Speaker

• 
  Ben Scott
  

  Ben Scott

  As a Senior Advisor to the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation in Washington DC and a Visiting Fellow at the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin, Ben Scott has been concentrating on new media and expanding affordable access to an open Internet as well as fostering more public service journalism. Previously he was Policy Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where he helped steward the 21^stCentury Statecraft agenda, which aims to unite the aspects of an interconnected world withtraditional foreign policy tools.For six years he also headed the Washington office for the NGO Free Press for six years. At Free Press, the largest non-profit organization in the US, he dealt exclusively with media and communications policy. There he headed a team of lawyers, researchers, and advocates and strived to reform the landscape of media in relation to politics.

• 
  Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster
  

  Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster

  Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster, a 29-year-old Argentine-American, graduated from Georgetown University in 2005, where she double majored in Government and Art History. Upon graduating cum laude, Carolina was accepted to the London School of Economics and Political Science where she received her Masters in Latin American Comparative Politics. A year later, she was hired by the William J. Clinton Foundation to help set up the London office and work for the Clinton Climate Initiative. In 2007, Carolina joinedGoldman Sachs where she worked as a financial analyst for two years before co-founding Walkabout Foundation, a US and UK based charity, that actively pursues a cure for paralysis by funding research and donates wheelchairs to those in need around the world. She co-founded Walkabout Foundation with her oldest brother Luis, who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident and became paralyzed from the chest down.

  In January 2010, Carolina graduated with a Masters in Business Administration from the Said Business School at Oxford University. Since then, Carolina has devoted herself full time to the Walkabout Foundation, distributing all-terrain “RoughRider” wheelchairs around the world and establishing a wheelchair factory which will employ people with disabilities Haiti. Since inception, Walkabout Foundation has donated nearly 3,000 wheelchairs to countries such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, Chile, Pakistan, Ghana, Rwanda, and Malawi, and has donated millions of dollars in research to leading scientific centers around the United States. In November 2010, Carolina won the Woman of the Future Award in London and the Christopher Reeve Spirit of Courage Award in New York. Additionally, the Sunday Times listed her as the top “35 Women Under 35” in the United Kingdom and the Evening Standard has ranked her next to Tony Blair as “London’s 1,000 Most Influential People in Philanthropy.”

  Website: www.walkaboutfoundation.org

• 
  Alexander Görlach
  

  Alexander Görlach

  Dr. Dr. Alexander Goerlach, born in 1976, is founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of The European Magazine.

  Before, Goerlach was the editor-in-chief of Cicero-Online. He has also worked for the German television station ZDF and published in notable German newspapers such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt. He has also spent several years abroad, studying in the US, the UK, Italy, Egypt and Turkey.

  Goerlach holds a PhD in theology and in philology, and he gives lectures on digital media at the Free University Berlin, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and the Zeppelin University.

  Since summer 2011 Alexander Goerlach is a Young Leader of Atlantik-Brücke.

  Twitter: @agoerlach | Website: www.alexandergoerlach.com

• 
  John Bunzl
  

  John Bunzl

  John Bunzl is a business man with a simple and yet powerful new vision for global governance: simultaneous policy action.

He is a passionate speaker on global simultaneous policy, and its relevance for a wide range of topics: from tax justice and regulation of financial markets; sustainability standards; to global warming. John has spoken at a number of events, including the World Trade Organisation, the World Social Forum and TEDx events.

In 2000 John founded the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) and launched the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) campaign; an exciting new way for citizens to actively use their votes to propel their governments to act together to solve global problems.

John has used, and continues to use the Simpol campaign tirelessly to reach out to citizens, activists, non-governmental organisations, politicians and business people to raise both their awareness and understanding of what global simultaneous policies could mean for humanity, prosperity and peace.

  Twitter: @JohnBunzl | Website: www.johnbunzl.com

• 
  Jon "Maddog" Hall
  

  Jon "Maddog" Hall

  Jon "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of Linux International (www.li.org), an association of computer users who wish to support and promote the Linux Operating System. During his career in commercial computing which started in 1969, Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical marketing manager, author and educator.

  He has worked for such companies as Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and SGI. He currently works as an independent consultant, and is currently involved with bringing environmentally friendly computing to emerging marketplaces through Project Cauã (www.projectcaua.org), as well as consulting for Futura Networks, the parent company of Campus-Party.org

  Mr Hall has worked on many systems, both proprietary and open, having concentrated on Unix systems since 1980 and Linux systems since 1994, when he first met Linus Torvalds and correctly recognized the commercial importance of Linux and Free and Open Source Software.

  He has taught at Hartford State Technical College (HSTC), Merrimack College and Daniel Webster College. While at HSTC his students gave him the nickname of "maddog".

  Mr. Hall is the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many presentations and one book, "Linux for Dummies".

  Mr. Hall has consulted with the governments of China, Malaysia and Brasil as well as the United Nations and many local and state governments on the use of Free and Open Source Software.

  Mr. Hall serves on the boards of several companies, and several non-profit organizations.

  Mr. Hall has traveled the world speaking on the benefits of Open Source Software having received his BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University, and his MSCS from RPI in Troy, New York.

  Twitter: @maddoghall | Website: www.optdyn.com

   

• 
  Andrea Kolb
  

  Andrea Kolb

  Andrea Kolb is an experienced marketing expert and social entrepreneur. She studied economics and cultural management. After working for various agencies in Frankfurt, London and Monaco, she founded the agency “Calliope - Inspiring Brand Communication” in Munich in 2001. She developed marketing projects for Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank AG, o2 Germany, Mercedes-Benz and others. In 2006 she moved to Berlin. In 2007, together with her husband, Bernd Kolb, she developed and realised the concept of AnaYela – "A place of Inspiration" in the Medina, the old city of Marrakesh – that has won the World Hotel Award four times. In May 2011 she started the social business “ABURY”. Under the positioning of “Beyond Fashion”, ABURY combines the desire for style and ethics, exclusiveness and sustainability in a unique and innovative concept.

  Website: www.abury.net

• 
  Brandalism
  

  Brandalism

  Simon Templeton & Joe Elan are representatives of the Brandalism project. Following on from the guerilla art traditions of the 20th Century and by taking inspiration from various art movements and creative mischief makers, the Brandalism Project saw the largest reclamation of outdoor advertising space in UK history. Through collaboration with renowned visual artists from around the world, Brandalism sees artists stepping outside the boundaries of daily life, law and comfort to challenge the authority and legitimacy of the advertising industry within our streets and our culture.

  Twitter: @BrandalismUK | Website: www.brandalism.ch

• 
  Anwar Daffa-Alla
  

  Anwar Daffa-Alla

  Anwar Dafa-Alla was born in Port Sudan in 1978. He is passionate about developing intellectual communities, especially in Sudan. He believes that developed nations should provide education and technological knowledge and support rather than financial aid to the developing countries. When hearing Neil Turok’s TED Talk “African Einstein”, he was so motivated that he started to translate TED Talks into Arabic in order to spread influential and impelling talks among the Arabic- speaking populations, in particular those in Sudan. He is the only person who has translated over 770 TED Talks through the TED Open Translation Project. In 2011 he organized the first TEDxKhartoum event and has spoken at numerous other TEDx conferences as well as TED Global.

  Twitter: @AnwarKing 

   

• 
  Thomas Petzold
  

  Thomas Petzold

  Thomas Petzold is a social technology researcher who looks at how people’s lives are altered by technological and social change. He is challenging the boundaries of current thinking by sharing his passion for provocative and meaningful arguments and crossing personal and cultural borders by working and living in Australia, Bulgaria, Russia and the UK. He is currently a Research Fellow and Project Leader at the Social Science Center in Berlin and the Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation in Brisbane, Australia.

• 
  Sven Helbig
  

  Sven Helbig

  Sven Helbig has composed and produced music for a wide range of artists such as Rammstein, the Pet Shop Boys, Snoop Dogg, opera singer René Pape, and the Fauré Quartett, amongst many others. He is the founder of the Dresdner Sinfoniker and has composed numerous, highly acclaimed productions, such as the multimedia-project “Mein Herz brennt” or the “High- Rise Symphony” for Dresden’s 800th anniversary. In February of 2013 the two-time ECHO Award winner will release his first solo album on Deutsche Grammophon as Fauré Quartett’s and the MDR Sinfonieorchester’s composer.

  Twitter: @SvenHelbig | Website: www.svenhelbig.com

• 
  Michael Poliza
  

  Michael Poliza

  After a successful acting career and founding an IT business, Michael Poliza went on to become one of the world’s most prolific wildlife photographers. Initiating the Starship Millennium Voyage project, Poliza travelled the world on the Starship boat, documenting the state of the world’s wild locations at the turn of the millennium. His work has been published in eight highly acclaimed books, featuring images from all over Africa to Antarctica. In December 2009 he was named as an ambassador of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

  Website: www.michaelpoliza.com

• 
  Diana Nyad
  

  Diana Nyad

  Diane Nyad literally took the plunge and attempted to swim the 103-milestretch between Cuba and Florida. Having won the world record as greatest long distance swimmer back in the 1970s, she decided to challenge herself yet again. With deadly jellyfish, thunder- and lightning storms, as well as sharks threatening her life, she was forced to subsequently quit. After two attempts and a combined 92 hours and 5 minutes of swimming, a third attempt to reach Florida’s shores is only a matter of time.

  Twitter: @diananyad | Website: www.diananyad.com

   

• 
  Fabian Sixtus Körner
  

  Fabian Sixtus Körner

  Travelling the world for two and a half years, Fabian Sixtus Körner describes himself as a multidisciplinary creative enthusiast who doesn’t stick to one profession. A “new age design travelling journeyman”, Fabian is a designer, photographer and architect all rolled into one. He has curated exhibitions in India, shot documentaries in the US, did photo-shoots for Vogue Italy and is currently working on a book about his travel experiences that will be released next year. Currently living in Berlin, his border crossing both – physically and professionally – has won him the German Webvideo Award for his work “The Bollywood Movie Star”.

  Twitter: @fabsnonfire | Website: www.fabsn.com

• 
  Alonso Dominguez
  

  Alonso Dominguez

  Alonso Dominguez is the co-founder and creative director of sugarhigh, an online publishing company and creative consultancy agency. Originally from Mexico City, he has called New York, Paris, London and Shanghai home. Currently based in Berlin, Alonso is presently dedicated to consulting companies and brands on creating a relationship to of-the-moment culture across a multitude of creative arenas. For his TEDx Talk, Alonso will be discussing the “topography of cool”; how something becomes culturally relevant. He is constantly working on understanding and analyzing the intricacies of contemporary culture - the places and people at the helm and their timing.

   

• 
  Peter Fenwick
  

  Peter Fenwick

  The term “crossing over” symbolizes death or near death-experiences, a topic of research that has particularly fascinated Consultant Neuropsychiatrist emeritus Peter Fenwick. Together with his wife, he has co-authored several books on the topic, carrying out research in the UK, Holland and Japan. Additionally, his interest in brain function and the problem of consciousness have been extensively researched. For twenty years he ran the Epilepsy Unit at the Maudsley Hospital and is currently the Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry and Southampton University as well as the Honorary Consultant Clinical Neurophysiologist at Broadmoor Hospital.

• 
  Yahay AlAbdeli
  

  Yahay AlAbdeli

  “After so many years of wars and living in a dictatorial regime, facing challenges every day, I want to show the world that we have enough talent and energy to build a new future” – Yahay AlAbdeli

  Forced to flee Iraq in 1979, Yahay AlAbdeli’s family was torn apart by the onset of the Iraq war. Reunited, they moved to Sweden, which became their new home. Inspired by an Arabic-language TEDx event, Yahay returned to Iraq after 34 years to successfully set up TEDxBaghdad. He currently lives in Amsterdam.