Theme: Innovations for Social Change

Join us for an evening full of inspiring presentations and conversations about how business, innovation, invention, and entreprenuership can be a force for positive social change. We will hear from Laura Pena, creator of the She is the Universe project that captures the stories of girls from around the world and their dreams for the future. And Craig Hill, who has dedicated his career to advancing the mission of the B Corporation model and inspiring youth who desire to have a career in business to use those careers to create positive societal change. Finally, several groups of young entrepreneurs who have invented solutions to local or global problems will share their stories with us and have their inventions on display for us to interact with.

About TEDx Salons:
Salons are small, in-person gatherings hosted 2-3 times per year, centered around local speakers who give live presentations, and a selected video from the TED.com collection. Salons highlight a locally relevant and engaging topic and facilitate community engagement between regular TEDx events.

Event Details:
This TEDxMtHood Salon will feature live speakers, a discussion, opportunities to interact with the speakers, invention demonstrations by teams from TiE Young Entrepreneurs, and more. The event schedule is as follows:
* 6:30 - 7:00pm - Doors open for registration and mingling with snacks and drinks
* 7:00 - 9:00pm - TEDxMtHood Salon featuring 2 speakers and some interactive team presentations
* 9:00-9:30pm - Post-event mingling and networking

Wayfinding Academy
8010 N. Charleston Ave.
Portland, Oregon, 97203
United States

Craig Hill

Champion for Business for Social Good

Craig Hill enjoys good conversations. In many ways, he is fortunate his life is basically a series of interesting discussions. By day, he works at Beneficial State Bank, a B Corp triple-bottom-line bank, where he talks with people and businesses about their values and how to best align their dollars with those values. He is passionate about ethical and sustainable business practices; in his role as Certifications Chair for nonprofit B Local PDX, he speaks with business owners and employees about ways they can make their values central to their business practices via the B Impact Assessment and B Corp certification. He enjoys learning, puzzles, speculative fiction, trying to speak foreign languages, great food, Oxford commas, and spending time outside—and if he can enjoy these while also having conversations with friends, family, and strangers? All the better.

Laura Pena

Amplifier of Voices

Laura is the founder of She is the Universe, a platform designed to amplify the voices of teenage girls from around the world. She seeks to empower and offer them support they need to stand in their own stories and pursue their dreams. Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Laura discovered a love of design, filmmaking, and storytelling that led her to New York City to study. Her fierce commitment to her craft led her to work with many of the top brands in the world and eventually found her own creative design lab, JelloMonsters. For now, Laura has put nearly every part of her life on hiatus to travel the globe and create a video docuseries for She is the Universe. She is on a quest to capture and share the dreams and struggles of 111 teenage girls of all shapes, sizes, colors, languages, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Her goal is to both offer their unfiltered stories, and create a place for them to see themselves in others and find a sense of community and possibility.