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).
Speakers
Speakers may not be confirmed. Check event website for more information.
BURn
BURn Leuven is a local cultural youth project that aims to encourage and support the driving urban scene in Leuven. It was founded two years ago out of awareness that Leuven had no place where youth could congregate and delve into the urban arts. From this belief Urban Woorden, mijnLeuven, and Straatrijk, the three key players in urban youth projects, established the BURn Leuven project that strives to create an open house for teenagers. Almost every day of the week, the youngsters are welcome to train their skills in three urban disciplines: breakdance, rap and urban singing. The project succeeds to be inclusive reaching out to the youth from different social and ethnic backgrounds by creating a second ‘urban’ home for all young people. At TEDxLeuven Utopia our rappers will share their view on what it takes for the world to become a place where everyone feels at home.Annemie Uyttersprot
Dr. Anne Marie Uyttersprot, 62, lives and works in Vilvoorde. She studied medicine at the University of Ghent, graduated in 1978, and specialised in psychiatry, neurophysiology and neurology. Dr. Uyttersprot is also psychiatrist for the Court of Justice in Leuven since 2008, and was member of the Commission for the Protection of the Society since 2012. Apart from being a medical expert and above all, she is also a patient giving her a unique insight in our medical system and how we can take it to the next level.Bram Bekaert
Bram Bekaert started his career in 1996 as a police officer in Brussels while studying part-time for a BSc in Biotechnology. He moved to the UK to study forensic science and obtained a second bachelor degree and an MSc in Forensic DNA Profiling at the University of Central Lancashire. In 2009 he obtained his PhD in nutri-epigenomics at the University of Surrey and currently is a forensic geneticist at the Laboratory for Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archaeology at the University Hospitals Leuven.Eef Tanghe
Eef Tanghe is a manager for Cohousing Projects, a cooperative that supports people to build their own cohousing community in Flanders. While initiating her personal project near Ghent, she acquired expert knowledge by hurdling many obstacles and visiting other communities in Belgium and abroad. Today, more than 20 groups of neighbors rely on her financial, architectural and legal advice to get their own community up and running.Herman Van Rompuy
Herman Van Rompuy, first president of the European Council and former Belgian prime minister, needs little introduction. As a lifetime politician, Herman has been at the forefront of driving our society forward, slowly but steadily. During the financial crisis of 2008, he led Belgium - one of the most culturally complex countries on the face of the planet - to safer waters. As the “president of Europe”’, 7 years later with the Greek debt crisis, he did the same thing again with the European Union. Apart from a politician, Herman is also a thinker and creative author, you may know him from his famous haiku’s or his politically oriented books.Jan Lenaerts
Jan Lenaerts (1985) became fascinated by weather from a young age onwards. As soon as he finished his high school education, he went to The Netherlands where he studied Meteorology at Wageningen University (MSc in 2008). He decided to pursue his doctoral dissertation at Utrecht University. There he studied the process of snow transport over the vast ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, mostly using computer models, but also collecting observations on site. When he defended his PhD thesis in 2013, he had already experienced the amazing nature of Greenland, Alaska and Svalbard. More recently, Jan has steered his research towards understanding present-day rapid changes on the ice sheets, and their impact on global climate. In 2014, he received the prestigious InBev-Baillet Latour Antarctic Fellowship. Jan will move to Boulder (USA) in 2017 to become assistant professor at the University of Colorado.Michèle Mees
Michèle Mees, Partner and co-founder Centre for Balanced Leadership. She is the author of "The Balanced Leader. Exploring the Dynamics of Masculine and Feminine Energy" Her passion comes from her belief that balancing masculine and feminine qualities results in better performing teams, happier employees, stronger customer relations, more innovation and creativity and last but not at all least a more sustainable, respectful way of doing business that changes the outlook of the world.Peter Peumans
Dr. Peumans holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a bachelor's and master's degree from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Prior to joining imec, Dr. Peumans was a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and a Belgian-American Educational Foundation honorary fellowship. He currently leads imec’s life science technologies program.Sheron Shamuilia
Sheron Shamuilia is a physicist, entrepreneur and an advisor in intellectual property protection and commercialization. She is mad about mountains, music, technology and interested in creating the future instead of predicting it. Although she is a product of Iran, she has lived in Belgium for 30 years.Walter Van De Velde
Walter Vandevelde is the program- and policy officer for the department of Future and Emerging Technologies (FET), the European Commission's deep future technology program. He has a background in mathematics, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and experience of research and innovation in many contexts: in academia, in private research labs, large and small companies. He is the guardian of the FET spirit, nurturing its unique role for visionary, interdisciplinary and high-risk research that makes FET the European reference for creative thinking on the technologies of the future.Wim Develter
Wim Develter is a forensic and clinical pathologist linked to Gasthuisberg, the University Hospital of Leuven. His area of expertise focuses on corporate damage.Xavier De Kestelier
Xavier De Kestelier, architect and visiting Professor at Ghent University and Adjunct Professor at Syracuse University is joint head of Foster+ Partners’ Specialist Modelling Group (SMG), the architecture practice’s multi-disciplinary research and development group. His team has been exploring the possibilities of large scale 3D printing to construct lunar habitations. Addressing the challenges of transporting materials to the moon, he studies the use of lunar soil, known as regolith, as building matter.Zora & Pepper
Zora & Pepper are two robots from Zora Robotics, a Belgian pioneer in healthcare robots. Fabrice Goffin and Tommy Deblieck, the company founders have known each other for years, but it was in a dark bar in Qatar, during a heated discussion on Star Wars, that all pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Their love of awesome robots and their heart for the healthcare and hospitality industry combined, gave them the idea to develop a helpful R2D2 that increases the comfort of people.Organizing team
