Theme: Hide or Seek

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Mershon Auditorium
1871 North High St
Columbus, Ohio, 43210
United States

3D Urban Dance Team

Dancers, Artistic Creators, Teachers

3D Urban Dance Team is a student organization at The Ohio State University founded in 2001 by University Alumna Tiffany Bivins. The team uses a fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and urban dance styles in their movements to create dynamic routines that not only wow the audience, but showcases their member’s passion and love for dance. Part of their mission is to embrace a variety of dance styles and showcase diversity through art. 3D Urban can be seen performing around Ohio State’s campus at the homecoming parade, Buckeyethon, and their annual Spring Showcase as well as other events in the university as well as Columbus community. They strive to provide high quality performances that will inspire and leave their audience wanting to see more!

Armond Wimberly

Student

Armond Wimberly is currently a 4th year Music Education Major at The Ohio State University.In addition to being a full time student, Armond is also the Vice President of the OSU Yoga Club and Interim Orchestra Director of Urban Strings Columbus - a youth orchestra that strives to promote more racial diversity in orchestras while preserving the music of African-American artists/composers. Armond began his musical endeavors at the age of 12, when he picked up the violin. Armond also would begin to compose and arrange his own music. In May 2012 at the age of 15, Armond was granted the unique opportunity to conduct the Toledo Symphony as they performed his arrangement of Adele songs. In June 2016, he would venture down to Washington D.C. as a member of NAFME (National Association for Music Education) to speak with state legislators about the importance of fully funding the Every Student Succeeds Act. Armond is strongly committed to using music as a device to enact social change.

CarolineInspires Bennett

Unapologetic Deviant, Soulful Artist, Provocative Stimulator

"CarolineInspires" Bennett is devoted to affirming the lives of Black girls inside AND outside of the academy. Inspired by her realities and dreams her passion, purpose, and hustle in life illuminates the lived experiences of Black girls and their truths. She uses spoken word, story-telling and song as tools of liberation and resistance to join with Black girls who have been silenced by their past and/or paralyzed by their fear. As a Black woman, her status as a first-generation graduate student pursuing a Master's in Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University on a full-ride scholarship has afforded her a unique “outside-within” status. Caroline acknowledges how her journey to self has been far from easy yet it has been more than worth it and beautiful.

Doug Hardtmayer

Student

Doug Hardtmayer is a current graduate student studying nuclear engineering at The Ohio State University. Doug has been interested in nuclear power from a very young age and has been studying it ever since. Since coming to Ohio State, his primary research focus has been in radiation detection and waste management, focusing mainly on pyroprocessing. While waste management is his main focus, he has also been involved and conducted research in health physics, radiation therapy, and radiochemistry fields. He also hosts and produces a podcast titled “RadioNuclear”, which discusses nuclear issues with various industry professionals, and serves to offer insight on the industry. After graduation, Doug will begin working at MPR Associates in Alexandria Virginia, where he hopes to work on some of the most challenging engineering issues facing the nuclear industry.

Dr. Dennis Ong

Internet of Things Developer

Dr. Dennis Ong is Distinguished Architect and Managing Principal at Verizon. Previously, he served as Chief Architect and Director at Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Lucent, and AT&T. He and his teams have launched many innovative and award-winning solutions combining the strengths of high tech companies and multitude of start-up companies. At Verizon, he is working with startups to utilize IoT and Machine Learning to create Smart City solutions to address the most challenging problems facing cities and municipalities. At Nokia, he led a recently acquired start-up to develop the IoT IMPACT platform which received the ""Best IoT Innovation for Mobile Networks"" award at the 2017 Mobile World Congress. At Alcatel-Lucent, he and his team collaborated with three start-ups, based in India, Israel, and Silicon Valley, in creating a highly scalable video optimization and analytics platform that served tens of millions of mobile subscribers worldwide.

Eleni Christodulelis

pragmaticist, sociolinguist, educator

Eleni Christodulelis is a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics and a Graduate Teaching Associate in Spanish at OSU. Raised in a Greek/English bilingual home, the presence of her heritage language in her early childhood sparked her interest in language as a whole and exposed her to the importance of multilingual competence. She learned Spanish early in her schooling in Southern California and Portuguese in college, and it was in these latter years that her main research focus, and the topic of her TEDx talk, was cultivated. Eleni strives to share her appreciation of language as a key to the workings of the human mind with the students in her upper level undergraduate Hispanic Linguistics courses. She believes that our shared ability to interpret contextualized meaning irrespective of our individual language backgrounds speaks to the indivisible connection between language and its use in social interaction.

John Arcadian

Writer, Gamer, Art-Director, Kilt-Wearer

John Arcadian is a writer, art director, and freelancer in the tabletop role-playing game industry. John has been writing gaming books and material for 15 years, and is the owner of Gnome Stew — a multiple award winning industry blog. John's work in tabletop gaming focuses on the social situations connected to the games we play, and how those experiences can give insight into our personal growth. John has written and produced many books of gaming advice and content (The Book of the Tarrasque, Focal Point, Fated Minions of the Source, Masks, Unframed, et. al) and has art directed many more (Odyssey, Never Unprepared, Life and Moon, Rockerboys & Vending Machines, .et al). John has previously shared his thoughts on gaming and its social impact as a Featured Presenter at the Midwest PCA/ACA Conference in 2012 and at the P/ACA in the South in 2013. When John isn't writing in the tabletop role-playing game industry, he works as a front end web developer.

Jos C.N. Raadschelders

Professor, Associate Dean for Faculty

Dr. Raadschelders is a professor of public administration and serves as the associate dean of faculty development at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. He has been a faculty member since 1983, and has taught at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands and the University of Oklahoma before coming to the Ohio State University. His interests include administrative history, the role and position of government in societies, comparative government and anything else that appears intriguing. He loves teaching undergraduate and graduate students and mid-career professionals, and hopes they will never to lose (or will find again) their "hunger-puppyness," the childlike curiosity that keeps one searching for answers and, more importantly, is vital for keeping in open mind. Living a comparative perspective has certainly helped with the latter. In his private time he plays cards and board games with his family, makes rugs, and (less than he'd like) plays classical guitar.

Kimothy Wu

Student, Artist

Kimothy Wu is a fourth year international student majoring in Strategic Communication. Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, she was plucked from her home country (and overweight beagle pup) and whisked away to the world of Ohio, where her love for the arts was uncovered and flourished. Kimothy is a self-taught digital artist and her personal motto in life is: “Live life meaningfully” and one of the ways she finds meaning is to create meaning in the lives she encounters. A large part of her artworks goes toward fundraising endeavours and activism in the realms of environmental sustainability, the protection of endangered animal species, education, disaster relief and mental health.

Malia Lee Womack

Survivor

Malia Lee Womack earned a BA from UC Berkeley in Gender and Women’s Studies with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice, and an MA from Columbia University in Human Rights Studies with an emphasis in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is currently pursuing a joint MA/PhD degree at Ohio State University in Latin American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (respectively). Womack challenges the field of human rights’ normative universalizing discourses, and advocates for revisions that take into account globalized power inequalities and the complex needs of marginalized communities and individuals. Her work experience ranges from community outreach and education, working to eradicate poverty and to increase women’s rights, combatting sexual, relationship and domestic violence, working for the United Nations, and spearheading diverse initiatives locally and abroad to improve the lived experiences of disadvantaged communities.

Michael Shirzadian

Posthuman

Michael Shirzadian is a PhD student in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy. His research orbits contemporary rhetorical theory, disability studies, and critical race theory—especially the ways these areas intersect with the logics of political economy. Michael is a posthuman—an amalgam of many things, including: American and Iranian culture, caring family members, way too visits to Chipotle, the city of Columbus and its history, anxiety, depression, a mean cocktail of SSRIs, a number of super good friends, the legacies of Christian evangelicalism, racism (esp. after 9/11), too many graduate courses, a kickass partner, a tuxedo cat, a great Pyrenees dog, the excesses of post-structuralist philosophy, and a deep, unwieldy nostalgia. This is a partial list."

Peeyush Shrivastava

Medical device entrepreneur and telescope whisperer

Peeyush Shrivastava is the Founder and CEO of Genetesis, a clinical-stage medical device company based out of Mason, Ohio. Peeyush and his co-founders started Genetesis out of their dorm rooms in 2013, and have since grown the company to over 20 employees with over $7 million in aggregate financing to date. Peeyush and the Genetesis team are creating novel biomagnetic imaging technologies to detect, diagnose and enable treatment for the world’s most debilitating diseases, starting with the Faraday Magnetocardiograph, a solution to rapidly detect coronary artery disease. The company’s work has been featured in CNN Money, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, MedCityNews and VentureBeat. In 2017, Peeyush took a leave of absence from The Ohio State University’s undergraduate biomedical science program to build the company full-time as a Thiel Fellow. Unsurprisingly, he is also a nerd in his spare time; when not working with his team, he can be found tinkering with his telescopes.

Shahid Nimjee

Neurosurgeon, Scientist, Educator

Dr. Nimjee is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He is one of 3 dual-trained vascular neurosurgeons in central Ohio treating patients with vascular disorders of the brain and spine. His research career started as an undergraduate at Yale University, after which he completed a combined MD and PhD with a focus on molecular genetics at Duke University Medical Center. He remained at Duke where he completed his residency in neurosurgery, a post-doctoral research fellowship and clinical fellowships in open and endovascular neurosurgery. He was recruited to The Ohio State in 2014 and leads a translational research lab focused on discovering more effective and safer therapies to treat patients suffering from stroke and other thrombotic diseases. His lab has developed the first antidote-controlled clot-busting drug that has demonstrated superior efficacy to current therapy in pre-clinical models.