Theme: Community & Youth

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDxMelbourne will bring a diverse group of people together to share ideas, knowledge and inspiration through a series of events.

The 5th TEDxMelbourne event will be held on the 20th of November at the State Library of Victoria. The event will include a combination of electrifying live speakers and the famous TED Talks videos will spark deep discussion and connection around the theme of Community and Youth.

Be part of the audience for this amazing TEDxMelbourne event. The program offers an array of incredible talks and performances, with exclusive opportunities to network with the TEDxMelbourne community.

Speakers include Andrew MacLeod, Jan Owen AM, Mike Penrose, Elliot Costello, Tania Major, Lucinda Hartley, Adam Jaffrey, Amanda McKenzie, Chuck Berger and performers Radhey Gupta, Winneth Sotingco, Dig Deep, and Emilie Zoey Baker.

State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston St
Melbourne, 3000
Australia

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#MikePenrose" title="Mike Penrose">Mike Penrose</a> is Director for Emergency Programmes for Save the Children. With a background in humanitarian aid, Mike has worked in most of the major humanitarian and conflict related crises since his first mission during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. This has included the management of response programmes in over 25 countries including Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Liberia, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq and Somalia. Mike also acts as a specialist trainer on hostage survival to several Governments and large corporations since being held hostage by Chechen Rebel Fighters during the 1996 conflict.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#AndrewMacLeod" title="Andrew MacLeodr">Andrew MacLeod</a> is the CEO of the Committee for Melbourne, an independent network of Melbourne’s senior leaders who play a key role in shaping the future. In his career, Andrew has run humanitarian teams for the Red Cross and the UN globally, ideally placing him to talk about the future of business and Generation Y’s desire for social returns, as well as financial returns, and shape our future cities to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#ElliotCostello/" title="Elliot Costellor">Elliot Costello</a>, initiated an international volunteer project which lead to the formation of YGAP (Y-Generation Against Poverty) – a youth based not-for-profit organisation entirely run by volunteers. Elliot now represents the organisation as both Co-Founder and CEO. Managing volunteers across Australia, UK, Denmark and the US, Elliot is responsible for YGAP’s international project outcomes across both Africa and Southern Asia. In 2010, Elliot launched the Kinfolk Project – a cafe which channels all funds to YGAP’s international work as well as local charitable projects. Kinfolk has been recognized as one of Melbourne’s most successful social businesses.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#LucindaHartley" title="Lucinda Hartley">Lucinda Hartley</a>, 28, spent two years working in slum communities in Vietnam and Cambodia before launching Community Oriented Design – [co]design studio. Selected as a 2010 Youth Action Net Global Fellow, Lucinda has been focusing on how young people can be engaged and mobilized to improve cities and space through community oriented design. Lucinda’s commitment to sustainable design has been recognised by awards from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), Asialink Dunlop Fellowship and the internationally competitive Endeavour Executive Award. Moreover in 2009 she was profiled in FuturARC Magazine as one of the top 30 design sustainability pioneers in Asia-Pacific.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#AmandaMcKenzie" title="Amanda McKenzier">Amanda McKenzie</a> is one of Australia’s rising environmental leaders. Amanda is currently National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, which she co-founded in 2006. In three years the AYCC has grown into the nation’s largest youth run youth organisation with 56,000 individual members and 30 organisational members. Amanda represents Australian youth in discussions with Federal Ministers, State Government representatives, business and industry representatives from Australia and around the world. Amanda has been instrumental to building the global youth movement on climate change helping to organise the Global Youth Climate Conference in 2007 and 2008. Amanda contributes widely to the debate on climate change publishing in Australian and international publications. Amanda was awarded joint Young Environmentalist of the Year in 2009, holds an Australian Leadership Award form the Australian-Davos connection and was awarded the Monash University Distinguished Young Alumni award this year.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#JanOwen" title="Jan Owen AM ">Jan Owen AM</a> commenced as CEO at The Foundation for Young Australians in September 2010. She is recognised as one of the leading pioneers of Australia’s youth sector, having headed up Australia’s first youth representative bodies, as Chairperson of the National Youth Council of Australia and President of the Youth Affairs Council of Australia. Since 2002, Jan has been the Executive Director of Social Ventures Australia, an organisation that has pioneered new investment, social innovation and entrepreneurship models to increase the impact of the social sector. Prior to this, Jan founded the CREATE Foundation where she was the inaugural CEO for nine years. With over two decades of experience in these sectors, Jan has led numerous partnerships and collaborations including the National Coalition for Children and the National Children’s Summit; and, most recently, the Social Enterprise World Forum. In 2000 she received membership to the Order of Australia for service to children and young people.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#ChuckBerger" title="Charles Berger">Charles Bergerr</a> (Chuck) is Director of Strategic Ideas at the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), one of Australia’s leading environmental advocacy organisations. He leads ACF’s efforts to better align economic thought and policy with ecological and human reality, and to address the underlying drivers of environmental degradation such as unsustainable consumption, growth in resource use and population pressures. Prior to his current role, Chuck worked as a corporate lawyer in private practice in New York and Brussels, and then as ACF’s in-house lawyer for several years. He holds law degrees from Yale University and the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

<a href="http://www.tedxmelbourne.com/speakers-performers/#AdamJaffrey/" title="Adam Jaffrey">Adam Jaffrey</a> is an Anti-Violence Evangelist for the non-profit group Step Back Think. For the past 3 years, Step Back Think has been using their youthful insight to put an end to street violence, in particular alcohol-fuelled violence. The organisation was founded after a close friend of the group was assaulted in Melbourne’s CBD and left with a permanent Acquired Brain Injury. This tragedy motivated the group to tackle the issue of street violence from many angles including legislative changes to liquor laws, partnering with national sporting icons and launching a pilot education program. Adam led the change in many of these programs and is excited to be involved with many new projects commencing in the coming months.