Theme: Make|Believe!

The fifth anniversary event of TEDxConstitutionDrive will be a special one! It takes place at the fabulous classic car warehouse and winery Auto-Vino in Menlo Park, California (205 Constitution Drive). Wine-tasting and car-viewing will be offered alongside intriguing ideas and wonderful speakers in this special TEDx event. TEDxConstitutionDrive strives to be an intimate and low-key event where people who can engage with other attendees and hold real conversations.

The themes of previous years have been TRUST [2010], IDENTITY [2012], TIME [2013], and WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE [2014].

Learn about previous years' events at: http://www.tedxconstitutiondrive.com/

We are excited to announce the theme of this year's TEDxConstitutionDrive: Make|Believe!

For our special fifth anniversary event, we wanted to go back into the realms of imagination that we loved growing up - in childhood days where you can make anything, believe everything, and dreams could come true. We will have speakers who will remind us what we are capable of -- from metalworkers and artists, to writers who craft fanciful and strangely believable tales, to normal people with extraordinary stories to tell. This is the TEDx to go to if you feel like you have strayed too far from who you were meant to be. Come along with us and our speakers on a journey of mind and matter, heart and hand, and we'll come back together to remember how to have wonderful adventures once again.

Follow along on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TEDxConsDrive or like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/tedxconstitutiondrive.

About TEDxConstitutionDrive
TEDxConstitutionDrive is a non-profit program fiscally sponsored by Philanthro Productions, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization – Tax ID: 20-8695723. Ticket fees will go towards event planning and speaker expenses.

Auto-Vino
205 Constitution Drive
Menlo Park, California, 94025
United States

Flaming Lotus Girls

Flaming Lotus Girls is a volunteer-based group of artists who make large-scale kinetic fire art. Over half of our ~100 members are women, but we welcome all genders to create interactive large-scale fire sculptures that are both visually stunning and engaging, inviting people to become part of the art. We approach our collaborations through a unique design methodology with a hyper-fluid organizational structure. We work together in an egalitarian fashion, accepting input from anyone who participates. All creative decisions are made collaboratively, and our pieces are designed, built, repaired, packed, and installed by a crew of passionate volunteers.

HUGE

Anthony Veneziale, freestyling by Two Touch, is a producer of PBS’ relaunch of The Electric Company and has appeared in films (e.g. Che, Hereafter) and TV shows (e.g. All My Children, Sex and the City). Two Touch is resident host, exec producer, and founding father of Freestyle Love Supreme. He has taught improv for 15 years specializing in “improv thinking” on camera performance and freestyle rapping, incl. at the P.I.T. in NYC, United Nations, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Speechless. Chris Libby graduated Emerson College with a B.F.A. in Acting. He worked with Kristen Linklater, Del Close, David Mamet, and the Bread and Puppet Theater; took master classes at the Celebration Barn Theater with Tony Montanaro; and studied Commedia Dell’Arte and musical theater writing with SF Mime Troupe. He collaborated as writer, performer, and producer for dance company Bow and Sparrow and aerial burlesque troupe Cirque Noir. He helped start the SF Improv Festival. He currently teaches for Speechless.

HUGE: Anthony Veneziale & Chris Libby

Anthony, freestyling by Two Touch, is a producer, writer, director and actor. He is a producer of PBS’ relaunch of the Electric Company and has appeared in film (e.g. Che, Hereafter) and TV (e.g. All My Children, Sex and the City). He is host, producer and a founding father of Freestyle Love Supreme. Passionate about arts education, he has taught improv for 15 years specializing in on-camera performance and freestyle rapping, incl. at P.I.T., United Nations, Stanford, Berkeley & Speechless. Chris holds a B.F.A. in Acting from Emerson, having worked with Kristen Linklater, Del Close, David Mamet, and Bread and Puppet Theater, with master classes at Celebration Barn Theater with Tony Montanaro. He studied Commedia Dell’Arte and musical theater writing with SF Mime Troupe, and collaborated as writer, performer and producer for Bow and Sparrow and aerial burlesque troupe Cirque Noir. He has performed improv/sketch for 20 years and helped start SF Improv Festival. He teaches at Speechless

Justin Ancheta / Honey of the Heart

Justin Ancheta is positively-charged, high-energy music from the Bay Area. Bringing together exotic world sounds with some heavy doses of funk and reggae, lacing socially-conscious lyrics with guitar melodies over a steady foundation of drums, percussion, and bass, he creates a rhythm bed for everyone to enjoy. Locally acclaimed, Ancheta plays venues such as the Independent, Yoshi’s, and the Great American Music Hall, while his tour schedule has taken him from Barcelona to Hawaii. After more than a decade of shows and touring, he has shared the stage with The Wailers, Joan Baez, and Charles Neville to name a few. Ancheta laces lyrics and vision for a positive future through music and actions.

Luke Iseman & Heather Stewart

Luke Iseman is chief technology officer and cofounder of growerbot, a wireless soil sensor for small gardens and farms, which helps regular people grow their own produce. He is passionate about using open source hardware and the physical computing revolution to build a more sustainable world. He has invented an automated gardening computer, built and managed a fleet of 25 pedicabs, and written a book about travelling the world. His projects have been covered by publications like Make Magazine, Wired, Treehugger and TechCrunch. WEBSITE: http://www.growerbot.com/ Heather is a co-founder of Boxouse, a company that converts shipping containers into tiny off grid houses. She also manages a small container village in Oakland. After graduating with a degree in art, Heather went to run horse farms around the U.S, learned to welding in a field in Kenya while supporting a biochar start-up and eventually made her way to Oakland where she has been working on a variety of design/ build projects.

Chelsea Rustrum

Chelsea Rustrum is the co-author of It’s a Shareable Life, a practical guide to the sharing economy, as well as a consultant, connector, and practitioner in the space. She both lives and works in the sharing economy, with specific interests in how the sharing can be built into every day life through housing. Chelsea also founded several related event series, including the Sharers of San Francisco, a 900+ person community with educational and social events discussing business trends and the future of the sharing economy. Using everything she’s learned about the sharing economy, Chelsea’s currently working on bringing a tiny house village to life, integrating minimalism and shared resources with a rich community that focuses creating deeper connections and experiences. She’s been quoted in TechCrunch, Inc. Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes, among others.

Chris Pan

Chris is founder of The MyIntent Project which is asking the world “What’s Your WORD?” with the mission of being a catalyst for meaningful conversations and positive energy? Your word is something you want to have more of in your life or a challenge you want to overcome. We then hand-stamp each person’s response into a wearable bracelet or necklace as a daily reminder and conversation starter. Previously, Chris spent 4 years at Facebook growing users, advertisers, Page admins (organizations and celebrities), and mobile users.Before that, Chris was a Marketing Director at PepsiCo and a senior consultant at McKinsey. He has played guitar in a cover band with fellow Facebook execs called feedbomb, produced many unique events, and guest lectured at high school and college classes. Chris holds an MBA from Harvard focused on marketing, a B.S. in Psychobiology from Ohio State University, and completed the Hoffman Process.

David Barzelay

A self-taught super chef, David Barzelay knows good food. When the 2009 crisis hit, he was left with a severance package and passion to start anew. After a year of hosting multi-course dinner parties in their home under the moniker Lazy Bear, he took a leap of faith and moved to a warehouse. As word of mouth spread, he was soon serving 40 people a night. With the success of the 5-year-old underground operation, he opened a permanent space to give guests an enhanced experience while maintaining the open communal aspects of the pop-up. “I started Lazy Bear as a huge food geek because I loved food, and every format decision we’ve made along the way has been about appealing to people who love food and want to celebrate it,” he says. Barzelay is thrilled to finally have a space that is truly Lazy Bear. When not hosting his 10 dinner parties a week, Barzelay can be found sourcing ingredients at various local markets, or spending time with his wife Jeanette and baby son Arthur.

Duleesha Kulasooriya

Duleesha Kulasooriya is the lead strategist for Deloitte’s Center for the Edge – a Silicon Valley-based research institute exploring the edges of business and technology. They explore how the world is changing in very dramatic ways as a result of evolving digital infrastructure and liberalizing public policy, and its implications to individuals and institutions. Duleesha led the team to develop the Shift Index, a new set of metrics to supplement current economic indicators in assessing the rate of change in the world around us, and has also researched, written and spoken extensively about the pathways to moving from static to dynamic performance ecosystems, emerging business landscapes, rethinking the role of firm and individuals in the form of institutional innovation, and relevance of ‘edges’ such as the Maker Movement, Sharing Economy & Burning Man. Duleesha grew up in Sri Lanka and now lives in SF with his wife, exuberant 5-year-old, toddler twins and a cat that thinks it is a dog.

Jason Ragosta

Jason started his career in stop motion animation as a storyboard and concept artist at Wreckless Abandon Studios. He then went on to work as a writer, director, and director of photography, on various independent films, music videos, and commercials, including work he has done as concept artist for Pandora FX. After recently partnering up with Christopher Logan to create Harbinger Game Studios, Jason has been writing and art directing their first game as well as completing preproduction on the Pandora FX short horror Oculus VR film, The Ballad of Celia Lee.

Jeannette Michels

Jeannette Michels, co-founded, built, invented and owns PackIt, a multi-million dollar consumer goods company that was just named the 26th Fastest Growing Company by Inc. Magazine. She currently is also a consultant for Global Icons, a brand licensing agency that represents companies such as Ford, BMW, and Ironman the account Jeannette is working on. A well-accomplished entrepreneur and business veteran with over 16 years of executive experience, Jeannette brings a wealth of experience to the consumer goods industry, most evident in her successful brand development and marketing. Jeannette’s capacity to develop cutting-edge technology is matched only by her intuitive understanding of product design trends. Jeannette led PackIt to attain global recognition in 2012 by IHA as a “Green House” award finalist, earning the accolades by national media outlets – put simply by the Chicago Sun Times as the “perfect” product.

Jeffrey Zygmunt

Born and raised in Minnesota, I went to SF to study at the Academy of Art at 18. I was on track to move into the commercial art world. During my Senior year, I got a sculpting position for Curt Chiarelli, a leader in the toy and entertainment industry. I loved being able to tell a story through sculpture and Curt brought me to a new level. After graduating, I quickly realized fine art sculpting is where my real passion lay, so I became a sculpting assistant with Bruce Wolfe, working on a larger than life sculpture of Cesar Chavez. At the base, I made four relief sculptures depicting different environments of Farmworkers and Cesar Chavez. Working with Bruce Wolfe was great because I developed a new understanding of the human body and how to make the sculpture grab the eye. In 2008 I studied at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy, where I expanded my knowledge of sculpture. This was a monumental time as I was able to visit all the museums in Florence and work on my art in the same day.

LisaRuth Elliott

LisaRuth Elliott is a community historian, baker, urban farmer, everyday bicyclist, international disaster relief volunteer, artist, writer, editor, and dancer. A 20-year resident of San Francisco, she co-directs Shaping San Francisco/Foundsf.org—a participatory urban history project that includes public programming, a digital archive, and collaborations with UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of San Francisco. She has edited 4 books; participated as a weaver in the 2014 Berkeley Art Museum show “The Possible”; painted 4 public murals with Mona Caron; co-created two dance ensembles; and can be found regularly at Alemany Farm helping manage the workdays. Through her breadmaking endeavor, Lovin’ From the Oven, she has become a bread-u-cator with a utopian agenda. She has worked on a broad range of human rights and human dignity issues, and engaged with the challenge of creating new possibilities out of the chaos following natural disasters in Thailand, Peru, and Haiti.

Ryan Farr

Farr founded 4505 Meats in 2009 with his wife Cesalee. The company started small, selling chicharrónes to local bars before expanding to farmers markets with a prepared foods menu. Farr also began teaching butchery classes out of a 3,000-square foot warehouse in Hayes Valley and published his first butchery book, Whole Beast Butchery, in 2011. The next year the team opened their Mission district meat shop, 4505 Meats, a product of Ryan’s experience, voracious appetite, and dedication to great meat products. 4505 Burgers & BBQ is Farr’s latest addition to the 4505 family.

Sunita Sayana

Sunita is the Founder of SmartlyU and brings extensive experience as a serial entrepreneur and educator in the technology and education sectors. Over the past three years, Sunita has transformed SmartlyU from concept to a much sought-after SEL program in over 50 schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. This initial success has been pivotal in creating the leading-edge online SmartlyU program, which is rapidly being adopted in schools both nationally and internationally. She is also a public speaker at renowned conferences such as Learning Annex and Invent Your Future and holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Tufts University.

Ward MacDonald

Ward brings an entrepreneurial eye to his role in Executive Coaching and Leadership Development. Having worked at two start-ups before entering the coaching field Ward is well versed in the unique excitement of actually making payroll, and the leadership and communications challenges faced by aggressively growing organizations. With a degree in Analytic Philosophy from Trinity College and a background in Corporate Finance, Ward is a natural problem solver. He also has a knack for teaching — in a past life, he’s been a stage actor, ballroom dancing instructor, football coach, and jujitsu teacher. When he’s not busy coaching, Ward can be found crushing grapes in the Dry Creek valley, on the back of a thoroughbred, on a J-24 on the Bay, or sound asleep with a bad spy novel on his chest.