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).

James Stukel Towers Theatre
725 W Roosevelt Road
Chicago, Illinois, 60607
United States

Amy Ho

Dr. Amy Faith Ho is a emergency physician and writer. She has had multiple national publications and features on medical humanities, health policy and mentoring in forums like NPR, Forbes, Chicago Tribune, KevinMD and others. Her speaking and media engagements include presentations with American Medical Association, American Academy of Emergency Medicine and television features in ABC’s The Today Show, Discovery Channel’s Untold Stories of the ER and TLC’s Sex Sent Me to the ER.

Aria Razfar

Dr. Aria Razfar is a Professor of Language, Literacy & Culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests are grounded in sociocultural theories of language, learning, and human development. In particular, he draws on linguistic anthropological perspectives such as language socialization and language ideologies for the purposes of understanding learning and development in urban schools.

Catherine Wallace

Catherine M. Wallace PhD is a cultural historian and literary critic who teaches in the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Her most recent project is the seven-volume Confronting Fundamentalism series.

Jeanne Bishop

Jeanne Bishop is the sister of Nancy Bishop Langert, who was murdered along with her husband and their unborn baby by a juvenile in 1990. Since the murders of her family members, Bishop has been a passionate advocate of gun violence prevention, abolition of the death penalty, forgiveness and the role of victims in the criminal justice system. She is the author of Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer (Westminster John Knox Press 2015), an attorney with the Office of the Cook County Public Defender and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law.

Ken Gonzales

Ken is a gay, undocumented Asian American of the 1.5 generation hailing from the islands of the Philippines. His interests lie in understanding the intersections of race, politics, and art as they pertain to identity, history, and activism. His work is influenced by the following quote: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Victor Mateevitsi

Victor Mateevitsi is a PhD candidate at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the founder of SpiderSense, a tactile jacket that helps the blind navigate safely. He is focusing his research on exploring, designing and evaluating novel human augmentation techniques facilitated by technology. He is a Dean’s Scholar Award recipient, has been named one of the “20 in their 20s” by Crain’s Business Magazine and “Fifty for the Future®” by the Illinois Technology Foundation and his work has been featured on popular-press magazines such as Forbes, Popular Mechanics, New Scientist and on pop-culture television programs such as the “Daily Planet” and “All-American Makers”.