Peter Guttman is an author, photographer, adventurer and lecturer honored with a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Exploration and Storytelling as well as named three times as the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year. He is the creator of two book series and has authored eight hardcover books featuring his extensive travel discoveries collected during assignments to 240 countries and all seven continents.
Cited one of "20 of the World's Most Influential Photographers" when receiving the George Eastman Power of the Image Award, Guttman utilized photography and deep knowledge of the globe to create the iPad's very first number-one bestselling travel app, Beautiful Planet. He taught at the International Center of Photography, and has had his work published In Condé Nast Traveler and National Geographic publications, featured in solo art museum shows, headlined exhibitions at Sotheby's and the United Nations, appear on international postage stamps and reside in private collections of royalty and astronauts.
TEDx Talk – Ensuring Your Soul Doesn't Grow Gray Before Your Hair Does
Every day, we are able to create a life, rather than just live one. We must pursue happiness for ourselves, not fabricated happiness that we have been conditioned to strive for. There is no cookie cutter way to find adventure, love, freedom, and bliss. We must find what this happiness means for us, and we must pursue it once we determine what sets our soul alight.
Michele Rigby Assad joined the CIA in January 2002 to work as an undercover intelligence officer. Specializing in counterterrorism and counterintelligence issues, she worked in Iraq and other secret Middle Eastern locations.
After a decade of government service, Rigby Assad left the undercover life to serve
as a public speaker, author, trainer and security consultant focused on the Middle
East, North Africa, and Europe. Her book, Breaking Cover: My Secret Life in the CIA and What It Taught Me about What's Worth
Fighting For, was released in February 2018.
Rigby Assad holds a master's degree in contemporary Arab studies from Georgetown University's
School of Foreign Service and a political science degree from Palm Beach Atlantic
University.
She is motivated to use her unique platform to educate and inspire, showing how critical
courage is to living a life of impact and purpose.
TEDx Talk – Intuition as a Marketable Skill - Lessons From the CIA
Intuition is that sudden, forceful voice in the back of your head telling you to make a certain decision. You have the option to listen to that voice, or ignore it, which is sometimes the easiest option. Michele argues that this is a lesson she learned in the CIA, and you should always listen to your intuition. In the workplace, it'll make you better.
Sunil Thankamushy is a video game-industry based animation director and creative executive who was part of core teams that developed highly acclaimed, and successful video game franchises such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park™, Medal of Honor™, Call of Durty™: Finest Hour™ and others. This he did while working at, or collaborating with, DreamWorks Interactive, Electronic Arts, Spark Unlimited and Activision among several others.
After his first child was born, Thankamushy decided to change his life direction and make knowledge-based games and products. With this as the goal, he launched DEEPBLUE Worlds Inc., to create smart and fun products that expand the mind. Forming broad coalitions with fellow creative entrepreneurs across the world, he designs and produces innovative game-like products using virtual reality, mobile and animation technologies.
Along with his entrepreneurial ventures, Thankamushy is a faculty member at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt.SAC) near Los Angeles, helping lead the animation and gaming program.
TEDx Talk – Ideas and Creativity Driven by Deep Meditation
Ideas are not something that you think about as an entity on a daily basis. Our ideas are sacred, and it is easy for our ideas to get lost in the stream of technology. We are being dampened by the society we've built, and we are becoming less creative. Through meditation, we can reclaim our creativity for a more productive career, life, and world.
Komal Dadlani is a biochemist with an MSc from the University of Chile, she was awarded the CONICYT Scholarship of academic excellence. She has research experience in nanobiotechnology and molecular diagnostics. In 2013, she started Lab4U to democratize science and change the way science is taught with a lab in the pocket. Dadlani has been a recipient of the Cartier Women Initiative Award 2015, Toyota Mother of Invention Award 2017, MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 Leaders in LatAm and Ashoka Fellow and has been internationally recognized by The New York Times, Forbes, People Magazine and the BBC as a top female entrepreneur and for her work at Lab4U.
TEDx Talk – Democratizing Science with a Lab in your pocket
There is no doubt that there are not equal opportunities for people around the world. Latin America, specifically, does not have equal access to science and science education. Why does this divide exist while other countries are thriving, scientifically? And, how do we fix the divide?
Andrew Foley is the development director of Better Days Greece, a Swiss-Greek NGO. Founded in 2015, Better Days focuses on the design of spaces that promote healing and trauma relief and customizes educational programming to power integration, youth development and a return to normalcy for displaced people in Greece.
Passionately curious, a driver of innovation and alternate thinking, and capable of teaching himself pretty much anything in a weekend, Foley believes that everyone has a unique skill-set, and that education should focus on encouraging students to recognize their own uniqueness and unleash it.
Prior to travelling to Greece to offer support in Europe's ongoing refugee crisis, Foley worked in business development for a global IT security company. He has since guided Better Days' transformation from an all-volunteer actor providing emergency relief to being one of the largest providers of non-formal education for refugee children in Greece.
TEDx Talk – The Capital T truth of Education
It is often difficult to rationalize what the life of a refugee looks like and what resources are most important to them in a turbulent time. Andrew argues that education can be the most important resource for people that have lost agency over their lives. It makes us question: What can education in emergencies remind us of ourselves? How can humanitarian education change the narrative of future generations?
Originally hailing from the dark heart of the American midwest (Cincinnati, Ohio,
of course) Kate Hagen is a writer living in Los Angeles. She's been the director of
Community at The Black List since 2014 . Her work (including in-depth filmmaker interviews,
an annual exploration of feminism and horror films, and the #LastGreatVideoStore series)
is primarily available on the Black List Blog.
Hagen has also written for Lenny Letter, TCM, Seed & Spark and xoJane, and her work
has been featured in publications like The Hollywood Reporter, Five ThirtyEight, Vox and Bustle. You can also hear her talk movies on How Did This
Get Made?, Scriptnotes, The Canon, KPCC's The Frame, and The Black List Table Reads.
Hagen's personal obsessions include pulp, retro and femme aesthetics; making mixtapes;
women's rights; the spooky, secret stories of Tinseltown's past; and her ever-growing
garden.
TEDx Talk – In Search of The Last Great Video Store
In today's age of technology, entertainment is at our fingertips. We are able to play, pause, fast forward, rewind every tv show and movie we could possibly think of. When Kate wanted to watch Fresh Horses, she couldn't stream it anywhere. This sent her on a journey to find The Last Great Video Store and explore what the loss of video stores meant for us, financially and culturally.
Jonathan Caputo
Jonathan Caputo is a junior and triple major in psychology, philosophy and Italian. Outside of academics, he is very involved in his community, Hinman College. Caputo has lived in Hinman for all three of his years at Binghamton and has served as a resident assistant (RA) for the past two. This year, Caputo is the mentor RA for his building, which means he is responsible for teaching the new RAs many of the job's nuances. Additionally, he participates in many intramural sports with his friends, such as basketball, floorball, water polo and flag football. Caputo hopes to continue his education and eventually receive a doctorate in either philosophy or psychology and then teach as a research professor. .
TEDx Talk – It's OK to Not Love Yourself.
After a conversation with his friend, Jonathan began to think about what it means to love yourself and love others. America has ingrained a very individualistic lifestyle in each of us, persuading us to love ourselves before anything. Jonathan argues that this mindset can be damaging, and we can embrace not loving ourselves.
