Theme: Game Changers & Disruptive Thinkers

This TEDx event will feature some eminent speakers, some local and others from further afield, to share their collective experiences in making significant contributions and changes and disrupting the standard patterns in society. These are the visionaries......the people at the forefront of their respective fields and a driving force behind change.

Bolton Museum
Le Mans Cres
Bolton, Lancashire, BL1 1SE
United Kingdom

Alan Forrest Smith

Modern day philosopher

From one time punk rock singer to ordained fundamentalist minister of over two decades to modern day observer, philosopher and thinker. Provocatist, antagonist, revelationist, philosophist, optimist and humanist are just a handful of ways to describe the non-conformist writer Alan Forrest Smith His philosophical writings on life is perfectly reflected on his 12-year old blog and in one of his books, Escape from Zoomanity. Alan believes that the human being is locked into Zoomanity. Zoomanity is his take on the human way - the zooman way, trappings and pressure of turning human beings into zoo-man beings. He also believes you can escape and become human again.

Alex McLeman

Collections Access Officer

Alex is a Collections Access Officer at Bolton Library and Museum Service. He develops school learning programmes and creates a range of public events for a wide variety of audiences. Alex is the leader of SMILE (Science in Museums in Learning and Engagement) network and helps inspire museum professionals to have a greater connection with science. As Hope Hub leader for Bolton Museum he strengthens youth engagement and helps to empower a team of young people to create a Festival of Hope. Alex enjoys travelling to different countries and visiting museums & galleries. He has a passion for art, science and dinosaurs. He is also a scuba diver, fire performer and writer of poetry.

Darryl Laycock

Knife crime specialist

Darryl is a rehabilitated ex-violent offender, who lived on the wrong side of the law for over twenty-five years. Throughout this time, he was incarcerated in excess of 12 years whilst also being the survivor of several assassination attempts, due to being a fully-fledged perpetrator of extreme violence. Despite all of this, Darryl managed to turn his life around, proving that change is always possible, as long as the individual has the will to change. If he can change, so can you!

Dov Forman

18-year-old Dov Forman has gained over 1.9 million followers on TikTok, and has had over 800 million views on all social media platforms, by educating users on the Holocaust together with his great grandmother, 98-year-old Auschwitz survivor, Lily Ebert BEM. Dov is the co-author of Lily's Promise, a five-time Sunday Times bestseller and three-time New York Times bestseller. Lily’s Promise includes a foreword by HRH Prince Charles, in which Prince Charles paid tribute to Dov for his "engaging and effective use of social media". He said Dov has "demonstrated a determination to share his great grandmother’s story with a global audience”. Dov was invited to speak about 'Social Media and Holocaust Commemoration' to the CEO of Google, at Oxford University and Cambridge University, and Dov has also spoken to more than 100 news outlets in over 15 countries. In November 2020, Dov spoke to UK Parliament in favour of the UK Holocaust Memorial. Dov has also worked on educational projects with several UK government departments and international organisations, including the United Nations. In March 2022, Dov was announced as a 'young spokesperson' for the USC Shoah Foundation, the archive of Holocaust survivor testimonies initiated by Steven Spielberg in 1994. Dov received the Points of Light award from the UK Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street in November 2021, for services to Holocaust education.

Fabian Lord

TV Producer

Fabian has a background in the British military and amassed experience in law enforcement spanning 2 police forces. As a detective and a member of the Counter Terrorist Unit he investigated murders, human traffickers, live kidnappings, terrorists, robberies and shootings. Fabian has worked on some of the UK's highest profile national security investigations and even advised the U.K. government over the regulation of the private security industry. Whilst working on the News of The World Phone Hacking investigation for a well-known client, Fabian also authored a book related to Social Media intelligence which became a No.1 Amazon bestseller in 2011. Following on from these experiences, he chose to come out from behind the camera as an accredited investigative journalist to take centre stage on screen in a new Amazon Prime TV series, Surveillance Secrets and a regular host of the forthcoming Amazon Prime show, Get Success.

Gabi Silion

Gabi is a Risk & Compliance Consultant, working for herself since 2019. She was born in Romania, where she graduated accounting in Finance and Banking. Since moving to the UK in 2002, Gabi changed career, working in financial services. Over the years, she has worked in Europe and the Channel Islands. In the UK, Gabi holds qualifications in pensions, investments, mortgages, insurance and financial crime prevention. She lives with her partner Mark and their 7 dogs and a parrot, in a little village in the East Midlands.

Grace Rosewarne

Grace currently attends Sixth Form in the West Midlands, studying English Literature, History, and Government and Politics. She is also passionate about mental health, especially young people's. She is currently a member of the National Anti-Bullying Board, chair of her school's student-led mental health support team for this academic year, and looking forward to doing her Level 2 ILM Young Minds qualification next year. Grace is an aspiring lawyer, author, and policy-maker.

Liam McBride

Liam is Bolton born and bred and loves his home town. He's best mates and addicts in recovery with Mark Murray. Years after leaving school, despite appearing to make headway in their adult lives and developing successful careers for ourselves, they had each reached a familiar point in an addicts’ journey: where the physical, mental and emotional impacts of their addictions were too extreme for anyone to tolerate – including their Families, Friends and Workplaces. He had to fight to rebuild his life, live in recovery and use his experience to benefit others.

Lianne-Carla Savage

Strategic Systems Consultant

Lianne is the sort of person who loves things most people hate. Numbers, detail, organisation and tech. She loves nothing more than to roll up her sleeves and dive into the chaos and get everything working as it should. She helps high energy entrepreneurs bring in the systems and structure needed to get the most out of themselves, their team and their business so they can scale their business without losing their sanity.

Liz Douglas

Community Developer and Government Advisor

Liz is a Community Developer and Advisor to both grassroot projects and Government departments. A Mum to two wonderful daughters. Liz speaks with conviction about how leading from the bottom is the only way up. Catchphrase: "Let's flip the narrative!"

Mark Murray

Mark is Bolton born and bred and loves his home town. He's best mates and addicts in recovery with Liam McBride. Mark & Liam met over 20 years ago at school where they remained close friends, and where, despite having plenty of love and opportunity around them, they were each exposed to things that would lead to addictions.

Montgomery Lord

World Memory Champion

At the age of 7, Monty released a book and became the UK's youngest bestselling author. At the age of 11, he found himself on stage as an official panel speaker on Cyber Safety at BETT Futures in Excel exhibition centre, London, speaking to a room full of thousands of people. At the age of 14, Monty entered the Guinness World Record books as a world memory champion, studying the openings of 500 works of literature and recalling 129 consecutively from their opening sentence. Monty spent 5 months conducting extensive research into a specialised area of psychology, proving the hypothesis that using technology late at night affects the circadian rhythms of adolescents. As part of this research, he sat a semester-long foundational psychology course from the prestigious University of Yale and passed with 100%. His research study thesis was in excess of 55,000 words. Monty then formed the Citizen Science Project called 'iTech Explorers.'

Monty Lord

Monty Lord is a 17-year-old, multi award-winning change maker, social entrepreneur and researcher dedicated to challenging injustices through the use of law. As a best-selling author and a world memory champion, Monty is also the youngest in the UK with the most world records, holding 5 Guinness World Records for world memory challenges. He engaged thousands of children in the UK with his ground-breaking research and was recognised with the Prime Minister’s Points of Lights Award, the Diana Award & the British Citizen Youth Award for services to the community & charity. The national media has reported upon many of Monty's projects over the last few years, with widespread coverage on BBC & ITV News, radio and both broadsheet & tabloid newspapers. He was named in The Independent newspaper (The Happy List 20/21) as in the top 50 inspirational people driving positive change in Britain. Between 2021 and 2022, Monty Lord took high-profile legal action against a large national youth organisation on behalf of multiple child victims who all alleged bullying and abuse with elements of homophobic behaviour. Monty launched a national initiative under the brand Young Legal Eagles® to promote the rights, views and interests of children and young people (CYP), with the knowledge that everyone should know and understand their legal rights and obligations and know how to gain redress through the legal system. In August 2022, Monty attended 10 Downing Street and spoke with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Children's Commissioner about his latest children's rights initiative. Monty created the short-documentary 'Do Children Have Rights?' for broadcast on Amazon Fire TV and Roku in 2022. It’s a new documentary film that blows the lid on the world of children's rights in the UK. The purpose of the documentary is to raise awareness of children's rights.

Richard McMunn

Bestselling Author

Richard McMunn is a former firefighter who founded the ‘How2Become’ series of books in 2005. Since then, Richard has gone on to write and self-publish 150 books, become a multiple number 1 bestselling author, and also started an award-winning YouTube channel that now has over 200,000 subscribers! Richard has also won consecutive national book publishing awards in the process.

Sammy Austen-Jones

Sammy is a student and the Anti-Bullying Ambassador Student Lead at Farnham Heath End School in Surrey. He works closely with students and staff to develop new methods to tackle bullying throughout the school and wider community, as well as creating campaigns that will increase awareness around bullying behaviour. Sammy also works with The Diana Award on their National Anti-Bullying Youth Board, putting forward the views of himself and his peers to represent over 35,000 Anti-Bullying Ambassadors across the country. As a member of the Youth Board, he also takes part in a variety of engagements with politicians and news outlets.

Tamar Okunhon

Tamar Okunhon is a 15 year old member of the Diana youth Board. Her passions involve working as an advocate for environmental stability with the Manchester Consortium Youth Panel, working on the national Lonely Not Alone campaign and being involved in the change she would like to see in the world. As a member of the Diana Youth Board, Tamar has participated in the Don't Face it Alone Campaign, contributing an appearance in the Don't Face it Alone published video, talking about her experiences being outcast due to her race as well as speaking about preventing others undergoing the same treatment with representatives from Parliament and Number 10 Downing Street. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, taking walks at sunset, colouring, listening to music, word searches and cooking. Something that she has always found pleasure in is speaking out as a way to empower others as well as herself. She recognises that she was once the victim, but it doesn't have to stay that way; there's strength in confidence and control, control that you gain from not allowing the past to ruin the present and have hold over the future.

Tony McCabe

Tony McCabe is Headteacher of St Joseph's RC High School in Horwich, England and the proud father of four 'wonderful, intelligent & perfect' children (who helped him write this bio!!! and gave insights for the TEDx talk.) His interest in raising teens comes from his own experience of the challenges of family life.