Theme: New Paradigm

New Paradigm = To make an innovative change in the basic assumptions. A radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing.

The following story from an unknown author inspired us to choose New Paradigm as our theme this year:
“A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.

The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly’s body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled. The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would open its wings and fly away.
Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shrivelled wings, incapable of flight.

What the man – out of kindness and his eagerness to help – had failed to understand was that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were Nature’s way of training the butterfly and of strengthening its wings.”

Sometimes, a little extra effort is precisely what prepares us for the New Paradigm to be faced. Anyone who refuses to make that effort, or gets the wrong sort of help, is left unprepared to think and act in a creative and innovative way and never manages to fly off to their destiny.

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پارادایم نو
پارادایم نو = ایجاد تغییری نوآورانه در پیش‌فرض‌های اساسی. ایجاد تغییر محسوس در باورهای فردی، سیستم‌ها یا سازمان‌ها و جایگزینی تفکر موجود با طرز فکری متفاوت از نظر سیستم فکری و سازماندهی.

داستان زیر از یک نویسنده گمنام الهام بخش انتخاب عنوان پارادایم نو به عنوان زمینه موضوعی امسال کنفرانس تداکس‌تهران بود:

روزی مردی ساعت‌ها به تلاش کرم ابریشمی که می‌خواست از پیله‌اش سر بیرون بزند نگاه می‌کرد. پس از تحمل سختی بسیار بالاخره کرم ابریشم موفق شد تا روزنه کوچکی در بدنه پیله بوجود آورد. اما بدن کرم بزرگتر از آن بود که از روزنه عبور کند. پس کرم ابریشم دوباره تلاش کرد. آنقدر زحمت کشید تا کاملاً خسته و بی‌رمق شد و بدون حرکت سر جای خود باقی ماند. مرد که شاهد این منظره بود، تصمیم گرفت تا به کرم ابریشم کمک کند. پس با قیچی‌ای که در جیب داشت پیله را کامل باز کرد تا کرم به راحتی بتواند از پیله خارج شود. اما، بدن پروانه کوچک و نحیف بود و بال‌هایش بسیار کوچکی بر پشت داشت.

مرد به تماشای پیله ادامه داد و امیدوار بود که هر لحظه پروانه‌ی او بال‌هایش را باز کند و پرواز را تجربه کند. اما اتفاقی نیوفتاد… در حقیقت پروانه بقیه عمر مجبور بود برای اسنکه از جایی به جای دیگر برود خود را روی زمین بکشد. این پروانه هرگز نتوانست پرواز کند. چیزی که مرد از روی مهربانی و (به حساب خود) عطوفت درک نکرده بود، این بود که پیله تنگ و تلاش‌های طاقت فرسای کرم ابریشم برای بیرون آمدن از آن، در واقع روش طبیعت بود برای اینکه پروانه را تعلیم دهد تا بال‌های قدرتمندی داشته باشد.

گاهی اوقات کمی تلاش بیشتر، چیزی است که ما را برای پذیرفتن پارادایمی نو آماده می‌کند. هر کس که از این تلاش سر باز بزند و به دنبال راه‌های میانبر غلط باشد، از داشتن روحیه خلاقانه و نوآورانه محروم می‌ماند و نمی‌تواند به سمت سونوشتش پرواز کند.

Raazi Confrence Hall
Iran University of Medical Sciences, Crossroads of Shahid Hemmat & Shahid Chamran Expressways, West Shahid Hemmat Expressway
تهران، بزرگراه شهید همت غرب، تقاطع شیخ فضل الله نوری و شهید چمران، مرکز بین المللی همایش های رازی
Tehran, Tehrān, 1449614535
Iran

Alireza Tahmasebzadeh

Entrepreneur + Researcher + Inventor

Alireza Tahmaseb is founder and CEO of Blocks Wearables, a fully customizable modular smartwatch. London-based technology start-up behind the world's first Blocks has been featured in world class media including BBC, CNBC, Guardian, Forbes, and The Telegraph. Blocks has been awarded the most disruptive start-up by the British Royal Family, has won People's choice award at Intel's Make it Wearable Challenge, and was finalist of Mayor of London's Low Carbon Competition. Blocks Smartwatch has been voted by public as one of the game-changers of wearable technology for 2015 and has won the famous Red Dot award for best design concept in 2015. Before Blocks, Alireza was a researcher in Human-Computer Interaction. Alireza has published various scientific papers, one book, and holds a number of patents and has won medals in national and international Olympiads. He studied Biomedical Engineering in Imperial College London.

Azadeh Yasaman Nabizadeh

Fashion Designer

Azadeh Yasaman Nabizadeh,born in 1978, attended a sewing class at the age of 9.Her mother made dresses for her and she did the same for her dolls! The young girl was taught by her teacher how to recognize colours at 12 which has become her permanent concern since then. The young designer held her first clothes exhibition aged 16. She took a diploma in Graphics and entered the university majoring in clothes and fabric design. Over the succeeding year, she learned to weave in the Art University. The loom was the machine with which she could display her patterns. Azadeh wove her patterns and put them on instead of hanging them on the wall. After graduating from the university, she exhibited her first woven fabric from flora, goldwork and stone embroidery, tapestry, wool, thread and silk. Subsequently, her personal style was welcomed by many visitors. a year later, the designer succeeded in finding her special costumers and market and was known as one of the leading designers.

Azita Houshiar

Food Blogger

Azita Houshiar is an Iranian American writer and illustrator and the founder and managing editor of Fig & Quince, a popular blog focusing on the food and culture of Iran. Her recipes have been widely featured, most notably in The New York Times, where it won the distinction of being one of the most popular recipes of the year. Azita holds an undergraduate degree in English literature as well as a Juries Doctorate in law. She also pursued LLM studies, specializing in intellectual property law. Among her other recent and fond projects, she counts winning the role of lead curator of an Iranian New Year Festival in New York, a festive occasion that granted her the opportunity to design installations; create artwork; and curate two weeks of diverse programming featuring the work of various Iranian artists and performers ranging in discipline from music to dance to food to storytelling and film -- all with the aim of celebrating the history and culture of Iran.

Gilda Gazor

Storyteller

Gilda Gazor was born and raised to Iranian parents in Piedmont, California, a small city in Northern California. Though she grew up in the U.S., she took an interest in her culture from an early age, playing Persian classical instruments on the piano and Santoor, while reading and writing the Persian language from the age of 10 on summer visits to Iran. She majored in Political Science and Public Policy at UCLA for her undergraduate studies and received her J.D. from Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. After passing the California Bar and practicing law, Ms. Gazor decided to continue her studies at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. She completed her L.L.M in Public Law and returned to the U.S. to teach Comparative Law with a focus on Iran and Islamic Law at Southwestern Law School.

Kiana Shafiei

Pianist + Musicologist

Kiana Shafiei is an accomplished pianist, musicologist and speaker whose performances and presentations activities have taken her to various concert venues and institutions overseas. Kiana is the recipient of several piano competition awards including the Royal College of Music Piano Concerto Competition Distinction award, the 1st Prize of the 12th Luigi Zanuccoli International Competition in Italy, three 1st Prizes of Fajr Music Festival in Iran, and others. In 2015 she was part of the jury panel for the Enkor International Piano Competition in Germany. Kiana obtained her Master degree in Piano Performance in 2014 at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London where she studied piano with John Byrne. In 2012 she received her Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours from Tehran University, faculty of Fine Arts, under the guidance of professor Raphael Minaskanian. Her piano studies began at the age of six with professor Gagik Babayan and later on with Peyman Yazdanian.

Leila Araghian

Architect

Born in Tehran in 1983, Leila holds a BA in architecture from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, an MA in membrane structures from Anhalt University in Germany and an MA from the University of British Columbia, Canada where she won the UBC architecture alumni Henry Elder prize. She wrote her thesis on "Modesty: Serendipity in Silence" which is going to be published as a book. In 2005, she co-founded Diba Tensile Architecture in Tehran, along with Alireza Behzadi, a company specializing in the design, manufacture and installation of membrane structures. In 2011 she worked as technical assistant at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Canada. She was the chief architect and the designer of the Tabi’at Bridge in Tehran, a pedestrian bridge opened in the late 2014 which won several awards, including the Popular Choice award in the Highways & Bridges category of Architizer's 2015 A+ Awards.

Mashallah Naghilou

Mountain Climber

Mashallah Naghilou was born in 1954. After finishing high school, he started actively engaging in sport by joining parachuting aero club. He started mountain climbing at the age of 20, at the same time started his university education and ascent several times to well-known peaks of Iran. By 2012, he summit Damavand fifteen times. In March 2013, he had a heart attack caused by a complete blockage of major heart vessels and had an open heart surgery to replace three of his arteries. This didn’t prevent Naghilou from pursuing his passion and after the recovery period, in summer 2014, by intense training under doctor’s supervision, he successfully summited Damavand again. Since his surgery, Naghilou’s consecutive summit to various mountains have been aimed to inspire people who had open heart surgery or went under similar circumstances.

Mohammad Ali Inanlou

Journalist and Nature Filmmaker

Mohammad Ali Inanlou is a journalist and nature filmmaker who has over fifty years of experience in writing, teaching and making films surrounding all things nature in Iran and around the globe. He has been named the best Iranology documentary director by the Cultural, Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization and has been involved in making thirty two documentaries until now. Inanlou has been the director and producer of titles such as “Iran and Iranian” and “Iran, A World In One Land”. The latter was selected four times as the best TV show by Jam-e-Jam Channel viewers. He has also been the Editor-in-Chief of magazines such as “Gardesh (Exploring)”, “Silk Road”, “Shekar-o Tabi’at (Nature & Hunting)”, and “Jahangardan (Tourists)”. Selected as a top environmentalist figure, Inanlou has been in charge of projects such as the construction of Arts & Nature Club as well as the production of a documentary from protected areas in counties of Fars, Isfahan and Gilan.

Nasser Aghdami

Stem Cell Scientist

Nasser Aghdami earned his MD degree from the Urumieh Medical University (1998), and Ph.D. in Immunology from Tarbiat Modares University (2004) in Iran. He joined the Hematology, Oncology and BMT Research Center in 2000 as a principal investigator and Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology in 2006 and published over 55 international papers and editorial boards related to Stem Cell, Clinical Trail, and Cell therapy. What's more, he is the editor of three books in Stem Cell and Regenerative Medical field. He was prestigious award from his research include young investigator in 2012 from International society for cell therapy. He has been research on stem cell biology field and now he has been doing more than 50 clinical trail in cell therapy. He was a founder in Regenerative Medicine and cell therapy department of Royan institute. Now he is a CEO of Cell Tech Pharmed Company, which is highest honor to be able converting widespread research to reality.

Sasan Behzadi

Creative Designer

Sassan Behzadi left Iran at the age of 13 to continue his education in England. He later moved to the United States where he studied Computer Science and Mathematics at University of Puget Sound in Seattle Washington. In 1996 at the onset of the Internet revolution, he started a successful web design and development company in Los Angeles. In the year 2000, he was the co-founder and CTO of a newly created startup in Santa Monica, which quickly received venture capital funding for its unique web-based CRM technology. In 2006 Sassan returned to Iran after 30 years and became co-owner and Managing Director of Parspake Digital Solutions. At Parspake, Sassan and his team, in addition to creating innovative digital campaigns for their clients, have created Iran's first online social game called "My Football Club" and the first Farsi language social messaging app called "Anar".