Perhaps you’re curious as to how a chicken could cure cancer? Or maybe you’d like the lowdown on how you could connect with others with your own humanoid robot avatar? If your answer is yes, you’ll be glad to know that TEDxBristol is back! On Wednesday 11 November, Colston Hall will host a whole day of diverse, thought-provoking and inspiring speakers with the theme, Great Expectations for the future.
So prepare for some unique takes on how Bristol is leading the way with brilliant ideas and relentless optimism with what organisers plan to be the biggest and best TEDxBristol yet.
How the chicken cured cancer: Bristol-based biologist
and BBC wildlife filmmaker Patrick Aryee will be exploring
some of the amazing things animals can do to help us humans
With the line-up just announced and with fourteen diverse speakers, ticket holders should prepare to be blown away by Bristol’s brightest minds. So as well as chickens and robots, the line-up will cover a thought-provoking range of themes from family and adoption through to storytelling and health.
You can get more of the TEDxBristol vibe in this cheeky preview below:
“The best TEDx that Bristol has ever seen!”: Meet some of the speakers
in the line up for TEDxBristol 2015
Among the speaker line-up is Bristol-based entrepreneur Tom Savage, who was interviewed by TechSPARK earlier this year about his new people index service startup, PeopleGraph.
“Bristol is a very special place, so I’m proud to stand alongside others and represent the city”
Reflecting on his thoughts on being selected for TEDxBristol 2015, Tom says: “Bristol is my adopted city – the place where I’ve felt most at home in my life, so it’s a huge privilege to be able to do a TEDx talk in my new home. Bristol is a very special place, so I’m proud to stand alongside others and represent the city, in our own small ways.”
- You might like: Interview: Tom Savage of people index service, PeopleGraph
Having run several startups and businesses across the globe, Tom certainly knows how both ambition and success feels like. Yet, in striking contrast, he will be running his big data company from a tent in Somerset for a month before his TEDxBristol talk, in an attempt to question ambition and discover if it’s really possible to live a simple life without being taken over by goals.
Chatting to Tom about what he hopes attendees will bring away from his talk, he tells us: “I’d like the audience to go away with the ability to question our relentless drive for innovation, for new, shiny things. We have tacitly accepted that GDP growth, doing well at school, getting a good job and achieving lots are fundamentally good aspirations.”
“I want the audience to come away talking about the opposite – whether or not simplicity, or doing less not more is in fact a greater goal.”
One of the best things TEDx audiences say they come away with is new ideas and insights into things they’d never thought much about before and it’s the same for Tom. Joking about his TEDx talk ticking off one of his ambitions, he explains: “What I’ve most enjoyed and am looking forward to is using the talk as a way to consolidate my thoughts and trying to explain these feelings to the audience. I’m also really looking forward to hearing the other speakers’ ideas.”
You can find the full TEDxBristol speaker line-up on the TEDxBristol website with tickets available at the Colston Hall. To keep up-to-date with UK-wide TEDx events, you can follow them on Twitter at: @TEDx or Bristol only TEDx events at: @TEDxBristol.
Tell me more about TEDx
TED is a not-for-profit annual conference with the mission of: ‘ideas worth spreading’. The conference gathers some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers and invites them to speak for 18 minutes or less.
TEDx is a worldwide movement, inspired by TED and their mission, which supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.
TEDxBristol is run by volunteers and has been made possible due to the support of local events sponsors and partners.
