Theme: Step Outside

The theme we’ve selected for this edition is “Step Outside”, a dare for our public and an invitation with many dimensions: surpassing our fears and self-set limitations, stepping outside the comfort zone, there where innovation can truly take place; directing our sights beyond the concrete walls that surround us, towards the harmony and simplicity of natural things; starting a voyage of self-discovery and exploring new ideas that come from our speakers and partners.

Cinema Marasti
Aurel Vlaicu street, no. 3
Cluj-Napoca, 400690
Romania

Ada Roseti

Ada joined Discovery Networks in the position of Channel Manager for Romania in January 2008. In 2009, she was appointed Program Director of Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in January 2011 she became Program Director of South-East Europe, being responsible for content and image of the Discovery channels in 9 countries, including Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. Before joining the team at Discovery Channel, she was Director of Procurement, Sales, Subtitle and Programs at the National Romanian Television. Throughout the years she has also worked at National TV and Prima TV. Ada’s career in the media industry began as a radio presenter for Pro FM. Ada is also a respected film critic, contributing over the years to the production of many radio and TV programs about the film industry. She is regularly invited as an expert at numerous major film events of Romania. In addition, she is a lecturer at the University of Bucharest. Ada graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry part of the University of Bucharest and holds an MChem in anorganic chemistry.

Andrei Aroneț

Andrei Aroneț loves communications in all its forms; that’s why he explored journalism, public relations & blogging, three areas in which he works to this day. However, there came a moment when he felt like stepping out and making change happen: “I was asked to help Habitat for Humanity by creating a leaflet. I said «it’s gonna take me two hours tops!». Twelve years later, I am still a Habitat volunteer, serving as president of the local board of directors. More importantly, I’ve worked with great people and learned a lot about changing lives and creating real-word impact by using PR & social media tools”, Andrei says. As a blogger, he initiated the campaign to raise awareness about the difficult situation faced by the Pharmacy Museum in Cluj, a campaign which involved other bloggers & journalists, tripled the number of real-life visitors and generated heavy media coverage for an issue that had been ignored until then. Andrei blogs on www.aronet.ro as often as possible and says that, although social media is a passion, nothing beats smiles offered in person: “I look forward to meeting the people of TEDx Eroilor and share ideas about how to take change beyond the realm of the online world and impact our daily lives. If we want dreams to come true, it’s a good idea to wake up and start working on them”!

Andrei Miu

Andrei’s interest in the brain was sparked by having learned, during a first year undergraduate course, that new neurons are born in the adult brain. While following his curiosity on this topic, Andrei discovered the fascinating field of neuroscience, with its enthusiastic pioneers, exuberant diversity of methods bridging biomedicine and psychology, and rapid empirical development, which gave him the impression that he might miss a breakthrough if he turned his head. He didn’t turn it away, and thanks to two professors who supported his increasing enthusiasm in neuroscience, he started a research and teaching career in this field that was largely unknown in Romania at the end of the 1990’s. Currently, Andrei Miu is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University. He is the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, and he teaches cognitive neuroscience and behavioral genetics courses for undergraduate and graduate students in Psychology. His research has focused on emotions, using behavioral, electrophysiological and molecular genetic methods. His track record includes publications in many influential international scientific journals, important fellowships from Fulbright, IBRO and FENS, as well as memberships in the editorial boards of scientific journals of the American Psychological Association and Springer.

Constantin Trofin

I was born exactly 50 years ago, sharing my birthday with Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Theodor Aman, George Topârceanu, Henrik Ibsen and Napoleon III. I grew up with Pink Floyd, Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Chopin and Mozart, the love for the English language and my passion for airplanes and motorcars. I studied at the Polytechnic Institute because I really wanted to be an engineer. I hugely respected my parents and they have always respected my decisions. I got into television 22 years ago. I have done news, reportage, entertainment, years and years of live shows in both public and commercial TV. People watched (I got high ratings for all my shows), juries appreciated (3 times winner of APTR, Mediafest, twice TeleVest), and that’s how I got smart and had a lot of fun! I got trained in the UK and the USA and now I’m teaching others to do good TV. I have a great family and I’ve always worked with good people. I don’t agree that the audience wants bad TV. They got used to it because that’s what they’ve been offered, since it was handy and cheap. People deserve something better. And if it’s smart, dynamic and well done, careful, they might like it!

Florina Oneţiu

Florina was born in Deva and she grew up in a beautiful family who taught her how to live life with passion and creativity. She has always been attracted to people and new experiences, that’s why she explored law, PR, advertising, communication, theatre and stepped out of the box to set up and promote an innovative project dedicated to women – “Women’s Academy”. Launched in 2012, “Women’s Academy” is the first national educational project designed for women, that aims to build up the most complete women community from Romania, a community in which women learn, grow and share knowledge and experiences together. “Creating this project was one of my best professional achievements and I’m very happy to be invited at TEDxEroilor to share my experience and ideas with people who want to make things happen!”

Lavinia Gliga

Lavinia came across journalism by chance. In 2006 she was 22 years old, had a business school diploma and no interest in the business field whatsoever, and was preoccupied by all the existential dilemmas fit for a young adult without a clue about the future. Storytelling came as a revelation. It allowed her to search, get to know and learn about different people, who live and think so differently. To find out stories – all true – and share them. In 2009, together with a few fellow journalists and a wonderful graphic designer, motivated by the dissatisfaction with the Romanian magazine market and by the belief that things could be better, she worked on starting the independent quarterly Decât o Revistă. Today she reports, writes, edits and coordinates stories about the lives, ideas and plans of people around us. All very different stories and all true.

Melissa Lee Price

Melissa Lee Price is a self-confessed gadget geek who even as a little girl on long road trips with her family in America dreamed of a device that would control the car so the driver could sit back and enjoy the trip. She bought her first computer in 1984, when Apple started selling the Macintosh, and she's been 'wired-in and online' ever since. Dr. Price completed her Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina where she focused on the use of technology in teaching and learning; and she taught her first online class in 1994, just months after the first web browser was invented. She fell in love with Romania when she and her husband spent their honeymoon in Cluj and she's been coming back to visit ever since. Dr. Price is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Theatre and Television at Babeş-Bolyai University.

Octavian Segărceanu

Octavian Segărceanu (Sega) worked in advertising for 11 years. He was a copywriter, then a deputy creative director at McCann Erickson Romania, then he did commercials as a freelance director. He gained social status, money, prizes and fame, but on the 11th of June 2008 he gave up everything, stuffed his unanswered questions in a backpack and left for India. During one year he considered initiatic, Sega wandered from Osho's ashram in Pune to the birthplace of Buddha in Nepal, from the Tibetan north of India to its scorching south. Back from the edge of the world, he started to write a book. The first NAMASTE volume, a spiritual adventure novel in India, was released last summer by Humanitas publishing house, being one of its bestsellers in 2012. The second NAMASTE volume, a spiritual adventure novel in Nepal, is in preparation at the same publishing house.

Willy Schuster

Willy Schuster is a passionate supporter of the cause of peasant agriculture in Romania and abroad. That is precisely why he is one of the founders of Ecoruralis, an association that encourages and supports Romanian peasants to switch to organic farming. He owns himself an organic farm in Moşna, Sibiu, and its cheeses are well known and appreciated in the region. Willy believes that a return to simple and natural things is the best way to live and knows that for a substantial impact, peasant communities must work together. In the spirit of this belief, he founded, together with other organic farmers in the area, Biocoop Cooperative (the first store in the country with products exclusively from certified organic farms) for the joint exploitation of peasant bio-products. Together with his family, he was also the initiator of the project WWOOF Romania, a network of organic farms around the world, trying to bring public interest to the villages. His passion has materialized in real efforts to change the agricultural landscape by facilitating meetings, discussions, and experience exchanges between peasants from all over the world and the ones living and working in Romanian villages.