TEDxKraków's theme "Texting the Dragon" is chosen to show how (at least sometimes) Krakow (and Poland) can be modern and progressive in the context of a rich historical tradition. For a while you could send an SMS to Smok Wawelski to make it breathe fire. This theme was chosen to encourage a broad range of topics and to represent the Krakowian spirit interpreted as the tension between tradition and innovation.

Krak
Poland

Charles Crawford

Charles Crawford joined the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1979. He served in communist Yugoslavia (1981-84); as FCO Speech-writer (1984-87); in South Africa as apartheid ended (1987-91); and in Moscow after the USSR collapsed (1991-96). He was British Ambassador in Sarajevo after the conflict (1996-98); in Belgrade after the fall of Milosevic (2001-03); and in Warsaw (2003-07). During his FCO career Charles Crawford contributed to speeches by members of the Royal Family, Prime Ministers and different Ministers. His work was praised at high levels in London, NATO and the European Union (“fabulously readable and interesting analysis … acrobatic and eye-catching use of language”). In 2005 a private email sent by Charles Crawford from Warsaw to Whitehall offering ‘blackly humorous’ suggestions on the EU Budget process was leaked to the Sunday Times, generating controversy in the British, Polish and European/US media. Charles Crawford left the FCO in 2007 and is now a consultant and qualified Mediator. His writings have appeared in the Independent, Guardian, National Review Online, Radio Free Europe, and DIPLOMAT. His website www.charlescrawford.biz was a Top 20 UK Libertarian Blog in the 2008/2009 Total Politics surveys.

Mirosław Miller

Miroslaw Miller, President of Wroclaw Research Centre EIT+ Ltd. – company established 2007 by Wroclaw universities, City of Wroclaw and Lower Silesia Region, aiming at building of Knowledge Based Economy in the Region. The Company is a beneficiary of more than 200 million EUR fund for development of new science and technology park – Pracze Campus and for research programme in nanotechnologies, biomedicine and telecommunication. Miller is an initiator and coordinator of Lower Silesian Centre for Advanced Technologies (2004-2007). He coordinated many research projects and projects in the field: technology transfer, innovation management, commercialization of knowledge. Miller is also professor at Wroclaw University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry. Specialist in high temperature chemical processes, chemical metallurgy, physicochemical properties of inorganic materials, high temperature mass spectrometry (KEMS) and sol-gel nanomaterials. Humboldt Fellowship, FZ Juelich (1986-7), Welch Fellowship, Texas A&M University (1993). Professor at Institute of Power Engineering Warsaw (2006-2008), Polish representative, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, member of International Scientific Board of German Biomass Research Centre, Leipzig and member of Scientific Board of Research Centre CUPRUM, member of Board of Polish-German Research Centre of Public Law and Environment Protection, member of the Editorial Board of Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery (Springer). Author of more than 100 scientific papers and more than 400 citations.

Rafał Styczeń

Rafał Styczeń graduated in computer science at University of Science and Technology (AGH), Corporate Finance at the Warsaw School of Economics, as well as Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He attended Minnesota State University MBA code-shared with SGH in Warsaw. Rafał Styczeń is the founder and owner of IIF S.A., leading venture capital firm in Poland, founded in 1999. Since incorporation he is managing the fund. He was co-founder & manager of Comarch S.A. acting CEO and Senior Vice President in the years 1993 to 2000. From 2001 to 2004, Rafał Styczeń founded & lead BillBird S.A., the inventor and operator of Moje Rachunki network. He has over 15 years experience in information technology markets and 10 years in private equity investments in technology ventures. Rafał Styczeń is board Chairman of Software Mind S.A. and board member at One-to-one S.A. He runs a blog - rafalstyczen.tumblr.com - where he shares insight and thoughts on entrepreneurship.

Paul Mankiewicz

Dr. Paul S. Mankiewicz, Executive Director of the Gaia Institute, received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York/New York Botanical Garden Joint Program in Plant Sciences. He holds patents on a modular, in-vessel composting system, an ultralightweight green roof plant growth medium, and a biogeochemical reactor to breakdown dioxins and PCBs. Past president of the Torrey Botanical Society & board member of the NYC Soil & Water Conservation District, Dr. Mankiewicz has designed and built natural landscapes integrated with ecological filters to treat water, capture carbon, and lower energy costs in urban centers. A number of working models have been constructed, including the first green roof in the Bronx, the first industrial-scale stormwater treatment meadow and green wall on a six acre truck-to-barge material handling site at SIMS recycling facility on the Bronx River, and the first process water/greywater treatment green roof on the Linda Tool Corporation in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Jadwiga Łopata

Jadwiga Łopata is the initiator and co-founder of the ICPPC - International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside; at present vice-president of the ICPPC and a director of the ECOCENTRE ICPPC. ECOCENTRE contributes towards popularising ecological technologies and lifestyles and shows in practice how to protect the cultural and biological heritage of the Polish countryside. She is also co-founder of ECEAT-International and was for 10 years President of ECEAT-Poland (the European Centre for Ecological Agriculture and Tourism-Poland). During this time, they won the “2001 British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Award” for ECEAT-Poland in the category of best ecotourism organisation. Jadwiga has been awarded membership of ASHOKA-Innovators for the Public and in April 2002, she was awarded the Goldman Prize - the Ecological Nobel Prize - for its international campaign to protect Polish, small, family farms. She is a member of the Goldman Prize Winners Network. Jadwiga has been running a small organic farm in Stryszów near Kraków for a number of years and she is co-founder of Coalition for GMO Free Poland. She has been organising and leading many national and international meetings, workshops and seminars as well as publishing booklets and articles.

Sir Julian Rose

Sir Julian Rose is a farmer, forester, writer and social entrepreneur. Julian is an early UK pioneer of organic farming methods, commencing the conversion of his UK farm in 1975 and joining the board of the Soil Association in 1984. He started out as an actor and teacher in holistic thinking, co-founding the Institute for Creative Development, in Belgium (1976) before taking on the management of the Hardwick Estate, a family farming property in South Oxfordshire. His farm went on to win a number of national awards for the quality of its organic foods. Julian has served on many national committees concerned with the British rural economy. These include the BBC Agricultural and Rural Economy Advisory Committee; the South East England Agricultural and Rural Economy Advisory Board and the Country Land Owners Association Rural Committee. He has advised the British government's 'No 10 Policy Unit' and founded three organisations specifically related to helping protect and advance the needs of family farms, quality foods and the rural economy. He broadcasts and writes extensively and is the author of the book entitled "Changing Course for Life - Local Solutions to Global Problems". Julian is President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and divides his time between the UK and Poland.

Gabriela and Uwe von Seltmann

Gabriela and her husband Uwe von Seltmann are the authors of the project "The Future of the Past" which aims to emphasize the importance of the knowledge of our ancestors' past, especially when it is truly tragic (Uwe's grandfather was an SS man in Cracow and Gabriela's grandfather was murdered in Auschwitz). They have spent a few years meeting Poles, Germans and Jews discussing how the families of victims and perpetrators can coexist in today's world. Together they asked questions: How does the third-after-war generation relate to the family's difficult past which overshadows their present? And how to shape the future in order to secure peaceful being together? The research they have been doing is a challenge of social and political importance with an international dimension. Families of victims and perpetrators have to meet again and again, no matter if it is in Ruanda, the Balkan states, or in Germany/Poland. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once said it was better to speak of the "future of the past" rather than the "presence of the past". The project is future-oriented in this very sense. It is only if we succeed in processing the past in an open way that a process of mutual understanding can set in, thus bringing about peaceful interaction in the present and the future. You can read more about Gabriela and Uwe at www.uwe-von-seltmann.de.

Paweł Moskal

Paweł Moskal is a Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków since 2007. He won the Prime Minister award for his doctoral dissertation in 1999 and a Gold Medal for the invention of the matrix device for the Positron Emission Tomography at The World Exhibition on Innovation, Research and New Technologies at Brussels Innova 2009. Paweł co-authored 130 scientific articles in the field of nuclear and particle physics and has been cited more than 1600 times. He is coordinator of the COSY-11 international collaboration conducting experiments on meson production at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY in Germany and vice-coordinator of the WASA-at-COSY experiment, which comprises about 200 physicists testing fundamental symmetries in nature by means of the decays of mesons. Paweł Moskal is a member of the KLOE-2 collaboration board conducting experiments at electron-positron collider DAFNE in Italy. The experiments aim at tests of quantum mechanics and searching for phenomena beyond the standard models of particle physics. He is the coordinator of the International Consortium carrying out International PhD Studies in Applied Nuclear Physics and Innovative Technologies funded by the Foundation for Polish Science. Paweł chairs the scientific and organizing committees of six international symposia and workshops devoted to meson physics and editor or co-editor of the proceedings books.

Jacek Paszkowski

After graduating from the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw, Jacek Paszkowski spent eight years working and studying in the US. Not fully satisfied with traditional physiotherapy education and the outcomes it offered, Jacek began his search for alternative approaches. At that point he got involved with Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education, which he studies and teaches extensively. After returning to Poland he established the Academy of Conscious Movement, promoting development of human potential through conscious movement and guided movement of awareness. This approach (using the Feldenkrais Method) helps people to gain tools to learn more efficiently, enhances wellbeing and develops awareness as a mean to live a happier, healthier life. Jacek is promoting this approach to education among healthcare practitioners, psychologists, musicians and teachers and a whole array of people who want to enrich their lives.

John Scherer

In 1973 John joined the Leadership Institute of Spokane (LIOS), serving as Co-Founder and Core Faculty for the nation’s first competency-based Masters Program in the Applied Behavioral Sciences. In 1982 he founded his own leadership and organization development firm. Since then he has worked with organizations and their leaders from around the world. Each year he addresses national and international conferences as a keynote speaker, recently in Ottawa, Krakow, Shenyang, Bangkok and Budapest. A former President of The Association for Creative Change, John is a Member of The World Business Academy, The OD Network, The Transformational Leaders Council, The International OD Association, and The Global Alliance. He is a pioneer in the emerging field that shares the name of his 1993 book, Work and the Human Spirit, and is the author or creator of articles, video programs, and on-line resources in the fields of high-performance leadership development, conflict resolution, and unleashing the human spirit at work. Most recently, his chapters ‘On the Shoulders of Giants: The Origins of Organization Development,’ and ‘The Role of Individual Development in OD,’ appeared in Practicing Organization Development. He also has chapters in Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work, The Promise of Diversity and The Many Facets of Leadership. In 1985 his Breakthrough Series was among the first applications of video-based technology to assist work groups in becoming high-performance teams during regular meetings. His latest book, Five Questions That Change Everything, is receiving strong positive reviews from around the world. Robert Middleton, the internet marketing guru, called it, "The best business self-help book ever written." In 2008, The Stephen Covey Organization named John one of America’s Top 100 Thought Leaders in Personal/Leadership Development. Based in Seattle and Krakow, John has four grown children, plays the guitar, does the occasional magic show, swims or runs and does yoga daily, and loves to read a good spy novel.

Sambor Dudziński

who? Hi my name is Sambor, and I'm Polish. Sambor is also a town in the Ukraine where my grandfather was born when it was still a Polish city. Sambor means "warrior" and if i had to describe myself in a few words I would call myself a "warrior of art". what? I'm head of the "Ale Wiocha" society, we have 9 hectares of land where we refurbished some 18th century houses. We are going to have an artists village there with workshops devoted to the development of art, sculpture, ceramics, carving, music, theatre, cinema, instruments, inventions and many other areas. More about my project here: http://alewiocha.pl/ where? Its in Lubiąż, 50 km away from Wrocław how? Step by step (hopefully forwards) performance My performance will be a compilation drawn from many fields of artistic endeavor - handicraft - electric piano, wooden tuning - woodencraft - hand made musical instruments - sound theater - interactive music

Olga Szwajgier

Olga Szwajgier, a world class soprano and originator of a unique voice training method, has extended her own voice range from four to six octaves and can sing to the limits of hearing. In addition to being a Distinguished Lecturer at the Ludwik Solski State School of Drama in Kraków, Poland, she is the creator of the “Voice Laboratory” where she teaches hundreds of students how to use their voice wisely, healthily and to the best of their abilities and beyond. Her distinguished artistic career includes several hundred world and Polish premieres and covers works by Ives, Stockhausen, Risset, Penderecki, Stachowski, Luciuk and Lutosławski. She has performed at many major festivals of contemporary music in Poland, Italy, France, Greece, Germany, Korea, Lituania, Ukraine and Mexico. In addition to composing her own music and writing lyrics filled with deeply humanistic premises, she also directs her own performances. In 1991, Olga Szwajgier was the only artist from Poland and Central Europe to perform at a special gala to commemorate the Centenary of Carnegie Hall in New York. Since 1981, she has been a member of the International Artistic Society “Muzyka Centrum”. In 1989 she founded the Olga Szwajgier Quartet. She continues to astound the audiences around the world with her amazing, powerful and extremely beautiful voice that permeates not only your ears but also your whole being.