Theme: Fast Forward: Past, Present, and Future

In recent decades, massive cultural changes and the creation of entire fields of scientific research have occurred, drastically changing life as we know it. The past is now an alien place with completely different experiences, and the future appears to be just as foreign. The Baylor School has recognized that the past and present both affect what will happen in the future, and, as a result, this TEDx conference has been planned with the intent of "fast-forwarding" our ideas into the future. Come join us and explore the past, assess the present, and invent the future on September 16th at the Baylor School Roddy Theatre.

Roddy Theater, Baylor School
171 Baylor School Road
Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37405
United States

Alan Stein

Basketball Performance Coach, Corporate Speaker, Executive Leadership Coach, Podcast Host and Social Media Influencer.

Alan is world-renowned basketball performance coach, corporate speaker, executive leadership coach, podcast host and social media influencer. He has spent the past 15 years working with the highest performing basketball players on the planet, including NBA superstar Kevin Durant and the #1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Markelle Fultz. Alan now teaches organizations how to utilize the same strategies in business that elite basketball players and teams use to perform at a world-class level. He is passionate about developing genuine leadership, authentic team cohesion and true mental toughness and works relentlessly to educate and inspire people to take immediate action to improve their mindset, habits, happiness and success.

Cannon Hunt

Singer/Songwriter and Sophomore at Baylor

Student at Baylor School.

Christian J. Collier

Artist & Educator

Christian J. Collier is a 2015 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellow. He is an accomplished artist, public speaker, and educator who has shared the stage with several members of HBO’s Def Poetry cast, legendary poet and activist Ishmael Reed, Grammy-nominated artist Minton Sparks, etc. Mr. Collier has also given a TEDx Talk and been featured on an episode of TNT’s State Farm Neighborhood Sessions with multi-platinum recording artist Usher Raymond. Repeatedly, he has been featured on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, which prides itself on featuring the best-spoken word artists working today. Some of his works have been featured on The Guardian and published in such publications as The American Journal of Poetry. His 2009 chapbook Ghosts & Echoes has sold hundreds of copies independently solely off the strength of readings and live performances.

Derelle Roshell

The Founder and CEO of Lingua Cocoa

Lingua Cocoa, a chocolate company founded in Chattanooga that aims to infuse ingredients from around the world into chocolate to raise cultural awareness. Beginning his entrepreneurial journey at the young age of sixteen, he was determined to create a brighter future for his community, family, and most of all, himself. While using the skills he had acquired along his small business journey, he was recruited to work for a local non-profit called LAUNCH Chattanooga. At LAUNCH he was granted the opportunity to get back into his community, where he was able to encourage and help build and facilitate the millennial entrepreneur movement through LAUNCH’s High School Entrepreneurship Program. After leaving LAUNCH, Derelle was led to Nashville, where he is currently re-launching Lingua Cocoa and creating a short network series he calls “Young & Hungry”, while finishing school at Tennessee State University. Through this series he hopes to inspire, lead, and motivate his generation.

Elijah Barrera

World Languages Department Chair at Baylor School

Elijah strives in his Spanish-language classes to put students into real-world situations. He has spent the past 15 years challenging students to dive courageously into the experience of learning a new language and culture. This teaching style is deeply rooted in his own personal experience growing up in multilingual, multicultural communities in Los Angeles. Starting at a young age, Eli experienced life outside of his own cultural and linguistic environment for several years, living in Sri Lanka, India, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Spain. Now in his 13th year of a cultural immersion experience as a Californian in Tennessee, Elijah continues to design language immersion trips for students abroad where they are challenged to really connect in important ways with the communities that they visit. At the same time, he encourages students to embrace their own cultural heritage while connecting to the diversity that exists within the fabric of their own community.

Elizabeth Hayslett

Junior at Baylor School

Elizabeth is a junior at Baylor school. She was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she has loved reading all of her life. Elizabeth discovered the beauty of illuminated manuscripts at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City while on a trip with her grandparents; she has been fascinated with them ever since.

Felicia Jackson

Chief Executive Officer at the CPR LifeWrap

Felicia Jackson is the inventor and CEO of the CPR LifeWrap. After the sudden and unforeseen death of a beloved family member, as well as a near fatal choking incident with her son, Felicia had a vision of a product that could help save lives. She sought help from the LAUNCH Business Entrepreneurship Academy and the Co.lab Accelerator Program. After graduating, she debuted the CPR LifeWrap, a disposable CPR template that helps guide any bystander through an emergency situation. To date, her invention has been featured on Beckers Hospital Review, Black Enterprise Magazine, Teknovation.biz, Edge Magazine, Chattanooga MAGAZINE, and several news and radio spots. Felicia is currently working hard to make CPR LifeWrap accessible to everyone, so that performing CPR is less intimidating.

John Sterling

Professor of Criminal Justice at Bryan College

John Sterling has been a policeman, a detective, a soldier on a SWAT team, a firearms instructor, an attorney, a regional coordinator for Homeland Security, an actor, and is now a professor of Criminal Justice at Bryan College in Dayton, TN. Realizing that people go to college to prepare themselves for their future, and that simply acquiring knowledge is incomplete preparation for life, John trains students to be empowered and emboldened so that they are ready to go and do whatever path they pursue.

Jonyca Jiao

Junior at Baylor School

Jonyca Jiao is a junior at Baylor School, and she is from Xi'an, China. Music is one of the most important elements in her life, and she will study music in the future. She spent most of her time on singing pop and R&B music. Also, she is learning classic music and jazz now. During the past two years at Baylor, she has had many performances, and she has always been a very passionate performer. She is also a song-writer, a pianist, a guitarist, and a violinist. At Baylor, she has also done two years of drama, including her favorite show, The Addams Family. She is strongly enthusiastic about music and theater because she enjoys every step on stage. She wants to thank her friends, teachers, parents and grandparents who always support and encourage her.

Justin Lewis-Weber

CEO of Empower Earth Inc., Student of Stanford University

Justin Lewis-Weber is an entrepreneur, student, problem solver, and pilot. He enjoys working on solving hard but vitally important problems from fundamental physics up. He concentrates mainly on climate change and renewable energy. At 12 years old, he started one of the first aerial imaging companies in the world that used multi-copters to film real estate and Hollywood movie shoots. At 15 years old, he started Access, Inc., which aims to revolutionize how people interact with metro systems around the world. At 17, he wrote and published a peer reviewed academic paper entitled Lunar Based Self-Replicating Solar Factory, which proposed making solar panels on the surface of the Moon using macro-mechanical self-replicating systems. Justin is currently CEO of Empower Earth Inc., a startup currently in stealth mode that aims to solve the fundamental energy paradigm of powered air flight. He is also currently studying at Stanford University.

Liz Kislik

President of Liz Kislik Associates

During more than 25 years as a management consultant and business coach, Liz Kislik has helped organizations from the Fortune 500 to national nonprofits and family-run businesses — such as American Express, the American Red Cross, Staples, and Highlights for Children, Inc. — solve their biggest challenges in organizational performance, talent management, and leadership development while strengthening their top and bottom lines in the process. Liz is a contributor to Harvard Business Review and has served as adjunct faculty at Hofstra University and New York University. Her speaking engagements and weekly Workplace Wisdom blog focus on collaboration, managing teams, developing leaders, and improving customer loyalty.

Mike Michalowicz

The Author of Surge, Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan & The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

By his 35th birthday, MIKE MICHALOWICZ had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Confident that he had the formula to success, he became an angel investor…and proceeded to lose his entire fortune. Then he started all over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Among other innovative strategies, Mike created the “Profit First Formula”, a way for businesses to ensure profitability from their very next deposit forward. Mike is now running his third million dollar venture, is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal; is the former MSNBC business make-over expert; is a popular keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics, and is the author of Profit First, Surge, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, which BusinessWeek deemed “the entrepreneur’s cult classic.”

Myke Kelly

President of Tennessee Valley Pride

Myke Kelly is an official card carrying member of and advocate for the area's LGBTQ+ community. Myke serves as President of Tennessee Valley Pride/Chattanooga Pride as well as Treasurer for Nooga Diversity Center. Currently, Myke's advocacy has been focused towards transgender and non-binary youth through identifying affirming resources, education & on campus GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) support. Myke lives in Chattanooga with their spouse & two daughters. Both daughters started this school year as a freshman, one at UTC and one at CSAS. Although Myke has many roles and identifiers, queer is first and foremost.

Rob Headrick

MD, MBA, Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Co-director Rees Skillern Cancer Institute CHI Memorial Hospital, Chattanooga, TN

Dr. Headrick is responsible for continued growth and oversight of Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Oncology at Memorial Hospital. He also serves as a dyad leader for the Rees Skillern Cancer Institute focusing on vision, growth, fundraising and marketing of the cancer institute. He is also an Assistant Professor of Surgery, University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Chattanooga, TN.

Robin Fazio

Farmer and World Language Instructor at Baylor School

Robin A. Fazio holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Animal Science, and a Doctorate in Educational Psychology. He is currently employed at the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he teaches Spanish and manages the school’s small organic farm. He also operates his family farm in Colquitt, Georgia, which has been in his family for six generations. His interests are sustainable and local agriculture, food security, and human and economic rights. Robin has volunteered on agricultural projects in Eastern Europe, Central and South America, and Africa. Robin lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his wife and their two children.

Samuel Feinburg

the Executive Director of Helena

Helena is a think tank of global leaders focused on executing projects that improve the world. Its members include Nobel Laureates, senior military and political figures, technology entrepreneurs, and more. Current Helena members include General Stanley McChrystal, producer Brian Grazer, financier Nicolas Berggruen, former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, GE Vice-Chair Beth Comstock, and more. In frequent meetings across the globe, Helena works alongside its members to address important problems and create exciting innovations. To date, Helena’s projects have sought to address climate change, urban poverty, and nuclear security. Sam also serves as Social Entrepreneur in Residence at The Boston Consulting Group, and was a founding member of the Visioneers' Team that designed the forthcoming ANA Avatar XPRIZE. In 2014, Sam won the World Schools Debating Championships as a member of the England Debate Team. Sam left Yale University after two years to operate Helena full time.

Stuart Friedman

CEO, Global Context

Stuart has held management positions at Texas Instruments, Intel, Honeywell, and numerous startups. As vice president and general manager at Terayon Communication Systems, Stuart lead his division to becoming the world’s second largest cable modem vendor. Realizing his expertise with world cultures played a critical role in his success, Stuart began Global Context, providing coaching and training programs that address the challenges of today’s multicultural workplace. His clients have included Apple, Coldwell Banker, Genentech, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony. Stuart is a contributing author to Fortune.com and BusinessInsider.com. He’s been interviewed for Forbes.com, WCBS 880AM NewsRadio (New York) and WTOPS 103.5FM Radio (Washington D.C.) Stuart guest lectures at San Francisco State University’s Business School and University of Southern California’s Graduate School of Applied Psychology.