Theme: All in

What would it look like if we were committed 100 per cent to our lives, our families, our work, and our passions? At TEDxCanberra 2016, we want to explore this possibility with you, and try to understand what kind of world we might create if we each went all in.

And we really mean all in:
- What would being fully present to my partner and children mean?
- Who would I be if I followed my passions?
- How can I be the best I can be at my work?
- What community needs what I can give?
- Who am I? Really?

The Playhouse
London Circuit
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601
Australia

Nomad

Magician

Nomad The Magi­cian is a unique per­former who proves the hand is quicker than the eye. A blend of amaz­ing mir­acles per­formed to have you won­der­ing… “Did that just hap­pen?” Nomad built his repu­ta­tion as a street magi­cian, busk­ing his way up along the east coast of Aus­tralia to build his name and repu­ta­tion. He has his eyes set on Vegas.

Pheno

Genre-spanning musician

Pheno is a moniker for elec­tric gui­tar­ist and vocal­ist Jess Green, whose career has spanned jazz, Blues and Rock; audi­ences may remem­ber Jess per­form­ing with Blues legend Jim Con­way, Jazz greats; The Cath­ol­ics, or indeed lead­ing her groups, includ­ing The Bright Sparks or The New Dynam­ites. Most recently Jess was seen in the ACT tour­ing with Indie Elec­tro-pop song­stress Alyx Den­nison. Jess grew up in Can­berra and stud­ied at the ANU before basing her­self in Sydney for 10 years. After tour­ing nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally with vari­ous ensembles, Jess returned in 2016 to live in Can­berra. Pheno recently com­pleted a highly suc­cess­ful crowd­fund­ing cam­paign to record her debut EP, which is set for release late 2016.

Adriane Boag

Inclusive art advocate

Adri­ane trained as an artist with a major in paint­ing and sculp­ture from Sydney Col­lege of the Arts. She has worked in the visual arts for over twenty years and believes in the power of the arts to bene­fit us all In 2006 Adri­ane was appoin­ted as a Pro­gram Coordin­ator at the National Gal­lery of Aus­tralia where she works on a range of cre­at­ive pro­grams that engage diverse audi­ences. These include the NGA Fam­ily Activ­ity Rooms and the annual National Sum­mer Art Schol­ar­ship, a pro­gram of nearly 20 years stand­ing. Adri­ane rep­res­ents the Gal­lery as an advoc­ate for social inclu­sion and access for diverse audi­ences through audi­ence spe­cific tours includ­ing the inter­na­tion­ally acclaimed Art and Demen­tia Pro­gram.

Brad Carron-Arthur

Mental health researcher

Brad Car­ron-Arthur is an ultra­thon run­ner and PhD stu­dent research­ing men­tal health at The Aus­tralian National Uni­vers­ity. Brad’s interest in under­stand­ing how thought pro­cesses affect per­sonal well­ness and ill­ness drives him not just aca­dem­ic­ally but also per­son­ally, push­ing him to explore the lim­its of his men­tal fit­ness. In 2012, Brad ran 5,000km from Can­berra to Cape York over four months, rais­ing funds for men­tal health research on the way. In 2013, Brad was named Young Can­berra Cit­izen of the Year and a Final­ist for Young Aus­tralian of the Year. Since 2012, Brad has not stopped run­ning and has spoken fre­quently to schools and com­munity groups, high­light­ing how greater aware­ness of cog­ni­tion can enhance our men­tal health and cap­ab­il­ity.

Bryan Lessard

Entomologist

Dr Bryan Lessard was first intro­duced to the curi­ous world of flies dur­ing his under­gradu­ate stud­ies at the Uni­vers­ity of Wollon­gong, learn­ing about the beha­vi­our, clas­si­fic­a­tion and applic­a­tions of the winged insects to forensic ento­mo­logy. With his interest piqued, he enrolled in a PhD at the Aus­tralian National Uni­vers­ity in Can­berra to con­tinue his research on flies, this time describ­ing over 18 spe­cies new to sci­ence and using DNA to solve the mys­tery behind the evol­u­tion of Gond­wanan horse flies. In the hopes of gen­er­at­ing buzz in what is gen­er­ally regarded as a tra­di­tional sci­ence, he described a horse fly with a golden abdo­men after the per­former Bey­oncé, Plinthina bey­on­ceae. This “booty­l­i­cious” ambas­sador for biod­iversity became a viral sen­sa­tion and sparked a global con­ver­sa­tion on the import­ance of flies and tax­onomy, the prac­tise of clas­si­fy­ing and nam­ing spe­cies.

Chip Lo

Dancer

Chip has danced since 2006 and has traveled to com­pete and per­form inter­na­tion­ally, learn­ing from pion­eers of street dance cul­ture. He has cre­ated Pro­ject Beats as a vehicle to provide oppor­tun­it­ies for dan­cers to find a career in dance and to inspire. Chip believes in learn­ing the groove under­neath the move, and uphold­ing high stand­ards of cre­ativ­ity and ori­gin­al­ity.

Dark Rose

Indigenous musician

Roland Rowa Brown’s tra­di­tional name is Rowa, passed down from his great-great-great-great-grand­father Rowa. He was a war­rior for his tribe. His mum, Daudai, is of the Saibai Island people and his father is Aus­tralian of Irish-Eng­lish her­it­age. Roland was born in Dar­win in 1998, and spent time liv­ing in Queensland and Vic­toria, before mov­ing to Can­berra where he dis­covered his love for music. On 1st Janu­ary 2016, he star­ted play­ing didgeri­doo on the streets to make some extra money, but what star­ted out as a hobby slowly became a busi­ness, for­cing him to cre­ate the stage name Dark Rose. The pur­pose of his shows are to bring people out of the dark into the light.

Eric Yarger

Former US Marine

From 2002 to­ 2014 Eric served as a US Mar­ine. First as a Recon­nais­sance Mar­ine and then as a Mar­ine Raider with Mar­ine Force Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand. He com­pleted six com­bat deploy­ments: four to Iraq and two to Afgh­anistan, including the inva­sion of Iraq and Oper­a­tion Vigil­ant Resolve, as well as broad com­bat oper­a­tions in Afgh­anistan. He has three awards for valour in com­bat, includ­ing Bronze Star with a V. He is co-founder and Oper­a­tions Dir­ector for NOVOMODUS a com­pany that deliv­ers change man­age­ment, lead­er­ship and secur­ity solu­tions to organ­isa­tions seek­ing effect­ive and stra­tegic change. He is also the coun­try man­ager and trainer for Get­ting More Aus­tralia, train­ing high-stakes nego­ti­ation to a broad range of cli­ents from Google to Spe­cial Oper­a­tions and Intel­li­gence organ­isa­tions through­out the Asia­-Pacific region. He lives in Can­berra with his wife and two chil­dren and the dog he brought home from Afghanistan.

Fred Smith

Singer-songriter and conflict zone reconstructer

Since join­ing the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Trade in 1996, Iain “Fred” Smith has deployed on Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment mis­sions to Bou­gain­ville (Papua New Guinea) and Solomon Islands, and more recently for two years in the Aus­tralian-US Pro­vin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team in Uruzgan province, Afgh­anistan. Back in Can­berra, he has been heav­ily involved in shap­ing Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment policy and pre­pared­ness for work­ing in con­flict-affected coun­tries. Con­cur­rently, Fred has developed a par­al­lel career as a song­writer and per­former on the Aus­tralian fest­ival cir­cuit. He has released sev­eral albums, and is the sub­ject of two doc­u­ment­ary films about his work in con­flict zones. His song Dust of Uruzgan was recently covered by coun­try music star Lee Kernaghan on Lee’s chart-top­ping Spirit of the Anzacs album. He was described in the Mel­bourne Age as “one of this country’s most lit­er­ate, humor­ous, intel­li­gent and empathic song­writers.”

Ginger Gorman

Social justice journalist

Ginger Gor­man is a fear­less and multi award-win­ning social justice journ­al­ist. In the course of her 15-year media career, she’s watched bod­ies burn at the crem­at­orium, been strapped to a bond­age wheel and recor­ded her own can­cer treat­ment. She’s inter­viewed every­one from emin­ent sci­ent­ists to hardened crim­in­als and vicious inter­net trolls. Ginger has an innate abil­ity to con­nect and com­mu­nic­ate with some of the most inter­est­ing and mar­gin­al­ised people in our com­munity. She works hard to trans­late those untold stor­ies into power­ful and insight­ful journ­al­ism. Ginger reg­u­larly writes stor­ies, makes radio and pod­casts for media out­lets such as: news.com.au, The Huff­ing­ton Post, The Guard­ian, The Age, Her­Can­berra, mamamia, Life Mat­ters on ABC Radio National and the ABC’s Drum web­site.

Glenn Keys

Innovator and philanthropist

Glenn Keys is the co-founder and Exec­ut­ive Dir­ector of Can­berra-based Aspen Med­ical, one of the world’s lead­ing pro­viders of out­sourced health­care solu­tions. A pas­sion­ate advoc­ate of cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity, Glenn has placed social respons­ib­il­ity and com­munity involve­ment at the heart of Aspen Medical’s cul­ture. A per­cent­age of the company’s profits are alloc­ated to the Aspen Found­a­tion, which was estab­lished in 2009 and today is ded­ic­ated to the erad­ic­a­tion of the eye dis­ease trachoma and sca­bies in remote Indi­gen­ous com­munit­ies in Aus­tralia. Glenn is the founder and Chair of Pro­ject Inde­pend­ence, a hous­ing ini­ti­at­ive for people with intel­lec­tual dis­ab­il­it­ies, which was offi­cially launched in Can­berra in Feb­ru­ary 2015.

Hayley Teasdale

Neuroscientist

Ori­gin­ally from coun­try Vic­toria, Hay­ley Teas­dale is now a PhD can­did­ate at the Uni­vers­ity of Can­berra. She is a neur­os­cient­ist with her work mainly focused on Parkinson’s dis­ease, she uses non-invas­ive brain stim­u­la­tion to try and com­bat symp­toms. She is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in neuro­plas­ti­city and looks at how this affects every­day life.

Jenni Atkinson

Trans advocate

Jenni is an out and proud trans­wo­man, con­sult­ant, facil­it­ator and edu­cator who has been work­ing for 25 years to edu­cate people every­where that TGD (Trans and Gender Diverse) people are people who are just like every­one else: worthy of respect, love and an equit­able exist­ence in life, free from hate, vili­fic­a­tion and viol­ence.

Josh Gilbert

Worimi man and farm activist

Josh is a Wor­imi man from the Mid North Coast of NSW, who uses Indi­gen­ous wis­dom and val­ues, along­side his agri­cul­tural his­tory, to inform and shape mod­ern soci­ety. In 2015, Josh was named in Pro Bono Australia’s Impact 25, as one of the top 25 most influ­en­tial people in Aus­tralia for his work in cli­mate change and agri­cul­ture. He is a pas­sion­ate advoc­ate for renew­able energy, and revolu­tion­ising the way we talk about agri­cul­ture and Indi­gen­ous issues in Aus­tralia. Al Gore has asked Josh to be a part of his Cli­mate Real­ity Pro­ject. Josh’s Cli­mate Real­ity Pro­ject video, entitled Australia’s Young Green Farm­ers, has been viewed in over 75 coun­tries and by over 100 mil­lion people. He also hosts the pop­ular agri­cul­tural pod­cast, Tractor Talks.

Lucy Sugerman

Busker and more

Lucy Sug­er­man recently crowned an Aus­tralian National Busk­ing Cham­pion, is a four­teen-year-old per­former and song­writer from Aus­tralia. Play­ing all kinds of events and ven­ues from pubs to wed­dings to cor­por­ate events, Lucy has been per­form­ing around Can­berra since she was just nine years old. In 2011, she raised $1500 in under two hours busk­ing for the Red Cross Queensland Floods Dis­aster Relief and Recov­ery work. In 2013, Lucy pro­duced her first album with seven ori­gin­als mixed and mastered at the Can­berra Art­Sound FM Stu­dios. 2015 was the year Lucy skyrock­eted into the Can­berra music scene. In that year, she won ‘Best Per­form­ance of an Ori­ginal Song’ in the Youth Tra­di­tions Awards at Illawarra National Folk Fest­ival, became the sec­ond­ary age cat­egory (13−17) Aus­tralian National Busk­ing Cham­pion, won ‘Best Solo Artist’.

Omar and Saad Al-Kassab

Refugees and Scouts

Omar and Saad Al Kassab were 17 and 14 respect­ively when the Syr­ian Civil War broke out. Omar act­ively par­ti­cip­ated in demon­stra­tions for peace and demo­cracy in Syria and in April of 2013, whilst study­ing Engin­eer­ing at uni­vers­ity, he was arres­ted and tor­tured. Their story includes their human­it­arian work along­side fel­low Scouts, impris­on­ment, the loss of friends and fam­ily and finally, their escape to a new life in Aus­tralia. Omar and Saad are pas­sion­ate about pro­mot­ing under­stand­ing and aware­ness of the situ­ation facing Syria and its cit­izens, at a time when the world is strug­gling to deal with the worst human­it­arian crisis since the Second World War. In Aus­tralia, they have act­ively recon­nec­ted with Scouts move­ment and resumed their edu­ca­tion. Omar is now study­ing towards a Bach­elor of Busi­ness and Saad is cur­rently com­plet­ing Year 12.

Phillip Baker

Nutrition researcher

Phil­lip is a Research Fel­low at the School of Reg­u­la­tion and Global Gov­ernance, at the Aus­tralian National Uni­vers­ity in Can­berra. His research focuses on under­stand­ing the polit­ics of food, nutri­tion and pub­lic health. This work brings key ques­tions into play, such as: who has the power to shape our food choices as indi­vidu­als, fam­il­ies, com­munit­ies and soci­et­ies? Is food choice a mat­ter for the indi­vidual only and healthy eat­ing simply a mat­ter of per­sonal respons­ib­il­ity? Or is the way we eat shaped more by factors out­side of indi­vidual con­trol, such as the way we organ­ise our food sys­tems and eco­nomy? How can we as a soci­ety struc­ture our food sys­tems so as to pro­mote food choices that are good for people, anim­als and the planet? Phil­lip has a PhD from the National Centre for Epi­demi­ology and Pop­u­la­tion Health, ANU. He has worked in a num­ber of pub­lic health roles includ­ing at the World Health Organ­iz­a­tion.

Pip Seldon

Healthy workplace advocate

Pip Sel­don is a Con­struc­tion Pro­ject Man­ager, health and nutri­tion coach and founder of #theHealthyTradiePro­ject. Her trans­form­a­tional jour­ney began in 2009 with the loss of her eld­est brother, a car­pen­ter, to sui­cide. Pip’s mis­sion now is, “to edu­cate and inspire, to enhance the phys­ical, men­tal and emo­tional health of Australia’s con­struc­tion industry.” Pip believes that well­ness exists in all of us and through the right nutri­tion, exer­cise and life­style prac­tices we can each unveil our health­i­est self. In her quest to imple­ment a pro­act­ive approach to sui­cide pre­ven­tion, Pip foun­ded #theHealthyTradiePro­ject. She now deliv­ers Healthy Tradie Work­shops, Tool­box Talks and a ’21-Day Tradie Trans­form­a­tion’ nutri­tion and exer­cise coach­ing pro­gram. Pip gives people the tools they need to make step-by-step changes in their life­style unlock­ing the keys to look­ing bet­ter, feel­ing bet­ter and liv­ing bet­ter!

Tasneem Rahman

Medical imagery researcher

Tas­neem Rah­man is a PhD stu­dent in The Uni­vers­ity of New South Wales, Can­berra, Aus­tralia. She works in nuc­lear medi­cine ima­ging, and con­ducts research is focused on the devel­op­ment of SPECT (Single Photon Emis­sion Com­puted Tomo­graphy) based on light field ima­ging – L-SPECT. L-SPECT poten­tially offers bene­fits over con­ven­tional SPECT in effi­cient dia­gnosis of dis­ease at ini­tial stages. Tas­neem has a cul­tural back­ground as an artist and per­forms in singing, poem-recit­ing and dan­cing. She remains involved with Girl Guides Aus­tralia.

The Lowlands

Musical care package

The Low­lands are Ella, Joel and Sammy; a musical care pack­age of jazz, blues and folk, these Can­berra loc­als serve up soul­ful, bit­ter­sweet vocals accom­pan­ied by lay­ers of cello, elec­tric gui­tar and drums.