Theme: Designing Optimism

The talks and stories told at the first-ever TEDxPrishtina will revolve around the upbeat promise of the architect in us. Some of us design buildings, others design websites. Some design fashion, other design social movements. Some design landscapes, others design their way out of an unfavorable situation.

It all starts with an idea.

There are people everywhere - far and near Prishtina - who constantly work on the blueprints of positive change. Some efforts become popular, others remain unnoticed. At TEDxPrishtina, those who passed on their message many times and those who never got the chance before, will be given the opportunity to tell us about their sketch of life.

American School of Kosova
Luan Haradinaj
Pallati i Rinisë
Prishtina, Kosovo, 10000
Albania

Blerim Limani

Blerim Limani is an Albanian from Southern Serbia, who studied Communication in Macedonia, further explored communication sciences at Ball State University in the US, is married to an Albanian from Macedonia, now lives in Prishtina, and says he felt like a minority all his life. Blerim is fascinated by human communication and how it easily, magically, and repeatedly goes wrong – again and again. His work focuses on the use of Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory and Interpersonal Neurobiology to improve inter-ethnic communication. Mr. Limani works as a communication consultant and is currently assisting Dr. Ridvan Peshkopia from George Washington University in his research project titled “Beyond ethnic division: the underestimated role of social divisions in the Balkans and its impact on social cohesion and democracy.”

Visar Kuçi

Visar Kuçi has been involved with music since the age of 9. Since then, he has explored and mastered the violin, the guitar, the bass, and doublebass in musical contexts varying from classical, to jazz, to blues, to rock, and more. Visar teaches at the Arts Academy of the University of Prishtina, but also frequently plays in Kosovo and around Europe. He is the founder of Prishtina’s New Orchestra and the Om Jazz Quartet. Mr. Kuçi believes in the difference a sound can make. He is fascinated by the influence it has on human life, and how it can make things easy or complicate them. A celebrated violin virtuoso, Visar is currently recording his own album with ambient music, and is composing the soundtrack for a film.

Armand Brahaj

s a web engineer, who naturally appreciates the potential of the Internet as a knowledge tool, but at the same time despises the addictive nature of some of its applications. Among other things, Mr. Brahaj is interested in collective intelligence, information retrieval, exploratory search, and user behavior. Focusing on the latter, he is currently doing research for his PhD on Information Engineering. Mr. Brahaj is currently working at FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, a not-for-profit organization supporting the promotion of innovation based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Mr. Brahaj is the co-founder of one of the first and largest web-portals in Albanian language Shqiperia.com.

Nita Luci

is an anthropologist, who gets her inspiration by the women, friends and family, in her life. Her research has focused on topics of gender and manhood, body, memory, and violence. Ms. Luci has written numerous articles and contributed to international research projects. Her forthcoming article, “Un/welcomed Guest: Interventions in Kosova,” will be published this year. Ms. Luci is currently teaching at the University of Prishtina, in the departments of Ethnology and Sociology, and the American University in Kosovo. Ms. Luci holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she is also completing her PhD.

Denis Lacej

is an architect from Shkoder who has a great passion for design and fabrication, in which nature plays a fundamental role. He sees nature as an inspirational source, but also as an infinite database of phenomena that he observes for the design of meaningful forms where aesthetics are strictly related to performance. Mr. Lacej is interested in Design Through Material Behavior and describes his approach to design as a research process, rather than an arbitrary expression of personal taste. He lives in London where he works for avant-garde architect Will Alsop. Mr. Lacej holds an MA in Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London

Arben Islami

Arbeni Islami a.k.a. Njeri is a man of many interests. A dentist by profession, Njeri works hard to get people to show their whites. As a kid, he fell in love with tennis and skiing, which would become very important part of his life. His “Njeri” initiatives are a series of grassroots activities that include tennis practices, massive public dance parties, snowboarding, and skiing, hiking, photography, information sharing and recently even skating. TennisNjeri, DJNjeri, SnowNjeri, HikingNjeri, and SkatingNjeri were all started in the last decade, with the youth of post-conflict Kosovo in mind. Mr. Islami is at the heart of it all. Currently, SkateNjeri are building the first skate park in Kosovo, while HikingNjeri are preparing to map all hiking trails in the country’s mountains.

Bujar Nrecaj

Bujar Nrecaj is an architect, who believes that good architecture is generated from the context and content for the people and for the place. In the early ’90s, Mr. Nrecaj left his hometown of Prizren to immigrate to Switzerland, where he completed his architectural studies. His aim always being to give back to the community and his peoples, Mr.Nrecaj returned to Kosovo with an idea he wanted to implement. The rest is history, and he will tell it at TEDxPrishtina. He is currently living and working in Prishtina, where he leads his own architectural studio. Buildings designed by Mr. Nrecaj and his team can be seen in countries like Albania and Switzerland, but the dearest ones are located in Kosovo.

Besa Luzha

is a piano player, music teacher, active civil society actor, researcher, and above all a storyteller. For the past 10 years, she has been the driving force behind the Prishtina Office of German political foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, which she established in 2000. Other than promoting social democratic values, Mrs. Luzha is deeply connected with the classic music world in Kosovo. She serves in the boards of several artistic organizations, among which is the Board of International Contemporary Music Festival REMUSICA. Mrs. Luzha has also been one of the key consultants of the drafting of the national curriculum for music education at different levels and grades, and also one of the drafters of the curriculum for the Albanian diaspora. She is currently finishing her PhD studies in International Education at the University of London.