Theme: Championing and Accelerating Solutions to the Climate Crisis

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience and share their ideas with the world through the TED platform. TEDx Countdown is a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action.

This in-person event will include various engaging speakers who will share ideas for accelerating climate action within local communities. Talks will be shared with the world via the TEDx platform and YouTube channel. Check out last year's talks as well as our other sustainability initiatives!

Join us for free, inspiring TED-style talks highlighting ideas for accelerating climate solutions within local communities.

Zoom
301 Frank Beinder Way
Castlegar, British Columbia, V1N 4L3
Canada

Ben Simoni

Executive Director

Ben is the executive director of Youth Climate Corps BC and has led the organization to complete over 10,000 days of youth-led community climate action. A former outdoor leadership instructor with over a decade of experience, he holds a Master’s in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University. When he is not working on community climate action, he enjoys exploring the mountains around Nelson, BC.

Diksha Salwan

Student, Accounting

Diksha Salwan is a Selkirk College student pursuing a postgraduate diploma in accounting. With experience at leading banks in India, she aims to apply her financial expertise in Canada, where she has been living for six months. Outside of academics, Diksha enjoys hiking and works as a food tester, blending her culinary passion with her professional goals.

Keith Wiley

Climate activist and radio host

Keith Wiley helped start West Kootenay Transit Action, a grassroots citizens group pushing governments at all levels to invest big in buses and transit in rural BC. He is active in a range of climate events and hosts the weekly environment radio news show, The EcoCentric, on Kootenay Coop Radio.

Lukas Armstrong

Architect

Lukas Armstrong, principal of Stand Architecture Inc. in Nelson, BC, is an architect, passive house designer and LEED accredited professional. Notable projects include his own home, Canada’s first passive house-certified multi-unit residential building; the world’s first certified passive house car dealership for Subaru in Red Deer, AB, and most recently, the Castlegar Chamber of Commerce, which combines passive house and mass-timber technologies. Lukas is most passionate about creating healthy, resilient, low energy and low-carbon projects that serve local communities. He enjoys growing food in his permaculture inspired garden and spending time on the lake and in the mountains.

Malin Christensson

Ecotherapist and educator

Malin Christensson is an educator and ecotherapist. Originally from Sweden, she lives in Nelson, BC, Canada, on unceded Sinixt land, where she runs a nature school for kids called The Forest Path. She has survived a deadly tropical cyclone, made a bet with the Swedish environmental minister, started a food bank garden and failed saving old-growth forests. Malin is passionate about the connections between mental health, anticolonialism and systems change.

Mel Reasoner

PhD Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Dr. Mel Reasoner, PhD Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta. Since moving to Nelson in 2004, Mel served on the steering committee for the City of Nelson’s Community Energy and Emissions Action Plan and contributed to the City’s ‘Path to 2040’ planning process. Beginning in 2007, Mel’s work with the All One Sky Foundation’s Climate Resilience Express program and the Columbia Basin Trust’s climate change programs involved the compilation of historical climate records and model projections for dozens of communities in Alberta and British Columbia and the delivery of many climate science presentations for these initiatives. In recent years, Mel has been working with Climatic Resources Consulting as a climate scientist.