Theme: Wishful Thinking

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxElonUniversity, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxElonUniversity event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized. This year’s theme for the TEDxElonUniversity program is “Wishful Thinking”. So, what are you thinking?

Yeager Recital Hall
100 Campus Drive
Elon, North Carolina, 27244
United States

Alyssa Newlon

Girl Icons co-founder

Alyssa grew up in North Carolina and eventually started work in Thailand in the development sector after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Her work has always been focused on stigma and the ways that it impacts women internationally. Initially, at age 25, Alyssa worked with sex workers in Bangkok to give them access to better opportunities through education, but eventually her belief in the power of adolescent girls to transform their communities brought her to India, first Kolkata and then Lucknow. In 2015, at 28 years old, Alyssa co-founded Milaan Foundation which identifies, nurtures, and invests in the voices and leadership skills of adolescent girls from marginalized area especially in Northern India. Despite the inherit challenges of being born a girl in communities in which women are often seen as second class citizens, Alyssa is empowering hundreds of girls to fight back against stigma and challenge what it means to be a leader.

Bryan Austin

Social engineer

Bryan Austin is an information security researcher with a background in counseling families and working with at-risk children. By day, he secures people and organizations against scammers and hackers but by night he works with children with behavioral issues and a variety of other challenges. When not crusading against internet evil doers, he enjoys social engineering and hacking with his beautiful wife and 3 amazing children.

Chris Silvers

CGSilvers Consulting owner

Chris Silvers, a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has an MBA from Georgia State University and almost two decades of information security and risk management experience. As an advocate of lifelong learning, he has earned numerous security certifications in the past twenty years. Chris began his information security career while working in the Federal Reserve System. In addition to creating a nation-wide penetration testing group, he lead the incident response team for the Atlanta district. After working in the information security field, Chris founded his own company, C G Silvers Consulting, in 2014. Chris has developed and taught a wide variety of technical security and information security courses for various clients and security conferences. He also runs Open Source Intelligence CTFs at security conferences and speaks at community events about the importance of security to those outside the security industry.

Michael Vaughn

Instructional Technologist

Michael Vaughn is an educator, speaker, maker, and lifelong learner who helps Elon University faculty, staff, and students find new and meaningful ways to use technology to enhance their teaching and learning. In 2015 Michael co-founded the Maker Hub, Elon University’s first makerspace, and helps oversee its operation and student staff. The Maker Hub was the result of nearly two years of building and nurturing the maker community on campus to establish support for a formal space. Michael also helped develop Elon Kickbox, an innovative grant funding model for Elon students. Michael is a prolific presenter, and has delivered sessions and training to nearly 50,000 people in the past six years. His most popular sessions include How Social Media Affects Us, which helps students understand responsibilities that come with using social media, and Design a Presentation Your Brain Will Love, which helps people apply research-supported learning strategies to build better presentations.