Theme: Igniting Ideas

On October 17, 2015 Dacula High School will be hosting its first-ever TEDx event to cultivate, revolutionize, and spread incredible ideas from the city of Dacula, Georgia. Despite the fact that Dacula was once a small rural city just 30 years ago, Dacula has grown with tremendous speed to become an extremely well known city not only in Gwinnett County, but throughout Georgia. In addition, a huge part of Dacula's rapid growth has been due to its families, and with its families, the young people. The youth support Dacula with the cultures they define and the passions they work toward. With the half-day TEDx event happening within the heart of Dacula on October 17th, the TEDxDaculaHighSchool Team plans to facilitate an incredible, thought-provoking, and motivational event to ignite the ideas of youth today.

123 Broad Street
Dacula, Georgia, 30019
United States

Derek Spain

Pastor

Derek Spain graduated as valedictorian of Dacula High School in 1989. During high school, he lettered in baseball, basketball and football. He also sang in the high school chorus and was a leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Derek served as a student pastor at Hebron Church in Dacula for ten years. Then, Derek and his family moved to the mountains of New York for ten years where he served as the pastor of Lake Placid Baptist Church and the director of North Country Ministries, a ministry that finds ways to be a spiritual encouragement to winter sports athletes from all over the world. In 2010, Derek had the opportunity to serve as a chaplain at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Derek now serves as the Executive Pastor of Hebron Church. Derek earned his bachelor’s degree from Shorter University and a Masters of Divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Derek’s motto is: “Love God, love people, love sports.”

John Dixon

Certified health physicist, physical scientist, and radiation subject matter expert

Mr. Dixon grew up in Sparks, Nevada. He is a Certified Health Physicist (CHP) with over 35 years of field experience. He earned his BS in Radiation Protection from Thomas Edison State College, Trenton, NJ. He certified with the NRRPT and the American Board of Health Physics. He is a former President of the Atlanta Chapter of the Health Physics Society and a member of the National Health Physics Society’s Science Support Committee. He served as a health physicist with the Federal DHS and in 2008 transferred to the Radiation Studies Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia within the National Centers for Environmental Health. He is a physical scientist and former member of CDC’s internal HAZMAT response team. He serves on the Federal Radiological Preparedness Coordinating Committee’s Advisory Team for Environment, Food, and Health. He also spent over eight years in the Navy and served as an Engineering Laboratory Technician (ELT) instructor.

Joseph O'Reilly II

Director of Operations, StreetWise Georgia

Joseph O’Reilly is the Director of StreetWise Georgia, a non-profit organization located in Metro Atlanta. He attended the University of Georgia until 2010 where he studied multiple areas of concentration, including Mechanical Physics, Music Theory, Film Studies and Philosophy/Religious History. Joseph then began to volunteer as a Counselor at StreetWise where he quickly realized his passion for serving families in his community that are living in poverty and eventually went on staff to devote more time to their efforts. Since then, Joseph has helped his organization double their hunger relief efforts to more than 980,000 lbs. of groceries distributed last year. In in 2015, implemented the SHARE Project- an initiative that seeks to reach more families in need every month with significant amounts of essential food products. Joseph hopes to remove the obstacle that many families face of unreliable transportation by utilizing his organization’s refrigerated truck and like-minded members.

Josh Lafazan

Cornell University Student

Joshua Lafazan became one of the youngest elected officials in the history of New York State when at 18 years of age he was elected to the Syosset School Board of Education, receiving 82% of the vote in May of 2012. At the time of the election, Joshua was Senior Class President, graduating from Syosset High School in June of 2012. Joshua is currently a senior in the Cornell University ILR School. Joshua is the Founder and C.E.O. of Safe Ride Syosset, Inc., a community outreach program dedicated to ensuring that no Syosset teenager gets behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, or is the passenger in a car with a drunk driver. In 2012 Joshua was named to the Long Island Press's Power List of the 50 Most Influential People on Long Island, and was named by Red Alert Politics as one of their 30 Under 30 in their national list. In 2014, Joshua received the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences Educators’ Voice Award for School Board Member of the Year.

Nouha Zaabab

Student at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Having graduated from Peachtree Ridge High School (GA) last May, Nouha Zaabab is a current first-year at Georgia Tech studying Business on a pre Health track. Nouha is a proud Algerian-American, passionate about meeting new people and collecting their stories. Through the diverse cultures, faiths, and personalities she has come across in her eighteen years, Nouha finds it empowering to ask questions, shift perspectives, and enlighten minds when it comes to social justice and cultural awareness/acceptance.

Rachel Fratt

CFO of Nantucket Prints and Student at the Georgia Institute of Technology

​Rachel Fratt is a freshman at the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she is a Dean’s Scholar. She graduated from the Biotechnology STEM Academy at Forsyth Central High School as the representative for the STEM Academy and as winner of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s award for “Best All Around Senior.” Her favorite thing about high school was leading others both in lacrosse and through volunteer organizations. Fratt is the CFO and co-owner of Nantucket Prints, a t-shirt company she runs with three friends. Her dream job is to become CEO of a biotechnology company.

Samuel Won

Student at Dacula High School

Samuel Won is a student currently enrolled in Dacula High School. Competitive and fun, Samuel has participated in numerous academic events, winning the Honors Gold Medal for Speech in the State Academic Decathlon. As the current leader of the Dacula High School's Orchestra and String Quartet and organizer at his local art organization, Samuel shows a slice of love for the arts. Furthermore, he contains a passion about philosophy and semantics. Finding meaning and purpose within the weirdest of things and then sharing it is what Sam loves most.

Stanton Gatewood

Cyber Security and Privacy Professional

Stanton Gatewood, recognized as one of the leading experts in information security, and electronic privacy, is often referred to as the "InfoSec Evangelist” by his information security colleagues worldwide. There is an urgent need to fill the cyber workforce gap created by an aging cyber workforce, sophisticated and constant attacks, ever‐growing need to live, work and play in cyberspace. As an acknowledged global expert in the field of information security, privacy, and computer/data forensics, Gatewood has testified before the U.S. Congress, advised committees, and has consulted as an expert witness in more than 50 cyberspace forensic cases. Gatewood is also an advisor to the President of the United States Critical Infrastructure Protection Board for Homeland Security ‐ Higher Education. Gatewood has traveled worldwide, transferring his knowledge of Information Security, and he uses his leadership skills to mentor information security professionals across all sectors.