Theme: What is Normal?

Through asking this question, we aim to challenge our own thoughts and the thoughts of our audience while listening to inspiring talks that give us a different perspective on "normal."

Amsterdam International Community School Atrium
A.J. Ernststraat 1179
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, 1081 HL
Netherlands

Advay Subhedar

AICS Student

Advay is an MYP 1 student who performed at the school's Winter Words Eve event earlier. His speech explored and challenged the notions of what was "normal," and he was invited to speak at our TEDx event.

Daniel Mugge

UvA Professor of Political Arithmetic

Daniel Mügge is Professor of Political Arithmetic at the political science department of the UvA. Daniel's current research investigates the European governance of artificial intelligence (AI). Funded by a 2022 NWO Vici grant and with a five-person team, his RegulAite project concentrates on "AI diplomacy", the EU's external relations in the AI field - both with other countries such as China and the USA, as well as its role in multilateral efforts to regulate AI. His previous work had focused on the political economy of macroeconomic indicators. Daniel's inaugural lecture summarizes the essence of this research agenda, arguing for a Numeracy 2.0. That line of work has been supported by an NWO Vidi grant and an ERC Starting grant.

Jennifer Lyon Bell

Film director and consultant, specializing in erotic film and sexuality

Jennifer Lyon Bell (USA) is the Founder and Creative Director of Blue Artichoke Films in Amsterdam. She's an award-winning filmmaker making artistic, creative erotic films that portray sexuality in an emotionally realistic way. She also creates custom lectures, workshops, keynotes, and intimacy consulting sessions that are not only truly entertaining, but thought-provoking, affirming, and surprisingly educational.

Myron Gebbink

Figurehead of OnlyFriends

Myron is living proof that double-sided brain damage does not have to be a limitation to practice top sport. At the age of 23, he had been a regular player of the Dutch CP (Cerebral Palsy) for several years. football team. He is grateful for the opportunity only friends has offered him and highly motivated to get more disabled and non-disabled young people moving. He was the first disabled boy to successfully complete the CIOS in Haarlem. This achievement has opened doors for other young people with disabilities. Myron is disabled but certainly not limited. Sport is his lust and his life. His ambition is to eventually succeed his father Dennis and take Only Friends with him into the future. (One Idea at a Time: https://www.oneidea.nl/myron-gebbink/)

Sefton Clarke

Personal Trainer

Having been a Soloist with The Dutch National Ballet among other top ranked companies worldwide for almost 20 years, I retired, as I felt in part, that the time was right, and my body was giving me signs and signals, telling me that it was time to find a new direction. I had been studying nutrition, health, fitness, strength and conditioning, whilst dancing and was gaining the most up to date knowledge that I could. Upon retirement I immediately started working as the strength and conditioning trainer for the Dutch National Ballet to help the company improve their strength and fitness levels, and to reduce the risk of injury, through writing and giving exercise programs plus nutritional advice. I also worked with The National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam helping the young male dancers improve their strength levels as well as giving lectures on nutrition to the whole school.

Srinivas Kumar

Head of Global Marketing at TomTom

I'm a Digital Marketing leader with 15 years+ relevant experience in performance marketing, media and digital strategy with a well-rounded experience of both B2C and B2B. I am a digital-o-phile (noun: enthusiastic about digital, technology, tools and enjoys using it) which makes me a naturally dedicated Digital Performance Marketing Manager. I consider myself to be an “early adopter” with a keen interest in setting & scaling up digital media department, helped formulating media strategy and was passionate about direct contribution towards business impact & revenue generation. I enjoyed taking up end- to end responsibility from strategy to execution to reporting with the buck stopping at me. I had the luck to have couple of digitalpreneurial roles setting up the Digital Marketing department at TomTom India and BISSELL Europe which allowed me the freedom to create a vision and strategy, to build teams and processes from scratch to and to show the entire organization the way to success.