TEDxMileHigh showcases innovative Coloradoans who each give the ‘talk of their life’ around the power of ideas. Presenters include maverick thinkers and doers, big-time athletes, entrepreneurs and innovators, humanitarians, creative performers and many more extraordinary people. This diverse group of thought leaders and innovators educate, inspire and stimulate change with the ultimate goal being inspired action across our communities. To us, action includes the promotion and creation of ventures that will help shape the future. Our inaugural event, TEDxMileHigh: Inspired Citizenship, took place on April 7, 2011 at the historic Ellie Caulkins Opera House in downtown Denver.

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2350 Arapahoe Street
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Libby Birky

ibby Birky is cofounder of So All May Eat, Inc. (SAME Café), a non-profit organization that provides good food for the greater good. This sustainable, organic lunch spot offers locally grown organic food to all who walk through the door regardless of their ability to pay. Patrons are encouraged to leave a donation that is fair to them or work in exchange for their food. For her work in food justice, Mrs. Birky and her husband have been highlighted on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams in his Making a Difference segment. Even Readers Digest and Cooking Light have acknowledged the work that is happening at Denver’s first pay-what-you-can restaurant. Ron Shaich the Co-Founder of Panera Bread Company was so inspired by SAME Café he convinced his corporate chain restaurants to give the pay-what-you-can mission a try. Since opening SAME Café in October of 2006, over 50,000 meals have been served at this location and there are now 13 cafes nationwide following in the footsteps of serving good food with a side of dignity.

Allen Lim

After teaching himself to ride a bicycle at the age of 4, Dr. Lim found himself spending his time searching for ways to turn his love of cycling into a legitimate career. That search, led him to earn his doctorate in 2004 in the Department of Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder. Having worked almost exclusively with professional cycling teams since, Dr. Lim is currently the Director of Sport Science for the Radio Shack professional cycling team. He has the unique distinction of being the only American scientist to have worked at the Tour de France, guiding countless riders, including Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong – two controversial and inspiring winners of this prestigious race. Through these experiences, Dr. Lim has lived first hand the complexity of sport – an arena where ambition, emotion, and culture can both fuel and oppose the practice of science, innovation, and fair play. These dichotomies have led Dr. Lim to now spend his time searching for ways to turn his love for the bicycle into a legitimate tool for social change.

Theo Wilson

A relative unknown, Lucifury shook up the Slam Poetry world by taking 5th in the International World Poetry Slam, 2009. He is a founding member of Denver Slam Nuba. Their first year out, they saw finals stage at the National Poetry Slam in 2007, and have been a fearsome force in Slam ever since. They have gone on to win countless regional titles since their inception in 2007. A native of Denver, Colorado, his introduction to spoken-word occurred at the N.A.A.C.P. ACT-SO Competitions. He spent his teenage years as a community activist with the Denver N.A.A.C.P. Youth Council, and got his introduction to public speaking in various rallies and protests. His knack for public speaking has grown into a full time passion. He can still be found in the community, teaching poetry workshops at elementary schools, high schools, universities and correctional facilities all across this nation. Lucifury is an accomplished stage and film actor, and received his BA in performing arts from Florida A&M University in 2003. He has been in several main-stage productions at Denver’s prestigious Shadow Theatre Company, Cleo Parker Robinson’s stage, and in the traveling company of the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre. This stage training and theatrical foundation is apparent in the power of his live performance. His passion for the art form makes his live performance uniquely impactful among spoken-word artists. He has shared the stage and opened for various groups, such as Dead Prez, The Flobots, Bahamadia, Saul Williams, Taylor Mali, and Universes to name a few.

Shannon Galpin

Shannon Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain in November 2006. A rape survivor and mother, she realized she couldn’t just stand on the sidelines, watching women and girls routinely raped, oppressed and denied basic human rights. Believing that connecting communities on both sides of the equation was key to finding sources of funding and long-term sustainability for M2M, and that changing perceptions was just as important as tangible projects, she developed events that involved communities and provoked discussion through sport and photography. At the same time, Shannon developed long-term strategies in conflict areas that focused on cyclical solutions that looked at education, job training and school building as the first steps toward the goal of sustainable community development and individual empowerment rather than the end goal. She started small projects that could serve as starting blocks as she developed the benchmark programs that Mountain2Mountain strives to implement today in girls education, the youth culture, deaf community, women’s prisons and rural healthcare. An avid mountain biker, and continually focused on breaking barriers, in 2009, she became the first woman to mountain bike in Afghanistan, a country where the culture does not allow women to ride bikes. In 2010 she became the first person to ride across Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley. She has been featured on Dateline NBC, Today Show, Huffington Post and in Outside Magazine.

Cesar Gonzalez

By the age of sixteen, Cesar had lived in 11 cities on 4 continents, experienced our world’s amazing cultural richness, and witnessed wealth, poverty, privilege and prejudice. He felt fundamentally uneasy about the world we live in but without a clue as to my role in creating change. So, he chose to focus on things he did know, and armed with a computer engineering degree from Caltech, he started his career writing code for tech startups, then mammoths like Nissan, Thermador, and the US Army. But in his free time he yearned for meaning, and spent hours reading the stories of Muhammad Yunus, Paul Polak, Ingrid Munro, and Jessica Jackley. With luck, he eventually met many of my heroes and felt inspired to start a social venture helping low-income Peruvians finance the construction of new, safe homes. Through this work, he landed a spot in the inaugural class of the Unreasonable Institute and within the first week there, he knew he had found my place in the Universe. For the first time he understood what problems he wanted to work on, and perhaps more importantly, who he wanted to be working with. Today, he gets to work with people he deeply admires on work that he finds truly meaningful.

Michael Huemer

Michael Huemer is professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he has worked since 1998. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, in 1998. He is the author of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), Ethical Intuitionism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and over forty academic articles in such areas as epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics.

Todd Siler

Todd Siler, visual artist, author, educator, and consultant, is the founder and creative director of Psi-Phi Communications, LLC, and The ArtScience® Program (aka, Think Like a Genius® Program). He received a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Psychology and Art from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. Siler’s published works include Breaking the Mind Barrier (Simon & Schuster, 1990), Think Like A Genius (Bantam Books, 1996), and many articles in international art and science journals. He is a member of the board of directors for the Foundation for Human Potential in Chicago. He has presented and consulted extensively on cultivating creativity and accelerating innovation in Fortune 500 Companies and technology startups, using arts-based tools and methods he calls “Metaphorming.” Siler has been exhibiting his artworks internationally in major museums and galleries for the past three decades, and is represented by the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City. His artworks are in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Twentieth-century Collection), the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow, and the Belsar Verlag Print Archives in Stuttgart and Zurich. Siler was awarded the 2011 Leonardo DaVinci World Award of Arts by the World Cultural Council (www.ToddSilerArt.com).