TEDxGrandRapids 2013 speakers!

If you have not looked at TEDx you need to stop what you are doing and do this today. This will change your life by doing this. It is one of the best things that I have ever did in life. This will be my second year to TEDx Grand Rapids and I am looking forward to another great event. This year's line-up is one of the most geographically diverse yet, with individuals hailing from as far away as South Africa and Scotland and as close to home as right here in Grand Rapids. And though they hold a bevy of advanced degrees and have had a wide range of fascinating life experiences, their talks will be powerful and personal explorations of the ways each of us is called to lead, inspire, and contribute.

List of TEDX Grand Rapids Speakers

Dr. Simone Ahuja, Frugal Innovator. Ahuja is an author, researcher, consultant, and advisor whose work focuses on innovation in emerging global markets. She is the founder of Minneapolis-based boutique marketing agency Blood Orange and the author of the recent book Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth.

Lucy Bernholz, PhD, Game Changer. Bernholz is a self-described philanthropy wonk and a visiting scholar at Stanford University. A graduate of Yale and Stanford, she advises and writes extensively on the intersection of philanthropy, technology, information, and policy and seeks to understand how we create, fund, and distribute shared social goods in the digital age.

Jose Bright, Global Educator. Bright is a consultant, teacher, author, and attorney living in South Africa. Interested in the power of 21st-century technology to serve and educate vulnerable and at-risk children, he is the founder of the Teboho Trust, a highly successful educational support platform which also focuses on small business development and incubation for the caregivers of these children in Soweto.

Nicole Caruth, Artist Activist. A writer, editor, and curator living in New York, Caruth is a leading voice on the subject of food in contemporary art. She is the founder of the non-profit organization With Food in Mind, which creates educational initiatives at the crossroads of food, visual culture, and social change.

Eric Daigh, Technology Artist. Daigh is a portraitist and conceptual artist whose work began as large-scale mosaic and has since expanded into new forms and site-specific installations. He lives in Northern Michigan and his work is exhibited internationally by museums, collectors, and art fairs.

Evan Grae Davis, Culture Changer. Evan Grae Davis is a husband, father, adventurer, activist, and filmmaker who travels the world advocating for social justice by writing and directing short documentaries and videos. His first feature-length documentary, It's a Girl, is currently screening worldwide, and focuses on why millions of women are missing in the world today simply because they are girls.

Luis de la Fuente, PhD, Classroom Futurist. A native Californian, de la Fuente is the Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, where he works to transform today’s classrooms into personalized learning environments by combining the best of teaching with the best of technology. He’s interested in the power of personalized instruction to radically improve public K-12 education.

Greg Galle, Ingenuity Jumper. Galle is the co-founder of Future Partners, a rapid ingenuity firm, who explores how design improves lives through story, experience, visualization, user interface, and innovation. His award-winning work has been included in books and helps organizations, individuals, and teams of all kinds achieve more through design.

Fred Keller, Thought Leader. A materials science engineer by training, Keller is the Chair and CEO of Cascade Engineering. A Grand Rapids native, Keller believes in the unique power of business to achieve financial success as well as positive social and environmental outcomes, and his innovative views on sustainability and management are featured regularly in industry publications.

Gurgit Lalli, Social Entrepreneur. Born in England to Indian parents, raised in Scotland, and educated in Sweden, Lalli currently lives in Glasgow, where he is the founder of TEDxGlasgow and involved in multiple entrepreneurial impact ventures. He is the co-founder of The Power of Youth, an organization that harnesses the global energy and capital of young entrepreneurs to inspire and finance socially responsible development and collaboration.

Rick Leach, PhD, Genomics Expert. Currently the Vice President of Business Development for Complete Genomics, the first industrial-scale whole genome sequencing company, Dr. Leach’s previous work has been in areas including biotechnology, in vitro fertilization, and genetics research. His primary focus is to bring genome sequencing to clinical practice.

Dr. J.A. Mustapha, Go-Getter. A Lebanon-born interventional cardiologist who practices with Metro Health Hospital in Wyoming, Michigan, Dr. Mustapha is also an associate professor, researcher, and innovator who holds several medical-device patents. His special areas of interest include peripheral vascular disease treatments and amputation prevention.

Tim Rowe, Community Builder. Born and raised in Cambridge, MA, Rowe is the founder and CEO of Cambridge Innovation Center, which houses over 450 start-up companies and is perhaps the densest collection of startups anywhere in the world. A graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Amherst College, Rowe has testified before Senate committees and met with senior White House officials on promoting entrepreneurship at a national level.

Lori Schneider, Obstacle Remover. Schneider is a teacher, mountain climber, and speaker whose life-long love of travel led her to visit over fifty countries in her first forty-three years of life. When she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1999, Schneider set out to become the first person with MS to climb the highest peak on each continent to prove her belief that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things.