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).

Mulva Auditorium
2501 Speedway
Austin, Texas, 78712
United States

Aashima Garg

What does it means to be a “bro,” particularly in male-dominated fields like tech? Many women push themselves to fit the mold of a “bro” to succeed in their career when “bros” are exactly the type of men they would avoid in their personal lives. Aashima has graduated with a degree in a major that has 12% female representation. She provides insights and recommendations to society from women who feel that they carry a guest pass to the boys club that is their major, field, or industry.

Alejandrina Guzman

Alejandrina Guzman is the first Latina Student Body President (SBP) in UT Austin and the first physically differently-abled SBP in the Big XII Conference. She served in the 2017-2018 term and aimed to empower those around her and make a positive impact in the communities she was a part of. Currently, she is a fellow in the Mexican American Legislative Caucus working for Representative Hernandez.

Amir Husain

Amir Husain is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, and author based in Austin, Texas. Husain is the founder and CEO of SparkCognition, an award-winning artificial intelligence company. His book “The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence” was published in 2017. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for a New American Security Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security. He was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Award, has been named Austin's Top Technology Entrepreneur of the Year, and received the Austin Under 40 Technology and Science Award.

Davis Richardson

Davis is a Bartlett Cocke Scholar and M.Arch I Candidate at UT Austin's School of Architecture (UTSOA). He is also the Editor for Essays and Interviews for ISSUE, UTSOA's student publication of the best projects of the year, and a designer at THOUGHTBARN, an architecture studio in Austin. His writing has been featured in PLAT, an architecture journal from Rice University, on CritDay, an architecture-student feed, and more; he's spoken at events on architecture, affordable housing, and sustainability, including SXSW, Mensa, and the American Institute of Architecture Students, following the success of the tiny house he built himself in 2016.

Guneez Ibrahim

Guneez Ibrahim is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin studying Sociology and Design, with minors in Arabic and Journalism. Her interest in women’s education reform began in June of 2017 when she created a 30-day fundraiser for Michelle Obama’s Let Girls Learn program. Guneez recently returned from Freedom House, a human rights organization in Washington D.C., and hopes to pursue a JD to continue this line of work. On campus, she is involved in Texas Orange Jackets, the university’s oldest women’s honorary service organization. Overall, Guneez has a strong passion for women’s reform. She continues this passion by teaching English to immigrant and refugee women in the Austin area.

Joel Walsh

Joel is a former Los Angeles public school teacher and a third-year STEM Education PhD student. He is a graduate of both the UC Davis and the UCLA Teacher Education Program. While working in the public school sector, Joel taught high school mathematics at the USC Hybrid High School. In addition to teaching, Joel is a basketball enthusiast who loves to cook and watch the Golden State Warriors anytime they play. Overall, Joel’s experience as a teacher has provided a foundation to his current research. As he completes his PhD, Joel focuses on using machine learning techniques to both improve classroom learning outcomes and reform K-12 mathematics standards that change with the annual surges in technology.

Larry Speck

Lawrence Speck is Senior Design Principal for Page Architecture, and has served as Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin from 1992 to 2001. In his years of teaching, he has worked with prominent schools worldwide including M.I.T. and the University of Western Australia. Speck has helped lead six major master planning projects for his home city, Austin, and has also been lead architect for two major park projects in downtown Houston. Additionally, he directed the design for Austin Bergstrom International Airport Terminal, Austin Convention Center, and academic buildings on various university campuses. Overall, Speck’s work has won him a multitude of design, teaching, and service awards in the last 25 years.

Mackenzie Finklea

Mackenzie Finklea is a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, studying Anthropology with a special interest in archaeology. She also has a minor in Architecture and a certificate in Museum Studies. Throughout her college years, Mackenzie has spearheaded the first branch of the Creator Institute at UT Austin and is writing and publishing a book. Overall, Mackenzie is deeply fascinated by human culture, both past and present, and how it is put on display. She values the importance of interdisciplinary work and has made it a point to not only explore multiple disciplines, but also to develop meaningful connections with her peers and colleagues.

Moriba Jah

Moriba is currently the director for Computational Astronautical Sciences and Technologies (CAST) at UT Austin and hopes to present his work to the entire world with TED. Prior to UT, Moriba worked in the Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was a Spacecraft Navigator on a handful of Mars missions. He represents 5 of the largest aerospace organizations, is an elected Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, and has served on the US delegation to the United Nations and testified to Congress for outer space matters.

Patrick Lyons

Born in Dallas, Patrick Lyons is a recent Mechanical Engineering Honors graduate who has accepted an offer to work full-time at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. As a Longhorn, Patrick’s passion for fitness has allowed him to both transform people’s lives and simultaneously create a business to facilitate these intentions. Although he is mostly occupied with his clients’ fitness plans and needs, Patrick managed to create a successful YouTube channel where he generates prank-style videos to entertain his audience. Overall, it is highly evident that fitness is an inherent part of Patrick’s life. He has worked out over 1,100 times in the past 4 years and continues to pursue his own fitness journey with rigorous training for American Ninja Warrior.

Raj Raghunathan

Raj Raghunathan is Zale Centennial Professor of Business at the McCombs School at UT Austin. His work explores how people’s judgments and decisions impact their happiness and fulfillment. Raj’s work has appeared in top journals and cited in mass media outlets, including The Atlantic, NY Times, Fortune, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Inc, Fast Company, and LA Times. He writes about his views on happiness and leadership on his popular Psychology Today blog (with close to 2 million page views), Sapient Nature. Raj's six-week long Coursera course on happiness, A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment, currently has 250,000 students from 196 countries and was voted the Top MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) of 2015, 2016 & 2017, and one of the Top 50 MOOCs of all time. Raj’s book, If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?, was launched in 2016 and has been translated into 13 languages. He has delivered several keynote lectures and his TED talk, which aired on STAR TV India, was viewed by over 17 million people worldwide.

Reynaldo Torres

Reynaldo Torres is currently pursuing a Master of Business Administration at Texas Tech University where he also earned his Master of Arts in Economics. At Texas Tech University, Reynaldo works as a research assistant at the Center for Sales and CRM. Prior to his graduate studies, Reynaldo acquired a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering and a Minor in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. Most recently, Rey has been working on bringing kheprenomics to life, an online teaching tool to exclusively tutor industrial organization economics. Overall, Reynaldo’s discipline and eagerness to learn continues to shape his life and has granted him the Remnant Trust Student Scholar of 2019 award.

Scott Nguyen

Scott Nguyen is a Harvard-trained PhD physicist and a University of Texas at Austin alum. Previously, he has helped spur Austin's first low-income solar program, sent robots to explore the oceans, and introduced renewable energy technology into Shell’s portfolio. He is currently the CEO and Co-founder of 17TeraWatts, a clean-energy software company ushering in the next wave of wide-scale solar adoption. Overall, Scott’s passion for energy has allowed him to invent technology and business models to accelerate our transformation to a cleaner, more efficient, energy economy.

Steve Papermaster

Steve Papermaster has submerged into the field of entrepreneurship by co-founding and co-chairing Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE), a Shanghai-based NGO and non-profit organization pushing for efficient use of technology and energy in China, co-founding TechNet Texas, and co-authoring the book Smart Life. These, along with many other accomplishments, have inevitably granted him the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year”. Steve has also served our nation by directly advising former U.S. President George W. Bush for two terms in the White House, where he was also appointed to and co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Currently, his revolutionary measures include presiding as chief executive officer and chairman of Nano, a company dedicated to accelerating the development and delivery of cures for illnesses through technology.