

Terry Wu

Neuroscientist, Entrepreneur

Dr. Wu received his Master's degree in Neuroscience from Duke University and earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University, focusing on research into learning and memory. He then began a 20-year career in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. He built one of the first two local marketing firms that specialize in Search Engine Optimization, science-based website design and conversion optimization. Over the last 20 years, growing research from Neuroscience, Social Psychology and Behavioral Economics has been providing new insights on how the brain makes buying decisions. That gave birth to a new field, Neuromarketing. With his extensive knowledge and experience in both Neuroscience and marketing, Dr. Wu helps businesses grow revenues rapidly by guiding their customers to make informed decisions. Today, his company, Neuromarketing Services, based in the Twin Cities, is the only Neuromarketing firm in the Midwest.