Theme: The Pulse of Innovation

Are you checking the pulse of your innovation? Do you know how to keep your innovation alive and give it a boost? Do you have an innovative idea or even more do you know how to create one? Do you know what are today's innovations?

TEDxUniversityOfTrento, an event independently organized by a group of diverse students at University of Trento, brings the spirit of TEDx conferences to Trento and this time we are tackling the agenda of Innovation.

TEDxUniversityOfTrento will be held on Saturday, April 20th and will host unique speakers coming from different countries and from different backgrounds. Academics, professionals, students and artists will share their ideas, their experience and their knowledge with the audience and with the global TED community. Speakers will tackle the Innovation topic from a number of different and original perspectives: from the technological point of view to the social, from the entrepreneurial to the artistic. The aim is to provide insights of what is the “state of Innovation” today, what is an Innovative idea and finally how Innovative ideas can improve our lives.

Moreover, at TedxUniversityofTrento we will mix up both speakers as well as audience, in order to spark discussions, communication and ideas-sharing among the people. We seek to boost creativity, inspire minds, and get everyone hungry for Innovation.

Think out of the box and be prepared for people sharing their IDEAS worth spreading, LIVE.

University of Trento, Sociology Faculty
Trento
Italy

Delia Dumitrescu

Delia Dumitrescu draws from a communications and PR background. Allured by semiotics since her early days of university, she tailored her favorite study to trend research and analysis. In the spring of 2010, while building and sharing knowledge at TrendONE Germany, she set-off on a road trip to find out what innovation is truly made of, and hasn’t stopped since. She is the author of “Road Trip to Innovation - How I came to understand Future Thinking”. Delia Dumitrescu is currently working with PCH Innovations in Berlin and also is a co-founder of the Pow Wow Labs, a knowledge-mixer atelier that triggers innovation skills by interweaving futures attitudes with trend knowledge, offering a unique and holistic approach to innovation education & experimentation.

Andrea Gerosa

Andrea Gerosa is a founder of the Kefren Sarl firm based in Geneva as well as a co-founder of ThinkYoung, the non-profit organization based in Brussels. It is the first think-tank brought together by young people for young people. Together with Google Inc., Deloitte and the European Foundation for Management and Development he set up the Entrepreneurship Summer School. Andrea is a former president of JADE, the European Confederation of Junior Enterprises, the world second biggest student organization, and former consultant at Oracle Corporation. After graduating in business administration, now he is an alumnus of Bocconi University and the London Business School. Andrea speaks fluently four languages and is studying the fifth one, Arabic, with poor results so far but still full of determination. Passionate about football and sailing, he loves spending weekends at the Como lake, where he was born in 1982.

Jari Ognibeni

Jari Ognibeni is an investment manager for Spinnvest, an investment firm focused on early-stage tech startups. In this capacity he seeks for innovative entrepreneurs in Italy that can grow to large-scale global companies with high impact in health-tech and energy sector. He is co-founder of Proxy42 Inc., a San Francisco mobile game company, and also an advisor for several startups in Italy. Jari has graduated from Bocconi University and holds a Master Degree in Management from the Università Cattolica of Milan where he studied international economy in Portugal, Brazil and the USA. At the moment Jari lives in Trento, he speaks 3 languages and has been awarded "Fabbricatore di Idee e Sviluppo del Nordest" in 2012.

Leonardo Becchetti

Leonardo Becchetti is the president of the Ethical Committee of BancaPopolareEtica, director of BeneComune, director of European Economics and Business Law graduate course at University of Tor Vergata. He is also a member of the Board of Italian Economic Society. After his impressive educational background in MSc at London School of Economics and Phd at Oxford University Leonardo is teaching economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He is an author of around 350 works covering public economics, world development from economist perspective, international money, business ethics and much more. Leonardo believes in the world changing potential of the bottom up actions of citizens creating economic value in socially and environmentally responsible way.

Sheref S. Mansy

Sheref S. Mansy is an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Trento. Prior to moving to Trento, he grew up and studied in Ohio and worked at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Sheref's specialties are in synthetic biology and origins of life. He is a recipient of the Armenise-Harvard career development award and is a 2012 TEDGlobal fellow. The living machines are his current focus and research area.

Jason Fontana & Daniele Rossetto

Jason Fontana is a biotechnologist with the passion and “hungry“ mind–set for open projects in the field of biology. Daniele Rossetto is an undergraduate student and a critical thinker in biotechnology. Driven by enthusiasm and inquisitive mind they are involved in the different outreached activities to innovate and change the world. Jason and Danielle are also the former members of the first UniTn-International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation team to develop open community and collaboration in the field of synthetic biology. On the behalf of iGEM’s values, they will talk about how young people can actually do science. Open projects in biology allow innovators to circulate and build new ideas in and up the existing projects. They will show how the “pulse of innovation“ can come from young scientists, with cool and fresh ideas, enthusiasm and dedication!

Francesco Apuzzo

Meet our TEDxUniTn host - Francesco Apuzzo. He graduated in Economics at the University of Trento, with one year of Erasmus studies in the Netherlands. After the experience of two years as branch manager for a Spanish multinational, he specialized in-indoor and out-door training courses about team building, sales skills, communication, negotiation, problem solving, management and development of human capital, marketing and intercultural relations. He has been working for twelve years as trainer and consultant for manufacturing and service companies, schools, public (as external speaker) and private (as teacher of Sociology of Multiculturalism) Universities, apprenticeship courses, ESF courses, redevelopment of unemployed and as consultant and coach for young entrepreneurs.

Simonetta Vezzoso

Simonetta Vezzoso is a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network and a representative of the Italian Library Association in the World Intellectual Property Organization. After the Italian degree in law, a German Phd in economics and extensive interdisciplinary research work on innovation related areas, such as open source, competition policy in the Internet economy Simonetta teaches the course of Intellectual Property and Competition Law at the University of Trento, Italy. Simonetta Vezzoso will tackle the hidden side of innovation in the Internet economy from the legal perspective.

Stefano Baldi

Stefano Baldi is an Italian career diplomat with a lifelong commitment to innovation and creativity applied to diplomatic activities. Now that he is the head of the Training structure of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he is particularly engaged in emphasizing and experimenting with shaping the role of the XXI century diplomat. He explains how being a diplomat today is a mix of tradition and innovation. In the era of web 2.0, currently characterized by Social Media, diplomats are challenged by constantly evolving ways of communication. Stefano Baldi argues why an adequate and continuous training will empower the diplomat of the XXI century, the Diplomat 2.0, to be still an essential and irreplaceable resource for the country he/she represents.

Anselmo Luisi

Anselmo Luisi is a 23 years old drummer, classical and body percussionist. He started playing drums when he was 7 and has never stopped. He performed in classical operas with worldwide known conductors and in many jazz festivals throughout Italy followed by the recent performance at the Palalottomatica in Rome with a body percussion ensemble in front of 8.000 people. Anselmo Luisi will perform body percussion that is a fascinating technique where only instrument being played is one's own body. Claps, stomps, finger snaps and much more will involve the audience in this unforgettable performance to experience the amazing timbric variety a body may unveil.

Vittorino Filippas

Vittorino Filippas is a professional with 25 years of international experience as CTO, COO and CEO of firms involved in the field of precision mechanics, shipbuilding and automotive business. He has an extensive hands on experience in R&D and Innovation, licencing in&out of technology, IPR protection, strategic sourcing, business outsourcing, manufacturing delocalization, managing partnerships and strategic alliances and M&A throughout Europe, US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. He believes that the secret of being consistently successful in the future lies in deploying our own specific “customer centric approach“ into a systematic innovation process.

Sofia Quintero

Sofia Quintero is an entrepreneur and digital strategist obsessed with technology and social change. In 2012, Sofia crowdfunded a project called The Sugar Cube Factory, a global platform that connects unconnected people through words of kindness. Since its launch, the project has reached more than 700 cities around the world and is helping to do random acts of kindness a scalable initiative. Sofia will talk about how technology can dramatically change the way we see the world, build global connection and eliminate perceived cultural barriers. Sofia was born in Venezuela and moved to England in 2006 where she graduated with a Master Degree in Mass Communications from the London Metropolitan University. To know more about The Sugar Cube Factory click here.

Tin Hang Liu

Tin Hang Liu is the founder of SEOLAB (SocialMedia division) an Italian company with top clients like Benetton Group Worldwide (United Colors of Benetton, Sisley, Playlife), Fox (Fox, National Geographic, History Channel), Kimberly Clark (Scottex, Teresita, Kleenex), and CEO/founder of Cityfan, a startup company that focuses in reviews of local business in partnership with the biggest media group in Italy, Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso. Previously, he was the director of Italchina an international company about mergers & acquisitions, consultancy and corporate management, with top clients like Cagiva Group (Cagiva, Ducati, Moto Morini, Husqvarna, Mini Moke) and Giugiaro Design. He's also a teacher at IULM University where he teaches about Social Media Marketing and Online Strategies to students in the Masters Level.

Dey Dos

When you ask Dey Dos what he does, he simply says "I'm an awesome human popcorn machine." And if you are curios enough to keep on inquiring he may go on explaining what that means to him. At TEDxUniTN he will be sharing his perspectives in what he calls "popcorning." He is co-founder of Beautiful Individuals, a social construction that enables co-generated learning spaces to come to life in wonderful retreats, enabling participants to start operating from more powerful and beautiful sources of action. Dey is a former global president of AIESEC, the world largest student run organization dedicated to international exchanges and leadership development. So far he has visited 76 countries in his quest of serving others, himself and the world to design beautiful ways to live life.

Austin Keeble

Austin likes big numbers and small towns. He has a data dream: that everyone can easily build geometric images to visualize their metrics and, more importantly, their message. Currently, he’s collecting local data and turning it into local knowledge in towns throughout the United States and Europe. At the University of Colorado, Austin learned to think thoughts, studying both History and Economics. Currently, he’s working towards a diploma in Physical Geography at the London School of Economics. Since graduating from Colorado in 2008, he has been drinking coffee and getting stuff done at ResearchGate in Berlin and Gordon Research in Los Angeles and Italy. Recent side projects include translating start up platforms, such as Bring the Food and Open Hospital, into both English and Spanish.