In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

cSpace King Edward
1721 29 Ave SW
Room 310 - Calgary Association of Lifelong Learners
Calgary, Alberta, T2T 6T7
Canada

Alia Aluma

Creative Director

Alia is an independent creative director working in the fields of app development, fine art, and cultural wellbeing with numerous organizations, including Downtown Calgary Association, Alcove, ADVANCE Canada, and LaLoba. Alia has spoken at multiple international conferences, engaged with a team of academics from various institutions and many notable crypto-artists, and has begun her journey to write a highly anticipated textbook based on her Masters research in decentralized art and culture, aka CryptoArt (publishing date TBD). Her multilateral passions link grand interests such as architecture, film, design, writing, and entertainment, leading to experiences within the fields of fashion, photography, technical and culture teaching, writing and publishing, and fine arts and curation.

Gabrielle Lindstrom

Dr. Gabrielle E. Lindstrom, Tsaapinaki, is a member of the Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy. Dr. Lindstrom is an assistant professor in Indigenous Studies with the Department of Humanities at Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta. Her teaching background includes instructing in topics around Indigenous Studies (Canadian and International perspectives) and Indigenous research methods and ethics. Her research interests include decolonization in higher education, intercultural parallels in teaching and learning research, Indigenous lived experience of resilience, Indigenous community-based research, anti-colonial theory and anti-racist pedagogy.

Julie Sedivy

Trained as a language scientist, and having spent 20 years as an active researcher and academic, Julie Sedivy now spends much of her time thinking and writing about how people succeed and fail at communicating with each other and how they might transcend the barriers of differences in identity, personal history, and values. In her book, Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self, she makes the case for nurturing complicated identities in which multiple ethnicities, languages, and world views can be integrated within a single individual. Multiplicity, she argues, is a natural human state and can be a site of common ground and reconciliation. In 2017, she founded the Calgary-based book club, How Can You Think That???!? in which people from anywhere on the political spectrum meet to discuss books on a variety of political and social topics. She is a citizen of three countries.

Kaysi Fagan

Kaysi Fagan is an award-winning lawyer, educator and public speaker. She is the only practicing Criminal Defence Lawyer in Canada with three law degrees (including two Masters) from three different countries. She has appeared in every level of Court in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She has taught the course ‘Advanced Criminal Law’ at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law since 2018. She is a published author and has appeared as a legal expert in multiple episodes of a popular American true crime series. Kaysi was formerly based at the headquarters of the International Police (INTERPOL) in France. Prior to that she was a fire fighter who competed internationally in the World Championships and she attained her black prajiet (belt) in Muay Thai in 2012.

Louise Halfe

Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Louise Bernice Halfe a.k.a. Sky Dancer was raised on Saddle Lake Reserve and attended Blue Quills Residential School. Louise is married, has two adult children and three grandsons. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Regina. She also completed two years of Addictions Counselor Training at St. Albert’s Nechi Institute where she also facilitated the program. She served as Saskatchewan’s Poet Laureate for two years and has traveled extensively for her poetics and to present at numerous conferences. Her books include, Bear Bones and Feathers, Blue Marrow, The Crooked Good, Burning In This Midnight Dream, Sohkeyihta, and awasis-kinky and dishevelled. She has received numerous accolades and awards including honorary doctorates from Wilfred Laurier University, the University of Saskatchewan, and Mount Royal University. She currently serves as the national Parliamentary Library Poet Laureate.

Mackenzie Putici

Sommelier

Mackenzie Putici is an entrepreneur, polyglot, avid traveler and and certified sommelier. He's worked with AirBnB to design the first AirBnB Experiences in Toronto, managed a team of talented food and wine experts at his companies New World Wine Tours and Eating Through TO, and is now a Community Experience & Events Manager at Work Nicer Coworking. He got involved with blockchain and cryptocurrencies as an investor in 2020 when he connected with the broader Web3 community through the Clubhouse app. This allowed for Mackenzie to join groups for DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and blockchain education through connections across the globe on the platform. He is the co-founder of Web3 Calgary, an organization that host events and seminars for those passionate about Web3 in the province. Furthermore he is the co-creator of a Cocktail NFT series built on RMRK 2.0 for the Polkadot blockchain in collaboration with Polka Häus, TrickyNFTs, and Artera Labs.

Morgan Vanek

Morgan Vanek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. Her research and teaching interests include writing about weather and climate in British literature of the long eighteenth century, early Canadian literature, travel writing, ecocriticism, and the history and philosophy of science. She is currently at work on her first book, Changeable Conditions: The Politics of the Weather in Transatlantic Literature, 1660-1800. Her work, including some of her research towards this book, has been published in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015), Literature Compass (2015), Eighteenth-Century Fiction (2016), Eighteenth-Century Studies (2020), Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture (2020), and Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne (2021), and as part of a Cambridge Critical Concepts volume on Climate and Literature (2019).

Paul Johnston

Dr. Paul A. Johnston is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada. His research interests include the evolutionary genealogy of clams, oysters and scallops, and more recently, the animals and ancient environments of the Cambrian Period represented in strata of the Rocky Mountains. Before joining Mount Royal University, Dr. Johnston was Curator of Invertebrates at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. His research has taken him to diverse locales including Australia, the Gobi Desert, south China, the Philippines, and Arctic and Western Canada.

Sargeant and Comrade

Musical Performance

Yolanda Sargeant is the Queen of Lo-Fi Soul. A genre that she and her producer Comrade (Evgeniy) pioneered after not being able to find an appropriate label that fits their eclectic style. The duo infuses jazz, soul, funk, dancehall, hip-hop, as well as other genres into a unique sound that combines the old with the new. Sargeant’s rich vocals take center stage while Comrade’s production takes you on a multi-layered, genre-bending journey from beginning to end. After a successful first release Magic Radio (Breakout West – Breakout Artist Of The Year Award, YYC Soul/RnB Recording of the Year Award, Polaris Prize Longlisted) Sargeant X Comrade are back with another full length LP “The Elephant In The Room” Genres: Lo Fi Soul, Neo-Soul, Hip Hop, Dancehall, Experimental, Nu-Jazz, Lo Fi House, World Music

Zaire Ink and Sujeev Chohan

Musical Performance

Zaire Ink, who is also the co-founder the indie label Two Worlds Creative, is a hip hop artist and slam poet with passion for exploring subjects such as existential angst, disenfranchised youth, and a faith-based lifestyle. Sujeev Chohan starting playing piano at 4, then picked up the tabla at 8. He’s shared his passion for collaboration with solo and group artists from many different backgrounds. You may have heard him as part of Love Notes at Arts Commons and in performances by the University of Calgary’s World Music Ensemble.