Theme: Disruptive Ideas with Near-Term Impact

TEDxBigApple focused on Disruptive Ideas as a platform to evangelize game-changing ideas and innovations that have the power to influence and change the world in the near term. In the end over 350 attendees from the diverse and innovative NYC community joined us to hear about cutting-edge innovations which are likely to shake and shape biotech, fashion, healthcare, music, cities, technology and generally the way that we live.

Saatchi & Saatchi
New York City, New York
United States

Vijay Govindrajan

Vijay Govindarajan is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business and the Founding Director of Tuck’s Center for Global Leadership. Cited by BusinessWeek, The Economist, Forbes, and The London Times as the top thought leader in strategy, Vijay is well known for espousing Reverse Innovation – innovation likely to be adopted first in the developing world.

Robert Langer

Robert Langer is considered to be a founding father of numerous scientific fields such as anti-tumor therapy, controlled drug release, and tissue engineering. He is the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and has received over 200 awards including the 2006 US National Medal of Science; the 2008 Millennium Prize; and the 2012 Priestley Medal. Dr. Langer has written nearly 1,130 articles, has nearly 800 issued and pending patents, and is known as the most cited engineer in history.

Nicola Twilley

Nicola Twilley is author of the blog Edible Geography and co-director of Studio-X NYC, part of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation’s global network of advanced research laboratories for exploring the future of cities. She is curator of a forthcoming exhibition at the Center for Land Use Interpretation exploring North America’s spaces of artificial refrigeration, and co-curator of the Landscapes of Quarantine exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Kavita Parmar

Kavita Parmar is a fashion maverick, Creative Director of Maison Raasta and co-founder of digital brand The IOU Project. An overachiever, at 22 Kavita acquired the license to sell the Osh Kosh B Gosh brand in India and went on to open 14 stores in the country. She is a vocal proponent of disrupting the distribution chain in fashion for a more sustainable model.

John Geraci

John Geraci is an innovator and entrepreneur who thinks about how to make life in cities better with technology. He co-founded the local blog startup Outside.in, created grassroots civic improvement site DIYcity, and is now General Manager of faberNovel NYC. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Popular Science and more.

Joanna Aizenberg

Joanna Aizenberg is a pioneer in the rapidly developing field of bio-inspired materials science and engineering. She is the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Material Sciences at Harvard’s School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, has authored 90 publications and holds 25 patents.

Bryan Roberts

Bryan Roberts is a partner at VC firm, Venrock. Named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2006, Bryan has been the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes’ Midas List since 2008.

Aydogan Ozcan

Aydogan Ozcan is Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department at UCLA and is the recipient of numerous awards including NIH Director’s New Innovator Award 2009 and MIT’s TR35 Award 2009. His lab works on fundamentally new imaging architectures that can compensate for the lack of complexity of optical components by use of novel theories.

Tom Igoe

Tom Igoe likes playing with electronics, mechanics, and programming, making things that let people express themselves, and unusual clocks. He has written two books for makers, Physical Computing with Dan O’Sullivan, and Making Things Talk. He is a regular contributor to Make magazine as well. He teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. He is a co-founder of Arduino because he believes that open fabrication can change the world.

Chris Downey

Chris Downey RA, is an architect, planner and consultant who lost his sight in 2008. Today, he is dedicated to creating more helpful and enriching environments for the blind and visually impaired. His 20-year career has encompassed a broad range of award-winning projects from custom residences to Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth, MN, and the MIT’s Rotch Architectural Library.

Patrick Govang

Patrick Govang is a green-tech innovator who is developing a disruptive model to enable local economic & resource sustainability. As the founder and CEO of e2e Materials he is leading the way in producing new building materials made from soybean and flax seed that can be grown, processed, and assembled in the same community. Prior to e2e, he was Director of Cornell University’s CMR and leveraged $80M in annual funding to develop technology within New York State and foster start-up growth.

Jerri Chou

Jerri Chou is the founder and managing partner of LOVELY DAY. A corporate social innovation strategist, she is a trail-blazer in leveraging social good to develop innovative strategies for the businesses of tomorrow. As founding partner of All Day Buffet and The Feast Social Innovation Conference, and social entrepreneur herself, Jerri has a deep understanding of the social innovation space.

Jeffrey Brenner

Jeffrey Brenner is disrupting how we approach healthcare costs. As Founder and Executive Director of the Camden Coalition, Dr. Brenner and his team have demonstrated that by focusing attention on “hot-spot“ patient demographics can significantly reduce healthcare costs in the community. His team aims to build upon their findings nation wide, as recently profiled on Frontline. Prior to joining the Camden Coalition Dr. Brenner was a practicing primary care physician in the Camden area.

Nils Gums

Nils Gums is a co-founder of The Complex Group. The group specializes in a progressive and comprehensive approach to video production and music in an ever-changing, multi-media landscape. By approaching the media world with a disruptive vision and a comprehensive approach to emerging audio and video techniques, the Complex Group have been able to provide artists such as Karmin with complimentary synergies that drive the monetization of creative properties.

Mark Stewart

Mark Stewart is a New York City-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer and instrument designer. He has been a member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Steve Reich and Musicians, Zeena Parkins' Gangster Band, and Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings, and is a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars band and The Jerry Wortman Nonette. He has also worked with Paul Simon, Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Phillip Glass, Bruce Springsteen, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney, Marc Ribot, and in the duo Polygraph Lounge with Rob Schwimmer.

ETHEL

ETHEL was TEDxBigApple’s house band/entertainment curator. Acclaimed as America’s premier postclassical string quartet, ETHEL invigorates contemporary concert music with refreshing exuberance, fierce intensity, imaginative programming and exceptional artistry. Boldly exploring new synergies between tradition and technology, ETHEL initiates innovative collaborations with an extraordinary community of American and international artists such as Joe Jackson, Kurt Elling, Bang on a Can, Todd Rundgren, David Byrne, Ursula Oppens, Loudon Wainwright III, Andrew Bird, Iva Bittová, Colin Currie and Thomas Dolby. ETHEL features founding members Ralph Farris (viola, Artistic Director) and Dorothy Lawson (cello, Artistic Director), joined by special guests Ariana Kim (violin) and Katie Kresek (violin).