Theme: A New Stage

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).

John C. Hodges Library
1015 Volunteer Boulevard.
1st Floor, Lindsay Young Auditorium
Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996
United States

Angelique Adams

Leadership Coach

Dr. Angelique Adams is CEO of Angelique Adams Media Solutions, LLC, a leadership coaching and training consultancy for scientists and engineers. She is an engineer and former corporate executive with 25 years of experience in operations, strategy, and innovation. After managing multimillion-dollar innovation portfolios and leading hundreds of scientists and engineers worldwide, Angelique discovered her true passion is developing people, not products. In addition to launching her own online leadership development platform, Dr. Adams is a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Tennessee’s Tickle College of Engineering. She has a Ph.D. in Energy and Mineral Engineering from Penn State and an MBA from MIT.

Gary Jackson

Artificial Intelligence & Stand Up Comedy

Mr. Jackson created the first Artificial Intelligence written magazine, Esquire Singapore April 2019 issue with a startup he co-founded called AI-Writer and won the Gold Native Advertising Award 2019 for Best Use Of Print Media In addition, to prevent A.I. from creating misinformation and false narratives, Mr. Jackson co-founded and created Blockstamped which uses Ethereum Blockchain to keep all content within context including stoping deep fakes. Mr. Jackson has 25+ years in Data Science, Big Data innovation in sales, pre-sales, delivery, enablement, engineering, and global partner alliances while living in North & South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Australia, & Africa.

Haseeb Qureshi

Attorney & Professor

Haseeb Qureshi (HQ) is a self-taught coder, past startup founder (Audiohand Inc), licensed attorney (CEO Forthlaw PLLC), board member of an internationally acclaimed music festival (Big Ears Festival) and full-time lecturer teaching entrepreneurship (University of Tennessee). HQ had a short stint in Los Angeles as a studio manager (The Mastering Lab), sold hand-drawn skateboards, websites (Avenue Factory), and worked with the City of Knoxville to produce PPP and SBA webinars during the pandemic (What's the CARES Act). HQ was named as a Legal Pioneer by the Tennessee Bar Association in 2018. HQ holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon and a J.D. from University of Tennessee College of Law.

Patrick Angelaccio

Social Work Student @ The University of Tennessee

Patrick is a school social work intern at a local high school. There he encounters problems that members of Generation Z face on the daily. This has lead him to ask a central question, what does the future look like for Gen Z? In his work with high schoolers and as a mentor to university freshmen students, Patrick has grasped some of the key problems that trouble this generation and their future