Speakers

What is the different between a daydream and a vision? Why do some ideas seem to take off like a rocket all by themselves and others gather dust on the launch pad? What happens when we share them with others? Entrepreneur and adventurer Jim Prescott takes us on a journey to the Nevada Desert in a wind wagon to explore how visions become realities and how daydreams become life’s adventures.

Russian-born musician Annushka brings people together by crossing musical borders. She sings in ten languages and blends Russian folklore, upbeat Latino rhythms and grandiose brass, producing a gratifying and energetic feel with a hint of both humor and depth. Annushka comes from Murmansk, home to breathtaking northern lights and harsh but incredibly beautiful, snowy winters. Through her music she wishes to spread beauty and harmony, and touch us deep inside.

Captivated by the beauty of the night sky at the age of 5, Wouter Vlemmings tries to now understand the processes that shape the Universe around us. As an astronomer at Chalmers University of Technology and Onsala Space Observatory, he uses the most modern astronomical equipment, spread across the world. With this, he studies, for example, how stars like our Sun die and how their death affects the next generation of young stars. Much of the excitement of research comes from making new discoveries and from confronting the unexpected, as with every answer often comes a new questions.

Do you wish for a better memory? Idriz ”the Memory” Zogaj can memorize a deck of cards in three minutes, or more than a thousand binary numbers in one hour. His memory skills has given him many titles in international competitions and placed Sweden on 5th place in the Memory World Cup. Idriz is passionate about teaching others how to improve their memories. He has created a game and written books for both grown ups and children, and believes that with the right practice, almost everyone could get a super-memory.

To Sandra Petojevic the world appears differently than it does to most people. She has Asperger syndrome, and her "unusual" ways of interpreting and expressing feelings has shown her how official misconduct, intolerance and prejudices can ruin things and lead to conflicts. Sandra works with nautical chart correction but has also published a fantasy trilogy – simply because writing is her way of coping with reality. Her books offer new perspectives and show that there are many ways of looking at the world.

Radioactive orchestra is a cross-boundary collaboration of nuclear physicists, a DJ and one media artist. The project wishes to inspire young people to learn about the natural sciences, but it also has an artistic aim to find new musically interesting patterns. By giving every radioactive isotop its own sound based on scientific algorithms they turn nuclear science into music, hence making a world available to us that our senses can not otherwise percieve.

Why do we live in stacks of boxes? Torsten Ottesjö is a 30 year old architect and lumberjack who has tried to create environments where we can live. Torsten works through a continual process of improvisation, using raw materials to create complex patterns and environments which reach beyond our understanding of what a room can be.

Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson is a Professor of Transplantation Biology at the University of Gothenburg. Her team was the first ever to create tailor-made blood vessels in a laboratory, using the patient’s own stem cells. As a teenager she decided she wanted to improve life quality for sick people through research. With the first tissue-engineered transplantation her goal seems well achieved. But to Suchitra, this is only the beginning of a new exciting era, where the recycling and re-design of human organs offers hope and life to many people.

Can you imagine an edible city? Klara Hansson can. She is a young visionary, engineer and permaculturist who just cannot stop DOING things. Together with thousands of people around the world she is part of an unnamed, self-establishing movement of 21st century City Gardeners. The Edible City is a vision of a future where everyone can eat what grows in the city – and where the knowledge of how to feed oneself will not be forgotten. Perhaps the recipe to a thriving environment is you swapping apples for tomatoes with your neighbour?

Since Emil Johansson was eleven years old he has been passionate about J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. Today this young creative is also a photographer and engineering student, but still he has found the time to read every book there is about Middle-earth; the world where The Lord of the Rings takes place. In January he published his website consisting of a giant family tree of all the characters living there. The site has received lots of media attention, internet fame and internationally labeled Emil a geek. The latter only encouraging him to expand his creative presence on the web.

When Martha was 30 years she was diagnosed with cancer in the vital organs of the body. She had one chance; to have a five organ transplant. Today she has won five gold medals in the World transplant games – one for each organ. She is alive because someone had decided to become an organ donor. Her experience made her initiate the creation of MOD, a new initiative to raise awareness for the question of organ donation and get more people to become donors. Martha has confronted death, was given a new chance at life and has made a remarkable return. But how do you thank someone for your life?

Pelle Hanæus is a Swedish actor and theatre director who knows how laughter can spur hope even in the most challenging places. Since 1996 he has been involved in Clowns without borders, an organization that offers laughter to relieve the suffering of all persons, especially children, who live in areas of crisis. Pelle has directed clown-tours in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, and currently prepares one for refugee children in Sweden. He wants to show how, through engagement and imagination, each and every one of us can make the world a little bit brighter.

How can herring farts in the Stockholm archipelago almost lead to a diplomatic crisis? Or a bra be converted into a gas mask in case of emergency? To Magnus Wahlberg this is everyday stuff, and proof that science doesn’t have to be dull to be important. He is a biologist and Scandinavian desk chief of the science humor magazine Annals of improbable research, and has himself been awarded the Ig Nobel Prize (for those herring farts). It is an alternative Nobel Prize that honors achievements that first make people laugh, and then think. With his speech, Magnus wants us to do just that.

Can you play tennis without seeing? Swedish musician and electronic producer Håkan Lidbo is always on the lookout for new challenges. With his project InvisiBall he has created a tennis game where you rely solely on your hearing. It is played blindfolded or by blind people. Your racket becomes a musical instrument and your movements create a greater composition. There seem to be no limits to Håkan’s musical excursions, and he now presents a whole new way of combining sports and music.

28 years old Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof started in advertising as a young girl and has since started and sold a strategic communications company carrying out campaigns for the US Military in war-ravaged Afghanistan, and then a second one in Libya and Egypt during the Arab Spring. During her work she was exposed to the challenges of assisting in building and overthrowing governments, and the international systems and dynamics. Hence she is now exploring alternatives to the current nation-state system, specifically non-territorial corporate states.

Would you run an ultramarathon in high alpine terrain? Or is that beyond your borders? For Magnus Berglund nothing is impossible, and when he doesn’t challenge himself running, he pushes his limits by working as a marketing strategist. He is a problem solver with no sense of limits, neither mentally nor physically. For TEDxGöteborg Magnus has prepared a traditional test – in an untraditional way.

Started as a graffiti writer at age 14 while living in Los Angeles. Shai has always challenged himself to find new ways of creating public art. Currently, he lives in Borås, Sweden with his wife and two dogs. In May 2012, Shai traveled to a conflict-driven region of Israel to take part of a creative collaboration and an art journey. As he became part of this journey, Shai realized that this project was more than just drawing a painting on a wall. It became a journey for finding hope in a land where optimism seemed to have vacated long ago.

A self proclaimed “Digital Philosopher”, researcher, visionary, and strategist. From top notch companies to the pizza place around the corner, Aric has helped clients reinventing the next thing digital. Aric sees possibilities importing emotional wisdom to technology around us. Not to teach it how to think, feel and understand things exactly like us. Rather to pave bypass roads that can bring results equal-value to understanding, feeling and thinking.