Theme: Maverick Moments

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).

The Nueva School
131 E. 28th Ave.
San Mateo, California, 94403
United States

Andrea Steele

Founder of Emerge America

Andrea Dew Steele is the founder of Emerge. She is a passionate advocate for increasing the number of women in elected office at every level and is motivated by a life-long commitment to progressive politics and change. Struck by the incredible lack of women holding elected office at the local level in San Francisco, Andrea co-founded Emerge California in 2002 to lead the fight to get more women elected to office in Northern California. Andrea worked tirelessly to develop a top-notch training program, and in 2005 she founded Emerge America to replicate the model in all 50 states. Emerge currently has affiliates in 25 states across the country with plans to expand in the future. Andrea is very active in the Democratic Party and regularly lends her expertise to women candidates at the local, state and national level. When not helping candidates and causes, Andrea lives for the outdoors and can be found hiking, biking and playing tennis with her husband, three children, and dog, Luna.

David Lee

CFO of Impossible Foods

David is the CFO of Impossible Foods. He led the business functions as COO from 2015- 2019, helping transform Impossible from pre-revenue to hyper-growth with global sales, commercial manufacturing, and supply chain capability. He has successfully raised over $650 million debt and equity to fund commercialization. Previously as CFO of Zynga, David was responsible for leading the finance and corporate development teams. Prior to Zynga, David led corporate finance and strategy for Best Buy during its turnaround in 2013. He previously led the $2b topline set of brands at Del Monte Foods as SVP of Consumer Products, consummating in the take-private transaction of Del Monte Foods to KKR for $5.5 billion. His prior experience includes leading PG&E’s turnaround during the California Energy Crisis, strategy consulting at McKinsey, venture capital investing, and advertising at the Leo Burnett Company. David received his MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Harvard College.

Ivan Ravlich

Co-Founder of Hypernet Labs

Ivan Ravlich is founder and CEO of Hypernet Labs and a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum. His research has spanned several scientific and technological disciplines, including chemical engineering, materials science, aerospace engineering, and theoretical physics.

Jessica Pointing

Student at Stanford University

Jessica Pointing has engaged in quantum computing research at Stanford University, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is currently a Ph.D. student specializing in quantum computing at Stanford University and has been awarded the Knight-Hennessy Fellowship. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Computer Science, with high honors and as a John Harvard Scholar, at Harvard University after spending her first two years of university studies at MIT. Jessica was selected for the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the Science category. She founded the Stanford and Harvard College Quantum Computing Associations, which have over 500 members. Jessica has been invited to speak about quantum computing at conferences around the world, including the USA, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, and Lithuania. Her talks include IBM’s annual conference, Oracle’s Code One conference, and as a panelist at the Forbes CIO Summit.

Julie Bornstein

Founder and CEO of The Yes

Julie Bornstein has spent her career at the intersection of retail and technology. She is currently the Founder and CEO of The Yes, a start-up building the next generation of E-commerce. Until the fall of 2017, she served as the COO and board member of Stitch Fix (2012-17), helping to grow the company to $1b in revenue and prepare for an IPO. Prior to her time at Stitch Fix, Julie served as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Digital Officer at Sephora (2007-15), where she oversaw the growth of the #1 prestige beauty business, building and running Sephora.com and Sephora's loyalty program, Beauty Insider. Julie served as head of E-commerce for Urban Outfitters (2005-07) and built Nordstrom.com (2000-05) into an early online powerhouse. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for two public companies, Redfin and Weight Watchers, and as an advisor to multiple start-ups. Julie has a BA and MBA from Harvard and lives in Hillsborough with her husband and two children, Lucy and Sam.

Manohar Paluri

Director of AI at Facebook

Manohar Paluri is a Director in Facebook AI. He manages the Computer Vision efforts on the applied side. His team focuses on powering images/video recognition systems at Facebook and hundreds of products used by more than 2B people every day. Before Facebook, Manohar worked at Google, IBM, and Stanford Research Institute and was in the PhD program at Georgia Tech.

Prasad Akella

Founder and CEO of Drishti

Dr. Prasad Akella has the distinction of creating two massive market categories that use technology to extend human capabilities. In the 1990s, Prasad led the General Motors team that built the world’s first collaborative robots (“cobots”, projected to be a $12B market by 2025). In the early 2000s, as cofounder of the social networking pioneer Spoke, he envisioned and helped build the first massive social graph — a category that is now worth trillions. Today, Prasad is targeting his third category creation at Drishti. This time, he is working to combine the cognition of AI with the flexibility of humans in factories. Dr. Akella has been awarded two US patents, with several more in process, and has published in a number of technical journals. Prasad holds a PhD in Robotics from Stanford University, an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School, and a BS from the Indian Institute of Technology.