Theme: 10th Annual TEDxBrentwoodCollegeSchool!

We celebrate the 10th Annual Brentwood TEDx with 9 speakers covering an array of topics ranging from AI to Web 3, Beauty: A Users Guide to Learning Good Things from Bad Places.

2735 Mount Baker Road
Mill Bay, British Columbia, V0R 2P1
Canada

Dara Miao

Student

Dara is a Grade 11 Brentwood student from British Columbia, Canada. Fueled by a passion for sports instilled by her father at a young age, Dara is an aspiring golfer, swimmer, volleyball player, and skier. She is a very sociable person who also enjoys competing in public speaking and debate. In the future, she aspires to pursue a career in business or law.

John Luna

Artists & Teacher

John Luna is a visual artist, teacher, poet and critic. He has taught art and art history at Brentwood College School for twelve years and was part of the founding faculty of the Vancouver Island School of Art. He holds a Master’s Degree in Visual Art from the University of Calgary and is the author of one full-length book of poetry, Listings (2015). His ongoing visual arts project addressing the intergenerational effects of PTSD, The Servant, has been supported by two Project Assistance grants from the BC Arts Council. He resides as a settler in the unceded traditional territory of Cowichan peoples known as Hul'qumi'num or Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia.

Karis Merrifield

Student

Karis Merrifield is a senior at Brentwood College School who enjoys dance, music and creative writing. When she has a moment to relax she loves watching her favourite TV shows. At her core, Karis is a leader and is inspired by helping others. Karis is looking forward to pursuing a career in elementary education after she graduates.

Lauren Capern

Student - Conservation Activist

Lauren Capern is an avid reader. You can often find her outside, nose deep in a Harry Potter book or talking about her love of Star Wars. Born and raised in Toronto, the now Cowichan Bay inhabitant enjoys the colour green and hanging out with her puppy Luna. She is the Captain of Environmental Advocacy and is always willing to engage in lively discussions about a multitude of topics, including but not limited to her passion for sustainability, her love of cheese and her wonderful and supportive friends.

Renata Lewis

Doctor

Dr. Renata Lewis is an emergency physician, long-time search and rescue technician, guide, and the founder and CEO of Airwolf Medical, a medical and safety consulting company. She has intertwined the fields of cutting-edge medicine, with daring on-the-edge mountain rescues, to-the-edge heliskiing and wilderness guiding, and at-the-edge-of-your-seat TV and Film work as both an onscreen doctor and leading medical safety roles (“Alone”, National Geographic, Madison Square Gardens Entertainment/ Sphere’s “Postcard From Earth”, “SAS: Who Dares Win”), and as a contract helicopter stuntwoman, in TV series and documentaries, and appearing in major product commercials. As a medical specialist in remote and risky environments, she is also a sought-after advisor to the adventure tourism industry, private organizations, and various government agencies, where she combines her unique combination and breadth of skills with a goal to keep anyone safe, anywhere.

Rory Capern

Technology Expert

Rory Capern works with Canadian technology companies at various growth stages, to get to the next level. He harnesses experience from a career in executive leadership positions with some of the largest and fastest-scaling technology companies in the world. For the last two decades, Rory has held senior Executive positions with global technology platforms - Microsoft, Google, and Twitter - and some of Canada’s fastest growth technology companies - The Weather Network, Certn and Redbrick. Before assuming GM roles he held functional management roles in Strategic Sales, Business Development, and Partnerships. Rory is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Ivey School of Business at Western University, and at Alacrity Canada (Venture Fund in Victoria, BC). He is a Techstars Toronto mentor, and an angel investor.

Ryan Knighton

Blind author, screenwriter, journalist, performer

Ryan Knighton is an internationally acclaimed blind author, screenwriter, journalist and performer. His two memoirs, Cockeyed (Penguin) and C'mon Papa (Knopf), both received numerous award nominations, including the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. A contributor to the American radio programs This American Life and The Moth, Knighton has also written for The New York Times, Outside, Esquire, The Globe and Mail, Popular Mechanics, The Walrus, The Observer, The Believer, Men's Health, Vice, The Sunday Telegraph and The National Post, among many others. As a contributing editor to Afar magazine, Knighton’s travel writing has taken him around the world, from Bhutan’s Himalayan temples to Zimbabwe’s game reserves, from Cairo’s Arab Spring to Helsinki’s saunas, his journalism earning him two Thomas Lowell Awards, an Eddie/Aussie Award and a James Beard Media Award nomination.

Sarah Wolinsky

Mathematics Teacher

As is perhaps stereotypical or at least emblematic of her generation, Sarah meandered about in her young adulthood, searching for the meaning of life or at least a job that could pay rent in Toronto; she picked up a teaching degree with a specialization in outdoor and experiential education and then pivoted into a Masters of History where she worked with some of the first historians of the internet, focusing on Japanese-American transculturation in online fandom spaces in the late 90s and early 2000s. The obvious next step in all of this was, of course, to move to the West Coast to teach high school math and houseparent 80 teenage boys, who were not quite as dazzled as she had hoped by her encyclopedic knowledge of Barbie animated films. If she had taken a slightly different path in 2003, she may have ended up a professional DOTA player, a fact which troubles her greatly.

Zheng Yang

Zheng Yang (Garma Simha) is a grade 12 student at Brentwood College School from Kham, Tibet. Aside from the rigorous works of academics in Brentwood, Zheng likes to spend his free time exploring and experimenting with all genres of music, on all sorts of instruments. He loves performing and jamming with friends. As a band leader, he organizes music performances around the campus and is often recognized as ‘The Bass Guy.’ While he enjoys his role as the permanent bassist of Brentwood, he is very jealous of musicians who have the freedom to escape the constant playing of root notes…