Theme: Viral Learnings

After a pandemic break, TEDxAntwerp is back in 2021 to bring you Viral Learnings: what has the COVID virus taught us as humanity which we should embrace and take with us into a better world.

Arenberg Schouwburg
Arenbergstraat 28
Antwerpen, Antwerpen (nl), 2000
Belgium

Baudouin Mena Sebu

PhD Fellow in Development Studies

Baudouin Mena Sebu was born in Bukavu, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but grew up in Antwerp. He is a PhD student at the University of Antwerp and holds a master degree in African Languages and Cultures from Ghent University. His PhD project focuses on the resurgence of customary authority in Haut-Uélé, North-East of the DRC, in both their political and spiritual dimensions. Baudouin is also a guide at the Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS), based in Antwerp, and contributed actively to the exhibition 100 x Congo. He co-hosted a podcast, 100 x Congo, together with Alexi De Greef: different experts were invited to further elaborate themes that were discussed throughout the exhibition. Furthermore, Baudouin writes opinion articles, has contributed to a book chapter in “Zwarte bladzijden: Afro-Belgische reflecties op Vlaamse (post)koloniale literatuur”, and has given seminars on Antwerp and its colonial past.

Catrien Scheers

Passionate Chair of Fast Group

Catrien Scheers is the passionate chair of Fast Group (www.fast-lines.com) and has over 30 years of experience in the break bulk sector. After getting her master’s degree, Communication and Media Studies at KU Leuven, she began working at the family transport business Fast Lines Belgium. Since she is chair, Fast invested in coaster vessels and in terminal activities in the ports of Drogheda and Szczecin. Her motto: Assets are important but people make the difference! Her dream: making every transport sustainable

Dewi Van De Vyver

CEO and Co-Founder Flow Pilots

Dewi is CEO and co-founder of the scale-up Flow Pilots. Flow Pilots supervises digital innovation projects and carries them out from A to Z. Dewi always handles from a people-first mentality as opposed to a technology-first approach. She complemented her Master’s in Communication Science with courses in economics, business, graphic design, and IT management. The intersection of these areas of expertise inspires her as CEO. Dewi is part of the panel of the technology podcast Tech45 and mother of two sons. Dewi is ICT Woman Of The Year 2020 and aims to create a more diverse and inclusive IT sector and working world. As one of the co-founders of the networking event ‘The Ada Talks’ Dewi offers support to women in tech. She is on a variety of boards of directors to bring change in the field of STEM.

Felicia Mukendi

Creative and Entrepreneur

Felicia Mukendi-Kalonji is a Congolese creative and entrepreneur from Belgium. The 23-year-old is currently studying Law and Politics at the Catholic University of Leuven. In 2016 she wrote an opinion piece for MO* magazine called “Mijn afkomst staat niet symbool voor mijn IQ”. In 2018 she was a Youth Advisor in the Flemish Youth Counsel for two years and was simultaneously part of the workgroup for education and mental health. After studying at university for a couple of years, Felicia launched the idea of having an African student association in Leuven in April 2019. Seeing the positive response, she sat down with three friends, Bérénice Sunzu, Anatalia Kibonge, and Nozizwe Dube, and together they founded Karibu – a student association for students of African descent in and around Leuven. She became the first president of Karibu up until October 2020. Besides being an engaged student, Felicia is also a singer-songwriter, and she released her first EP called “Reminiscence” in May 2020

Marthe Schneider

Actress and Theather Maker

Marthe Schneider is an actress, theatre maker, and one one of the members of playField who presents this TED Talk on behalf of the art collective. The other two members are Lana Schneider and Tim De Paepe. Together they create performances that encourage the audience to rethink their current social environment. PlayField explores the boundaries between actor and spectator. The collective has a predilection for technology, data science, sociology, and human behavior – topics that are explored by focussing on the spectator in a dramaturgy that combines reality and fiction. Projects of playField you may know are #2 BIAS and #3 RELAY (part of Big Data Trilogy) or I Remember. PlayField’s approach results in interactive and performative art where the border between the audience and the installation or play is removed. More often than not, this entails that the audience gets a hand in what’s happening on scene.

Matthias Dewilde

Co-founder GameChangers

Matthias Dewilde overcame a long-lasting game addiction and co-founded GameChangers, a Belgian organization providing lectures, workshops, and therapy to help gamers and their families battle problematic game and tech use. Besides having spoken for the European Council and having been nominated for the Flemish Ministry of Media’s ‘Mediawijs’ Awards, he has also shared his story to over 25.000 children in schools, inspiring them to maintain healthy tech habits. He is the author of ‘Game Over’, which helps parents understand and tackle game addiction. Most of his proudest work however is with teenagers and adults struggling with game or tech addiction, whom he helps overcome underlying issues such as social anxiety, procrastination and escapism to help them create new, fulfilling lives free from addiction.

Michelle Holliday

Writer, Presenter, Facilitator, and Consultant

Michelle Holliday is a writer, presenter, facilitator, and consultant whose work centers around ‘thrivability’- a set of perspectives and practices based on an understanding of organizations and communities as dynamic, self-organizing living systems. On this basis, she supports pioneering, purpose-driven clients across a range of sectors. She also teaches about thrivability and regeneration in multiple contexts. Her research and practical experience are brought together in the highly acclaimed book, ‘The Age of Thrivability: Vital Perspectives and Practices for a Better World’. With a Master’s Degree in International Marketing and a Bachelor’s Degree in Russian Studies, she spent the first part of her career in brand strategy, working internationally for Coca-Cola and H.J. Heinz. The second part of her career focused on leadership and culture, consulting for a range of organizations in Washington, DC. She now calls Montreal home.

Toon Verlinden

Science Writer

Toon Verlinden is a biochemistry engineer and a journalist. With The Floor is Yours he trained thousands of scientists to present their research clearly. He is also a freelance science journalist and organiser of the largest open-air science festival in Belgium: Sound of Science (soon to be known as Nerdland festival). With researcher Marjolein Vanoppen as his guide, he wrote the book “Weg van Water” – The story of Belgium with(out) water. In writing the book he fell from one surprise into the next and will never look at his glass of water the same way again.

Walter Daelemans

Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing

Walter Daelemans is professor of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP) at the University of Antwerp. He helped pioneer the statistical and machine learning revolution in NLP in the nineties with the development of Memory-Based Language Processing and with work on the methodology of machine learning for language processing. He was awarded EurAI and ACL fellowships for this work, and has published influential work on text mining and knowledge extraction from biomedical, clinical, and social media text, and on stylometry and author profiling. With currently 32 supervised PhDs graduated and more than 400 co-authored publications he is one of the most prolific NLP researchers in the Low Countries. In addition, he has been involved in the creation of high profile valorization results with popular open-source software such as TiMBL and Pattern, and has been instrumental in the creation of several spin-offs (textkernel, textgain, fluent.ai).