Theme: Evolving our understanding of the world around us

Tampa is one of Florida’s original metropolitan cities, serving as a significant commerce, culture, and trade source. The legacy pillars of this community are evolving from cigars and exports to incubating a world-class living environment. As the city experiences a rebirth, an opportunity exists to craft a community founded on the inclusive success of its citizens.

TEDxSouth Howard Avenue is a forum for locally relevant and globally significant dialogue throughout the Tampa community. The goal is to create a venue that incubates new ideas and accelerates the continued progress of the city we call home.

Hyde House Public Studio
1646 W Snow Ave
Tampa, Florida, 33606
United States

Amy Gyang

Amy-Ruth Gyang is currently a senior. Throughout highschool, she found that her passion lies in using her voice to advocate for the voiceless across the United States. She has learned to choose and inspire, in her circles of influence. Her achievements within the school and community attest to her potential to exert change. She emphasizes bringing awareness to the stories of people of color. As a descendant of Ghanaian immigrants, her West African heritage manifests itself throughout her advocacy, stressing her belief in the importance of global equity and inclusion.

Christy Vogel

Christy Vogel is passionate about her mission to ignite joy in everyone she meets. She's been leaving her mark in the industry by providing her clients with expert marketing talent and results-oriented programs to help them reach their goals. With over 25 years of marketing experience, Christy understands how vital marketing leadership can be to the success of any corporation.

Dr. Gail Miller

Gail Miller is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) physician and life coach whose career has been about helping women. As an MFM she has been committed to caring for women and their families through complicated pregnancies. She is also the founder of Path Onward Life Coaching, dedicated to empowering women who are childless not by choice to feel worthy, live fulfilling lives, and manage triggers. After she realized biological children would not be part of her story, she went on a personal journey to grieve the loss, manage triggers and rediscover who she was before she realized that being a mother wasn’t going to be part of her life and then reimagine her future. She is passionate about helping other women find the same healing and wholeness she discovered along the way. She is also deeply committed to showing others that loss and grief don’t have to end your enjoyment of life. Joy can coexist alongside the ache of loss in your life. You can both thrive and acknowledge the pain of sorrow.

Dr. Hemant Rustogi

Professor Hemant Rustogi is Chairman of the Marketing Department and the Dana Professor of Marketing at The University of Tampa (UT) in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Rustogi spearheaded UT’s international business program initiative, which was awarded over $2.2 million in grants by the US Department of Education. Professor Rustogi’s professional experience includes a thirty-five-year stint as a teacher, entrepreneur, and international business consultant. A native of India, he has traveled extensively around the world. An avid golfer, Prof. Rustogi lives in the Tampa Bay area with his wife, their two adult children, and their three dogs.

Dr. Rod Berger

Berger explores the one universal truth that binds our civilization together through life's celebrations and compromises to war and acts of kindness - Story. Berger takes the audience to the far corners of the globe to unearth the stories that illustrate our need to preserve the past and take hold of our own future story. Dr. Rod Berger is a communication strategist, on-air personality, and media producer engaging with global and iconic companies, individual brands, celebrities, professional athletes, and award-winning entertainers. Over the last decade, Berger has regularly contributed to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine and hosted three podcast shows profiling the likes of Charles Barkley, Sammy Hagar, Deepak Chopra, Guy Fieri, and NFL Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw. In 2022 he traveled to sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East (Jordan), Sweden, Norway, Toronto, and from Miami to Los Angeles, covering stories - most notably, he visited with the Pope in Rome and UN officials to discuss the global refugee crisis and in early 2023 Berger documented the refugee experience at the Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Look for Berger’s work to hit the networks with upcoming television shows supporting the power of story and culture through the eyes of kids and adults worldwide.

Jason Sowell

Jason Sowell is the Founder, President, and CEO of Current Initiatives - a non-profit organization focused on educating and mobilizing communities to be Hope Dealers through local initiatives such as the Laundry Project, Hope For Homes Project, and Affordable Christmas. He is a native Floridian who has worked in the non-profit sector for 20 years and is a public speaker, writer, non-profit entrepreneur, missionary, wedding officiant & podcast host. His work with Current Initiatives has been featured nationally on NBC Nightly News, Newsmax, and People Magazine. He has been recognized as a Fox 13 ‘Hometown Hero’ and on Bay News 9’s weekly segment as an ‘Everyday Hero’. He is a guest lecturer for the University of South Florida’s College of Social Work as well Eckerd College’s Behavioral Sciences Department. He served as a guest co-host during the Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) IdeaLab & IdeasChat, and in 2015 was honored by the Southern Early Childhood Association (SECA) with the ‘Friend of Children Award’, and by the Tampa Bay Lightning as part of their Community Heroes Program. In his dream world, he lives on the beach in Southern California and is a pro surfer. In real life, he lives in the city of Tampa, where he never actually surfs.

Lauren Nanson

Lauren Nanson is a resilience coach and speaker who specializes in helping adolescents recover from mental obstacles and setbacks. Lauren had to overcome cancer early on in life, and the mental difficulty of the situation challenged her to develop resilience techniques which she continues to use to this day. After seeing how the pandemic wreaked havoc on the mental health of young people, she set out to use the lessons of her own endurance to help those who were affected.

Monica Fay

Monica Fay is a Professional Organizer and a leading expert on the mental processes behind decluttering space and mind. She is an author, former magazine editor, and artist. Her work has been featured on CBS, NBC, ABC, Apartment Therapy, Better Homes & Gardens, Mantra Wellness Magazine, and iHeartRadio. She is the Founder of Organizer Accelerator- a community and curriculum for thousands of professional organizers from over 70 countries. Monica travels the world, meeting professional organizers in different countries to observe and learn how people from all walks of life deal with their belongings. Her mission is to teach people to think differently about the connection between mental wellness and physical mess.

Rod Berger

Berger explores the one universal truth that binds our civilization together through life's celebrations and compromises to war and acts of kindness - Story. Berger takes the audience to the far corners of the globe to unearth the stories that illustrate our need to preserve the past and take hold of our own future story. Dr. Rod Berger is a communication strategist, on-air personality, and media producer engaging with global and iconic companies, individual brands, celebrities, professional athletes, and award-winning entertainers. Over the last decade, Berger has regularly contributed to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine and hosted three podcast shows profiling the likes of Charles Barkley, Sammy Hagar, Deepak Chopra, Guy Fieri, and NFL Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw. In 2022 he traveled to sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East (Jordan), Sweden, Norway, Toronto, and from Miami to Los Angeles, covering stories - most notably, he visited with the Pope in Rome and UN officials to discuss the global refugee crisis and in early 2023 Berger documented the refugee experience at the Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Look for Berger’s work to hit the networks with upcoming television shows supporting the power of story and culture through the eyes of kids and adults worldwide.

Thomas Mantz

As a leader of one of the largest non-profit organizations in the US, Thomas and his team have led significant organization growth over the last 10 years. During his tenure, meals provided have grown from 15 million to over 90 million annually. Funding has increased from less than $3 million per year to over $25 million, expanding the mission to end hunger and introduce additional services to lift those struggling to a life of health and capability. The organization is now constructing the area’s largest social service project in history, a 215 square foot Community Center that will create an economic return of $470 million per year, ending hunger in West Central Florida. Doors open in spring of 2023. Over the course of his non-profit career in the Tampa Bay area, Thomas has been recognized as a Lightning Community Hero, received the Community Impact Award from the YMCA, and was listed as a four-time Tampa Bay Business Journal Power 100. He is considered a global thought leader in the hunger-relief space and has attended leadership programs at both Harvard and Georgetown Universities. He guest lectures at the University of South Florida, University of Tampa and St. Leo University.

Veronica Blakely

Veronica Blakely is a native of Tampa, Florida where she is an educator, community volunteer, and former corporate manager. While opportunities gained in the business sector enriched her life, she considers being a teacher the most important, challenging, and rewarding experience of her career. The idea of transforming a person’s mind from, “I can’t to I can,” is a very humbling and rewarding experience. She uses this experience as a Coach and Facilitator in her Speech Communications business. In addition to Veronica’s many talents, she was a movie extra in Ocean’s Eleven which was filmed in St. Petersburg, FL. She is also a former NFL cheerleader for the Tampa Bay Bucs and for the WFL (World Football League) Tampa Bay Bandits. Veronica has performed in several local plays and she has produced and directed numerous Gospel Productions in Tampa. Veronica is a former President and Area Governor of a Toastmaster’s International Public Speaking club. As a community volunteer, Veronica has been the workshop facilitator and Board Member for the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs Youth Oratorical Scholarship Contest, Loaned Executive for the United Way, Co-Chair/Program Manager for the MLK, Jr. Breakfast and NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, and Co-Host with local TV News Anchors for community events. Veronica was also the Host for The Soledad O’Brien Starfish Foundation PowHERful Summit in Tampa, FL.

Vince Hafeli, MBA

Vince has over 38 years of experience in the highway construction industry. As the President of Ajax Paving Industries of Florida, LLC, he leads a team of 475. He has a diverse background holding positions including Vice President of Plants and Materials, Field Quality Control and Inspection, and Project Manager. Vince is completing his Doctorate of Business Administration degree at the University of South Florida to further his research and training skills related to suicide in the construction industry. As an international consultant and speaker advocate, Vince works with individuals and organizations to create open discussions around suicide prevention and mental health.

Wes Faler

A pragmatic, and occasionally charming, inventor with several patents, Wes brings a talent for cutting technical clutter and a passion for implementing an audacious vision. Mr. Faler has a B.S. in manufacturing systems engineering from Kettering University, with an emphasis on automation and simulation. His experiences include plasma thruster invention with AI, space radar, large-scale air pollution simulation, snowboarding a black diamond trail in whiteout conditions, and doing 30,000-volt ion demonstrations at a 10-year-old’s birthday party.

William McPherson

Mr. William McPherson has a Master’s of Planning in Civic Urbanism degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, emphasizing New Urbanism. Mr. McPherson is an Urban Planner focusing on the nexus between the movement of infrastructure, land planning, design, and real estate to create lasting value.