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).

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Culture Center
Leof. Andrea Siggrou 364
Kallithea, Athens, Attiki, 176 74
Greece

Artemis Alexiadou

Artemis Alexiadou was born in Volos. She studied Linguistics and Philology at the University of Athens. She received an MA in Linguistics from the University of Reading, UK and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Potsdam, Germany. She received various scholarships and carried out research in Βerlin, Princeton, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and Potsdam. From 2002 to 2015 she was Professor of Theoretical and English Linguistics at the University of Stuttgart, where she was also the director of a collaborative research center, where theoretical and computational linguists joined forces to investigate ambiguity in linguistic expressions. Since 2015, she has been Professor of English Linguistics at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Vice-Director of the Leibniz-Center General Linguistics in Berlin. She is a member of editorial teams of several journals. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2014 she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, as in her research she has discovered patterns and networks of phenomena that were previously unknown and that contributed to new key ideas about how language works; in 2016 she received an honorary doctorate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has dual citizenship (Greece-Germany) and is currently interested in the multilingual individual and society.

Arun Gandhi

Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, was born in Durban, South Africa during the apartheid years. At age 12, Arun was taken to India to live with his famous grandfather and learn ways to cope with his anger and violent reactions, having been a victim of color prejudice while growing up. During his time in India, he learned valuable lessons on life next to his grandfather. Arun is now the President of the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute to take the message of nonviolence all over the world and to rescue and train children living in poverty so that they can break the oppressive cycle crushing them. He has also started the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in 1991, based since 2008 at the University of Rochester, NY, which runs programs for inner-city children, inmates of correctional facilities and poor families while teaching nonviolence to students. During his years in India Arun and his late wife, Sunanda, started self-help economic programs for the impoverished and oppressed sections of society, designed to rebuild the crushed self-respect of poverty victims. They also found loving homes for new born babies abandoned by unwed mothers. Arun also leads two Legacy Tours to India and South Africa, both annual and open to all interested in field studies of nonviolence and peace.

Avner Halperin

Avner Halperin is Co-Founder and Board Member at EarlySense. Avner was CEO of EarlySense for 15 years, bringing the company from the idea stage to developing breakthrough analytics and sensing technology, with over one million patients served and tens of thousands of lives saved or significantly affected. Previously, Avner was CEO of Emmunet, VP Marketing at Radcom (NASDAQ: RDCM) and R&D team leader at Eldat Communications (acquired by Pricer(PRIC.ST)). Prior to that, he was Department Head of an R&D Unit in the Israeli Defence Forces Intelligence Corps, where he won the Intelligence Innovation Award. Avner earned an M.Sc. in Applied Physics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan Fellows Executive MBA Program. He has been teaching courses on economy and entrepreneurship in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with his research papers and 30 US Patents having been cited close to 3,000 times.

Chris Skinner

Chris Skinner is known as the most influential person in technology in the UK. He is an independent commentator on the financial markets and fintech, through his blog theFinanser.com, as well as author of the bestselling books Digital Bank, ValueWeb and Digital Human. Chris is described by Seth Wheeler (Former Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House) as “one of the most authoritative voices on Fintech anywhere”. In his day job, he is Chair of the European networking forum The Financial Services Club and Nordic Finance Innovation, as well as a Non-Executive Director of the Fintech consultancy firm 11:FS and on the advisory boards of various firms. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand, as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal’s Financial News and Thomson Reuters. He is also a regular commentator on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC and Bloomberg about banking issues, a judge on many awards programs as well as having worked closely with leading banks such as HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Christopher C. King

Christopher C. King is a Grammy-winning producer, musicologist as well as a prominent 78 rpm collector. He has been profiled in the New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post, and has written for the Paris Review and the Oxford American. Christopher was born and raised in southwest Virginia and studied philosophy at Radford University. Over the course of the last ten years, he has researched the tradition of Greek demotika songs, especially in Epirus. In 2018, W.W. Norton published his book, Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe’s Old Surviving Folk Music, to wide critical acclaim. His book was named one of the top ten books of 2018 by the Wall Street Journal and Christopher has presented his work at the New York Public Library, the Gennadius Library of Athens as well as the Odeon Conservatoire in Athens, among other venues. He currently splits his time between the United States and Greece.

Christos Lagnis Panoilias

Christos Panoilias is a hip hop artist with the alias “Lagnis” and an events artist manager. Recently he celebrated 20 years as an active hip hop artist with his band NTΠ (or Nea Taksi Pragmaton), having performed over 400 shows. Throughout his career, he has been awarded with gold and platinum record, released 15 videoclips and has featured in 17 albums and compilations. He studied Business Administration at the University of Piraeus, earned an MBA from Nottingham Trent University, has two diplomas in Public Relations and has been trained in Life Coaching. He has worked in Marketing and Public Relation departments and in 2012, he started his own business called “Action Εστί | Events Artist Management”. Through this venture, he has organized more than 200 concerts, theatre plays, festivals and cultural events all over Greece. He has also organized “Festival Amarousiou 2014” and “Events Expo 2018” in Peace and Friendship stadium. Christos enjoys spreading his experience through seminars in “Artist Marketing” and “Theatrical Plays Promotion”.His new venture “Spoudaia Events” will be launched in fall 2019, and will support NGOs through music concerts. He is currently studying Client-Centered Psychotherapy in Athens.

Costas Bekas

Dr. Costas Bekas (Distinguished Research Staff Member & Manager, IBM Research - Zurich), is responsible for foundational research in AI, spanning areas that include ML/DL, knowledge extraction and representation, new computing paradigms for AI (with applications in Healthcare & Life Sciences), Materials Discovery and acceleration of R&D. Costas studied at the pioneering Computer Engineering & Informatics Department of the University of Patras, Greece. He received B. Eng., MSc and Ph.D. diplomas in 1998, 2001 and 2003 respectively, along Prof. E. Gallopoulos. From 2003 to 2005, he worked as a postdoctoral associate with Professor Yousef Saad at the Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Minnesota, USA. Dr. Bekas’ main focus is in Cognitive Systems and their impact in industry, science and business. His research agenda includes Machine & Deep Learning, large scale analytics, HPC and very large scale distributed systems. He is a recipient of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize (2013, 2015), as well as the PRACE Award (2012).

George Barkouris

Giorgos Barkouris completed his studies in Computing and IT in 1985 and during the 80s, he worked in a record company, was a radio producer in the national broadcasting as well as had his own band. He went on to work as a technician in computer labs in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens as well as IT Manager in the Greek Center of European Studies, leaving his band days behind. Up until the early years of the economic crisis, he continued to work as a freelancer. However, in late 2011 he ended up as homeless and sought refuge in a homeless guest house, from which he left in 2013 firstly to move in with friends and later on in a commune up until 2017. It was in that year that he started to teach computer science in refugee communities at Tech Talent School. In 2018, he was assigned the coordination of Start Project, an educational program on computers and technology for economically challenged social groups, supported by the Municipality of Athens and Microsoft. During all these years, he has traveled extensively in many destinations including Europe, the Middle East and South America, in his quest to learn more about new cultures.

Lisa Lang

Lisa Lang is a German entrepreneur, technologist, and international speaker. Her brands ElektroCouture and ThePowerHouse are leading agencies for FashionTech, wearable technologies and smart textiles manufacturing. From her experience as an entrepreneur, she has gained recognition as one of Forbes Europe’s Top 50 Women in Tech, top 100 most influential people in wearable tech worldwide, one of 25 leaders in fashion and technology worldwide and has been listed as one of the 50 most important women for innovation & startups in the EU. Lisa founded ElektroCouture in 2013, believing in the opportunity to fuse technology with fashion even though she did not come from a background in fashion. With the success of ElektroCouture, Lisa then started ThePowerHouse in response to the growing demand from companies searching for educational workshops, prototypes, and needs for consultation on FashionTech. Beyond her work on her companies, she has been a mentor for fashion and tech-focused programs, as well as has also advised the Ministerium für Wirtschaft Arbeit Energie und Verkehr and the European Union on the future of fashion technology within Germany and Europe. In 2018, she was included as an expert in the prestigious ‘The State of Fashion 2019’, an annual report written and researched by the Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company.

Michael Tierney

Michael is an award-winning designer, a traveler and speaker. He’s spent the last decade in the industry as a motion designer and animator working with major brands like Nike and Sony as well as start-ups and social enterprises. Two years ago, in a quest to redesign his life he decided to ditch the hustle culture, embraced minimalism and has been traveling full time, living out of a 30L backpack ever since. His goal is to help people re-evaluate the way they spend their time and resources and to start living more intentionally. His next project is about creating sustainable and affordable housing and a co-living community from shipping containers, addressing to people who are finding the cost or availability of suitable housing preventative for the life they want to live.

Mina Dennert

Mina Dennert is a Swedish writer, journalist, and the founder of the #iamhere network, which has inspired over a hundred thousand people from all over the world to stand up and work for a democratic and inclusive society. Through the Facebook groups of the same name, members counteract disinformation, alternative facts and hate speech. The purpose of #iamhere is to encourage people to speak up and engage in online debate; To strengthen journalists and politicians and opinion formers by making people react and stand up when others are exposed to hatred and threats. To stop the polarization by taking the political discussion in a nuanced and factual manner. And to prevent the spread of disinformation by helping others with sources of factual information. Social media has a huge impact on our lives and on the political climate. It is changing our world and we need to become involved in that development. Members of the network notice that they have become much more politically aware and better at debate and discussion since getting involved. They have been able to practice their civil rights, and as a result have experienced increased feelings of courage in general. Mina has won several awards for her work, including the prestigious Anna Lindh prize in 2017, for supporting just and democratic causes.

Renée Watson

Born in rural Australia, science proved to be Renée Watson’s catalyst for exploration and discovery, sparking her imagination early and leading to a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. Her early experience working with the science community inspired a new goal; to shatter the preconceived ideas about the world of STEM and make it accessible to everyone, regardless of background, financial status or gender. Renée has been on the road to giving a jaw-dropping science experience to 1 million children ever since she landed in the UK in 2000 with a mere €16 to her name. On the way, she has raised more than €4.5 million for emerging scientific research charities, won awards for STEM leadership and role modeling and in 2016 launched The Curiosity Box, a STEM activity subscription box, that is now sold across the EU, Australia and South Korea. Currently, Renée is taking on the UK primary education system, championing a move away from test-led classrooms and back to celebrating a child’s innate inquisitive nature through curiosity-led learning. She also plans to set the rugby pitch alight in 2019 when she’ll co-captain the Europe over 35s team at the Touch Rugby World Cup.

Ted Papakostas

Dr. Ted Papakostas is an archaeologist who decided to introduce a different view of what antiquity is in modern Greek mentality and promote what is called “pop archaeology”, through his instagram project @archaeostoryteller. Starting out as a fun pastime activity, its reception by the general public led him to the realization that there is indeed room and necessity for a more approachable way of viewing archaeology in Greece. Through his work, he aims to introduce a fun way of perceiving the past and denounce the notion that antiquity is sacred and untouchable, by making archaeological information plain yet accurate and enjoyable to a wider audience.

Udayan Prasad

Udayan Prasad has been directing documentaries, television drama and feature films since graduating from the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield, UK. Among his numerous television credits are five single dramas all written for BBC Television – three of them by Simon Gray and two of them by Alan Bennett, ultimately granting him two Golden Gate Awards and two Bafta Nominations. His first theatrical feature was Brothers in Trouble in 1995 (winning the Golden Alexander Award for Best First Feature at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival), followed by the awarded My son the fanatic in 1997 (Directors Fortnight Cannes Film Festival, Best Feature at the Potsdam Film Festival), Gabriel & Me in 2000 (Edinburgh Film Festival) and OPA! in 2005 (Toronto International Film Festival). His latest feature The Yellow Handkerchief (Sundance Film Festival) was released in the United States in 2010. When not actively involved in a production, he is a frequent visiting lecturer on directing and screenwriting programmes at several film schools including The National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield, UK; London Film School; The Wajda School in Warsaw and the National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź́́, Poland. He is also an advisor and mentor on various international directing and screenwriting workshops.

Victoria Turk

Victoria Turk is a senior editor at WIRED UK, where she edits the magazine's culture section, leads video strategy, and writes regularly for print and web. She specialises in stories at the intersection of technology and culture, which explore the impact of technology on our everyday lives. Before working at WIRED, she was technology editor at New Scientist and UK editor at Motherboard, VICE’s tech and science channel. Victoria’s first book, Digital Etiquette, was published by Ebury Press in March 2019 and explores the way we use digital communication tools across different spheres of our lives – from work to romance, friendship to social media – to set out the new rules of online etiquette.