Theme: What's the Big Idea?

Ideas. We all have them. But what we do with them is what gives them value.

As young creative people, brimming with ideas, the world is in the palm of our hands. But how can we use our creativity out of the realms of the obvious? Be prepared to be taken out of your comfort zone and hear how people just like you have changed the world.

Join us at TEDxUCAFarnham to experience pioneers, game changers and big thinkers across a diverse range of backgrounds from music to sustainability, technology to sport, the environment to publishing and everything in between to see how they're changing the world with an idea.

Be part of the conversation #TEDxUCAFarnham

SU Dancefloor, UCA Farnham
UCA Farnham
Falkner Road
Farnham, GU9 7DS
United Kingdom

Wayne Hemmingway

Wayne Hemingway is co-founder of fashion label Red or Dead and HemingwayDesign. After 21 consecutive seasons on the catwalk at London Fashion Week, he and his wife sold Red or Dead in a multi million cash sale in 1999. He then set up HemingwayDesign, joining forces with building firm Wimpey to work on various housing projects specialising in affordable and social design. Wayne is the Chairman of Building for Life, CABE (Commission for Architecture and The Built Environment) a funded organisation that promotes excellence in the quality of design of new housing. He is a Professor in the Built Environment department of Northumbria University, a writer for architectural and housing publications as well as a judge of international design competitions including the regeneration of Byker in Newcastle and Salford in Greater Manchester.

VV Brown

Hailing from Northampton, singer, songwriter, producer, record label owner, ethical fashion brand CEO and entrepreneur: Vanessa “V V” Brown, has more ‘strings to her bow’ that than you may have first thought. V V hit the wider shores in 2011 with her critically acclaimed album ‘Travelling Light the Light’, which went Gold – with hit single ‘Shark in the Water’ achieving over a million sales worldwide. Leaving an exciting visual trail of video clips, fan-posted television, online, and festival appearances all over cyberspace, V V has proved herself to be a luminous presence, vocally, visually, and creatively. Aside from her musical rise to fame, including a US Tour with Maroon 5, V V became the first black British woman to front an ad campaign for renowned U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer, which she landed thanks to her highly developed sense of personal style and stunning looks. In the U.S., V V appeared on every major TV show, including: Ellen Degenerates, Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, Letterman. Now this multi-talented songstress is quickly becoming a respected entrepreneur with her own online ethical fashion business: VVVINTAGE.com, paving the way for emerging designers across the globe. V V is back in the studio recording her second album, to be released in 2013. .................................................................................................................................................................. VVVINTAGE VVVintage is the new, online sustainable fashion house directed by celebrated musician and model VV Brown, dedicated to the art of recycling fabrics, reinvention and the ethos of up cycled sustainability. VVVintage is not only stocked online and through ASOS, but has also teamed with Oxfam to create the 'Design With Oxfam' scheme (DWO). DWO collaborates with designers that can perpetuate the ideas of sustainability, whilst providing a platform of exposure to produce and celebrate their design, with charitable initiatives. The DWO platform is rejuvenated continuously with new DWO designers, creating bespoke Collections for VVVintage and is showcased through the VVVintage’s online and industry presence. VVVintage released its first capsule collection with designer Mary Benson, which debuted at the live-art installation at Somerset House for London Fashion Week S/S13 , the collection was also featured in September Issue of British Vogue, alongside i-D, Volt, Metro, Look, Grazia, Company, SuperSuper and worn by clients such as Rihanna, Rita Ora, Jessie J and Shingai Shoniwa. VVVintage also works collaboratively with many different platforms for the showcasing of emerging talent amongst fashion and art. At this year’s London Fashion Week, VV was announced as the new presenter for Style Britain for SBTV, with a demographic of over 70 million viewers http://www.vvvintage.com/2012/10/15/vvvintage-at-london-fashion-week/

Visual Editions

Anna Gerber and Britt Iversen founded book publishing business Visual Editions in 2010. VE is four books old with a punked up Tristram Shandy introduced by Will Self; Tree of Codes, a book full of holes by Jonathan Safran Foer; Composition No.1, a shuffling book in a box and iPad app; and a folding and spinning out Kapow! by Adam Thirlwell. With plenty more in the pipeline. Anna is from Paris via Los Angeles and had been writing about and teaching graphic design (Central Saint Martins and The Royal College of Art) for the past ten years. Britt is from Copenhagen and had been working in advertising, brand communication and research for fifteen years, including nearly ten years at Mother London.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt

Paul founded the incredibly successful parkrun movement that helps thousands of people, from beginners to Olympians, to participate in a free, timed 5k run each and every week at over 250 locations around the world. Growing at a rate of 5 new events each week and introducing 7,000 new parkrunners to the family while recording 37,000 participation records each week creates massive challenges for the organisation. The only way we can offer these events is through a social programme where volunteers engage to make it happen. With over 100,000 volunteers parkrun delivers on the social enterprise promise.

Hacker Farm

A celebration of the home-made, the salvaged and the hand-soldered. DIY electronics performed on obsolete tech and discarded, post-consumerist debris. Make-do and mend. Broken music for a Broken Britain. Expect: circuit-bent mayhem, cassettemulch and modified-toy noise. A bit like Punk, but without the three chords or the riff borrowed from The Kinks. A beta-release of a better way of living. Genre / File Under: Outsider Music, Carboot Electronics, Open-Source Sound. “Before Punk, there was Noise. Before Rock n Roll, there was Noise. Noise has always been there, buzz-buzz-buzzing in our eardrums. It is part of a proud artistic lineage that can be tracked back through the Dadaists, the Futurists and beyond. Noise is eternal. It is the soundtrack to our industry and our cities, our anger and our dreams. ”

Gary Waterworth-Owen

Gary is an artist, social entrepreneur, speaker and contributing author to the international best seller - Responsibility 911. His projects and programmes conducted in wilderness areas, facilitate opportunities for participants to explore and discover shared values and life skills such as UBUNTU THIRST Things First and Wilderness Warrior. Participating in his Get REAL experiences - Towards Responsible, Environmentally Aware Leadership such as Gulf to Gulf - 32 days across the Sinai Desert, participants contribute directly to responsible tourism, community based development and nature conservation. It is to this transformative power of nature on the creative process and the human spirit that he has dedicated his time, efforts and desired legacy.

Barnaby Rowe

Barney is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Astrophysics Group at University College London, having moved there in 2011 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. He researches high precision methods for the analysis of astrophysical data, with a special focus on large imaging survey experiments such as the Dark Energy Survey, NASA WFIRST, and ESA Euclid experiments.