Theme: Landscape - Giving context to our potential

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).

Questrom School of Business
595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts, 02215
United States

Andy Vargas

Andy Vargas is a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He serves as State Representative for the 3rd Essex District (Haverhill, MA). He previously served on the Haverhill City Council, where he was elected at 22 years old and as the first Latino elected official for his city. Rep. Vargas is a champion for justice, economic empowerment and fostering a more inclusive democracy. He is one of the youngest members of the Massachusetts House.

Anna Martynova

Anna Martynova is an international student at Boston University. She became interested in learning about nutrition and psychology after finding herself battling an eating disorder. Her experience led her to better understand the power of routines formed in childhood and their ability to help break an eating disorder loop.

Meta Wagner

Meta originated a new model of creativity, The 5 Creative Types. She is the author of What's Your Creative Type?: Harness the Power of Your Artistic Personality. She is also is a sought-after speaker on creative motivation and has spoken at numerous companies and conferences. Meta is a contributor to The Boston Globe opinion pages, was a columnist for PopMatters, and has written for Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, Salon, and Wall Street Journal custom studios. She is an adjunct professor at Emerson College and Boston University and teaches creative and communications writing as well as a seminar on creativity that served as the basis for her book. Her background is in marketing communications. To connect with Meta, visit www.metawagner.com.

Paul Gonzalez-Mangual

Paul Gonzalez-Mangual is the author of the book Thankious, a Guinness world record holder and a gratitude attitude ambassador from the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

Sanjiv Chopra

Sanjiv is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and has served as Faculty Dean for Continuing Education at Harvard Medical School for 12 years. He is also a best selling author and sought-after inspirational speaker.

Santiago Marquez

Originally from Mexico, Santiago Marquez studied psychology at Boston University. He is a passionate advocate of mental health, breaking the stigma around affection, and inspiring compassion in others. Currently working in the IT healthcare field and volunteering as a crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line, his dream is to pursue a masters in mental health counseling and create integrated health initiatives for at-risk populations.

Swathi Kiran

Swathi Kiran is Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Boston University and Associate Dean for Research at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. She is the co-founder and scientific advisor for Constant Therapy, a software platform for rehabilitation tools after brain injury. Constant Therapy was recently acquired by Digital Health Corporation and is now called The Learning Corporation. Prior to Boston University, she was at University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD from Northwestern University. Her research interests focus around lexical semantic treatment for individuals with aphasia, bilingual aphasia and neuroimaging of brain plasticity following a stroke. She has over 80 publications and her work has appeared in high impact journals across a variety of disciplines including cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, rehabilitation, speech language pathology and bilingualism. She is a fellow of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association and serves on various journal editorial boards and grant review panels including at National Institutes of Health. Her work has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health/NIDCD and American Speech Language Hearing Foundation awards including the New Investigator grant, the New Century Scholar’s Grant and the Clinical Research grant.