TEDx speakers are comin’ to town

After the success of the last TEDx event, the team behind it would be hard pressed to find a group of speakers who could inspire us even more. Turns out, they totally have! Speaking at TEDxStAndrews are 12 highly successful individuals, all with something completely different to offer:

Henrik Scharfe: This guy has made a robot of himself, just look at the photo here! Scharfe’s talk is entitled “Is the Future of Robotics in Us?”

Max Foster: News anchor and Royal Correspondent (so basically The Stand personified), talking about K-Mids being the name on everyone’s lips in his talk aptly entitled “Kate Middleton is the biggest story in the world”. Casual.

Michael Morris: Fashion extraordinaire! He’s worked for Gucci, YSL, DKNY, and many of the brands you see sashay-ing down North Street. Make sure to get your glad rags on for this one.

George ‘the poet’ Mapanga: I don’t think that’s his actual middle name, but he’s the biggest name in spoken word poetry with a socio-political message to get across. This is gonna be good.

Professor Sunetra Gupta: This lady knows her stuff about infectious disease, and will be discussing her findings in her talk entitled “Dressed to kill- what infectious disease agents have in their wardrobes”.

Andy Pag: Not just an adventurer, more an ECO -WARRIOR! He’s driven a chocolate-powered lorry to Timbuktu, personally I think that’s a waste of chocolate… but how cool?! Pag’s talk is called “Road trip towards sustainability”.

Edward Gardiner: currently leading the UK’s first Behavioural Design Lab, and applies his research to things like binge drinking. Very relevant in St Andrews. His talk is entitled “Changing behaviour by design”.

Gavin Oattes: Comedian and founder of “The Tree of Knowledge”. Nuff said. A must-see.

Principal Louise Richardson: Home-grown stuff this time, PLR shall be discussing “Terrorism at St Andrews”. We didn’t know it was an issue, so a good job is obviously being done to keep it under control.

Dr Ian Bradley: What does this guy not do? He’s been an author, journalist, and theologian, but currently acts as Head of Religious Broadcasting for BBC Scotland. He’s also quoting a Disney movie in his title “You’ve got to have a dream – the spiritual message of musical theatre”… enough to make us want to go!

Dr Kathryn Rudy: Again one of our own from the art history department, discussing the “The secret lives of medieval manuscripts: uncovering their inadvertent stories”.

Dr Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti: Barletti is a Peruvian anthropologist, who has extensively researched the Amazonian Ashaninka indigenous tribe. His talk is called “Why should we start taking indigenous world-views seriously?”.

We caught up with one of the coordinators, Jon Jachimowicz: “We are absolutely delighted to have been able to bring together world-leading speakers from a variety of disciplines and areas […] Above all, the integration of our own academic staff, our two selected student speakers, and the TEDx platform, provides the ideal underpinning for a conference dedicated to spreading ideas which will enlighten us towards the next 600 years.”

If that hasn’t got you geared up and ready to go, then we don’t know what will. Buy your tickets today and get ready to be inspired. Preliminary ticket sales close on Sunday.

Image courtesy of tedxdeflt.nl