Theme: Telling the story of progress in the Secret City

TEDxOakRidge is intended to tell the story of how ideas about future infrastructural, material, social, and conceptual realities are reconciled by the people in and of the Tennessee Valley. Its purpose is to drive awareness surrounding the heretofore "secret" nature of the innovative ideas and people driving a large part of our nation and the world.

Ts117 Coworking
701 Scarboro Road
Suite 202
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37830
United States

Dmitri Novikov

Nuclear Fusion Scientist

Dr. Dmitri Novikov initiated and implemented the transition of Thunderbird electron beam generator and intellectual property from European collaborators to the pulsed power facility of Proton Scientific Technologies in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He's established the company, raised $4 million in private funding, brought together the expert team, board of scientific advisers, and retained the services of leading contractors and collaborators. With experience in R&D and facility management, he's overseen the strategy and daily activities of the company. Previously, Dr. Novikov worked as a faculty and director of the Advanced Imaging Core at the IGSB of The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory (2010-12), and before that, as a director of the MCB Microscopy Facility at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2007-09), where he received Ph.D. (2008). His research results have been published in Nature Methods and Nature Protocols journals and featured in Nature Milestones.

Justin West

Entrepreneur, CEO of Thrive Lot, Inc.

Serial entrepreneur with 10 years of small business & startup experience. Extensive direct sales, digital marketing and small-scale operations development experience for B2B, B2C & nonprofit in ecommerce, manufacturing, social enterprise & content marketing industries. Led growth for multiple social enterprises, won a national ecological design competition & lived on 5 continents by “hacking the gig economy.”

Tom Ballard

Chief Alliance Officer, PYA

Tom Ballard is Chief Alliance Officer for Pershing Yoakley & Associates (PYA), a Knoxville-based certified public accounting and healthcare consulting company with clients in all 50 states. The East Tennessee native spent more than four decades building relationships for the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory throughout the region, state and nation before joining PYA in 2012. For two years (2013-15), he served as Chief Operating Officer for PYA Analytics LLC, an affiliate of PYA. Ballard is also Editor and Publisher of teknovation.biz, a daily electronic newsletter focused on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in the eastern half of Tennessee. He is Immediate Past President of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. He also serves on the Boards of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, East Tennessee Economic Council (Past Chair), and LaunchTN (former Vice-Chair and now Board Member - Emeritus).