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).

Aula Univerzity Komenského v Bratislave
Šafárikovo námestie 6
Bratislava, Bratislavský kraj, 814 99
Slovakia

Boris Meluš

Boris Meluš is originally a graphic designer, but today he thinks more of himself as a cultural developer. He finished the UMPRUM university in Prague, during which he interned at VŠVU in Bratislava and at KABK in Haag. He used to design books, create user-friendly interfaces, stage communications for cultural events, work with ecological architecture and exhibition design. In 2016 he won the National prize for communication design, by the edition of books by Rudolf Sloboda. He has been working in Stará Cvernovka since 2009 and he is one of the first four original founders of benefaction - Nadácia Cvernovka.

Braňo Čavoj

Branislav Čavoj finished the University of Economics in Bratislava, in the field of political economy. His degree predetermined him to work in the Ministry of finances, but after his graduation, the world of marketing drew him in. He started working in an advertising company called Vaculik advertising in 2005 as a creative director. He learned how to work under stress with hundreds of work hours, long weekends and nights with assignments from his clients. After 12 long years, he left from advertising to atelier Bavlna in Stará Cvernovka. When Stará Cvernovka closed, he along with three other adventurers created Nadácia Cvernovka, which manages the Cultural and Creative center Nová Cvernovka on Račianska street.

Braňo Tichý

Braňo Tichý is the director of the biggest humanitarian organization in Slovakia, Človek v ohrození (People in Need Slovakia). He meets with topics such as poverty, violation of human rights, international relations, and their mutual entanglement for more than 15 years. In the past he worked for nongovernmental organizations and international institutions in more than 30 countries of the Eastern and Middle Europe, Balkan, Caucasus, Northern and Eastern Africa. He is trying to divide his free time between his children, dog, snowboarding, and yachting.

Filip Ostrowski

Filip Ostrowski studied political sciences at Jangelovská Univerzita in Krakov. He worked for municipality of Krakow, department of the development strategy, where he took part in revitalizations of declining neighborhoods. Later he took part at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the organization of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council. He met Juraj Kudela while working for an international company. Thanks to many work trips around Middle Europe, they found a common interest in phenomena of Polish reportage literature. In 2014 they gathered all their savings and entered Slovak publisher’s world and established Absynt. Filip is responsible for publishing plan and marketing. He is Polish, his wife and son are Slovak, currently they live in Krakow.

Jakub Hrbáň

Jakub Hrbáň is one of Slovak coordinators in students´ climate movement “Fridays For Future”. He joined the climate strike in March 2019, after the beginning of preparations for the first Slovak strike within the worldwide students´ climate strike. He finished high school in 2017. He decided that university has to wait and instead he entered a ten-month community program YIP (Youth Initiative Program) in Sweden. He learned about challenges which humanity is facing right now. He worked in a team with the mayor of Bratislava, Matúš Vallo. Now he leads a project called Miznúca Domovina (Disappearing Homeland), through which they try to spread information about climate crisis among the public. In his work he merches ecology, education and passion.

Karol Lovaš

Ex-reporter and moderator of the Radio Twist. Graduate of Catholic theology at Charles University in Prague. Later he continued with post gradual studies of journalism at Catholic University in Ružomberok. Currently he is a lecturer of broadcast journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University in Prague. He is an author of several books. In 2018 he led an interview with the last chief of communist state security, Alojz Lorenc, which was also published as a book.

Katarína Nagy Pázmány

Katarína is one of the organizers of demonstrations and initiator of the platform Za slušné Slovensko (For decent Slovakia). She studied psychology at Comenius University in Bratislava and absolved psychotherapeutic training in logotherapy and existential analysis. In May 2018 she became a mother. Meanwhile she worked with teachers in the Comenius institute, which she led. Since 2015 she has worked as junior trainer in PDCS and in the same year she established social enterprise with deaf people. In the professional field she is interested in civic engagement, education, psychotherapy, socially segregated groups and methods in developing the skills of children from marginalized Romany communities.

Ladislav Snopko

Ladislav Snopko (Agnes) is an archeologist and a publicist. He was an organizer of alternative artistic projects in Czechoslovakia since 1975. He led archeological research and monument restoration of antic location Gerulata in Rusovce in years 1976 to 1988. In October 1989 he joined Preparatory Committee of the International European Culture Club. He was co-founder and chairman of the association Gerulata – the first independent association of fine artists and theorists in Slovakia. In November 1989 he was one of the founders of movement “Verejnosť proti násiliu” - Public Against Hate and protagonist of November-Velvet-Revolution. Later in 1990 -1992, he held positions of Minister of Culture, member of National Council and Chief Coordinator of culture, education, sport, and tourism of countries of Middle-European initiative. Since 1996 he is actively involved in organization of culture life in Bratislava and Prague.

Lukáš Krnáč

Lukáš Krnáč studies fashion design in the Univerzita Tomáše Bati in Zlín. His brand has been on the market since 2017. He presents his collections on events such as Mercedes Benz Prague Fashion Week, but as well in Ukraine and London. His target groups are young customers who like a little amount of sarcasm and humour, but his fashion speaks to professionals of the field too. A proof of which are prizes such as Best Fashion Graduate, Best in design – fashion design a Grand Prize, or recent one BIG SEE Fashion Design Award.

Marek Števček

Marek Števček is a lawyer and a university pedagogue. He is one of the most important civil law experts in civil and procedural law in Slovakia. Since 1999 he has been lecturing at the Department of civil law at the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. He served as a judge, general director at the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak republic, and vice-rector of the Comenius University for legislation. Since 2019 he has been leading the university as a vice-rector and at the same time working on a draft of the new Slovak Civil code. If he is not currently awarding an honorary doctorate, signing a memorandum or chairing one of the dozens of commissions, he partakes in sports. In addition to boxing, he is a big fan of quality rock and opera music, and the classic German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Martin Královič

Martin Královič begins his journey in the event business when he was fifteen in a city named Trnava. On a well know festival in Slovakia – Pohoda Festival, he was working ten years as chief of more than six hundred volunteers. He is one of few people in Slovakia who are doing crowd safety on events. He graduated from Crowd Safety Management at Buckinghamshire New University and is currently studying Public Safety and Crowded Places Management at Coventry University. He is the founder and head of production at PS: Events. He was responsible for safety in protests Za Slušné Slovensko in Bratislava, participated in security measures such as the Vienna Marathon, the Pohoda Festival, Uprising and the Hockey World Championship.

Martin Pekarčík

Martin Pekarčík is studying the fourth year in Faculty of medicine in Comenius University in Bratislava. In 2018 he became one of the 30 best students. He is teaching in his free time mountain guides. For some time, he worked in the Slovak start-up called Virtual Medicine, which created the application "Human Anatomy". Because of this application students of medicine and the teachers can dismantle the human body in detail via virtual reality and educate themselves. He currently leads the start-up “S-Case”, which is developing a point of care medical device designed for third world countries. With this project he won Slovak and world competitions such as the University World Start-up Cup in Copenhagen, Slovak University Start-up Cup, Forbes investor Car-pitch and PlayPark European Finals in Venice.

Nikoleta Kováčová

Nikoleta Kováčová comes from Peištany. Currently she lives in Prague, where she works for a digital company as a photographer and creative director. For the past 6 year she has been an active blogger on her website dcerka.sk. You might know her as Surová dcérka (Raw Daughter). Her main topic is veganism. Her journey has started with raw food (that’s why the epithet “surová” – raw). She has been vegan since October 2013. Her blog contains topics such as ethical veganism, vegan recipes or non-tested cosmetics. Right now, she is about to publish the first Slovak vegan cook book “Slovegán”.

Peter Marcina

Already as a student of high school Peter Marcina worked in a restaurant under the lead of chef Jaroslav Žídek, later under lead of chef Marcel Ihnačák. After that he swapped restaurants for SkyBar and suddenly everything was clear to him. He fell in love with bartending. He wanted to discover what top bartending really means, so he went to Singapore. Soon his name resonated not only in Slovakia, but worldwide. Today he is the world champion of prestigious competition Legends of London, bar manager in experiential cocktail bar Mirror in the hotel Radisson Blu Carlton, and at the same time director and establisher of organization WHY (We Host You); whose mission is to connect and raise the level of Slovak gastronomy. His aim is to get Slovak bars on the world map.

Richard Červenka

Richard Červeka never planned to work in the kitchen. He wanted to be timeless rebel, skateboard every day and use every bench as an obstacle. He was a truant; but besides that, he managed to get a chance to practice cooking in Cyprus for two years in a row. In one of Tsokkos hotels chain hotel, he found the magic of Sushi. He is fascinated to give shape and form to the food . He is looking on a plate more like a canvas where he is creating food and textures. He likes to surprise and entertain his visitors. Richard is a sushi master from Fou Zoo restaurant.

Stanislav Ondruš

Stanislav Ondruš, known by his pseudonym ŠťukArt, is an active artist and textile designer who loves minimalism. In life and work, his main role is the essence and living in the moment through art and dailiness. His work was noticed by galleries in the UK, Poland and Czech Republic, where he has successfully presented his artwork. Self-realization underlines his immediate joy in life and the power to share honesty through art.

Viktória Nguyenová

Viktória is a sixteen year old student of school for gifted children in Bratislava. Her life passion used to be a sport dance. Today, she exchanged it for a work on many interesting non-profit projects like TEDxYouth@Bratislava or as a volunteer for nongovernmental organizations. Her journey to studies of humanitarian sciences was the breaking point in her future career and brought her on the stage of TEDx. She likes to spend her “free time” with activities such as model meetings of the UN, Student committee, Asian vegan fusion, and her dog.

Zuzana Kovačič Hanzelová

She was working for RTVS for 7 years. Last year she and a few other colleagues decided to leave because of political pressure that appeared with the new CEO. Now she works for SME magazine since October 2018 and makes video interviews and podcasts. On long terms she mainly discusses two topics - domestic policy and poverty and social exclusion. She is 31 years old and lives in Bratislava with her husband, journalist Michal Kovačič.