2018 Speakers
We seek to explore the questions of: How we cultivate the skills and mindsets necessary to see beyond the limits of our own egos and aspirations? How do we set aside the habits of mind and judgment long enough to see into the world beyond ourselves? How does the world beyond ourselves compel us to action for the common good?
We are excited to have a group of speakers who will share ideas on a variety of interesting topics. Our theme for 2018 is Beyond Ourselves, we will create a setting where ideas are re-examined and your current understanding may be challenged. TEDxSpokane has the same mission as TED and that is: “To spread ideas worth sharing.” We look forward to bringing people together from the Inland Empire to share ideas and generate new meaning and actions. Visit YouTube for a playlist.
KINZIE FARMER
Kinzie Farmer is a curious soul with and gifted storyteller. Over the past two summers, she has “run away from home”, traveling abroad to live in three different countries (Mexico, Ireland and Spain). In her travels she has made it a habit to seek out cities and communities no one has ever heard of. Whether motivated by fear, or adventure, your borders are destroyed when you physically leave them behind because running away may be the best thing to bring you back to where you are meant to be.
SKYLER OBEREST
Skyler Oberst has a full-time job reminding people to love their neighbors, through his work with the Spokane Interfaith Council. Skyler seeks to do this by example all day and every day. Skyler’s work is to promote religious and cultural literacy using social and digital media. By using a series of “how to visit” videos and open houses, Skyler is breaking down ideological barriers and building community in a meaningful way.
CARRIE DAVIS
Carrie Davis is Spokane native (born and raised) and a big fan of the Pacific Northwest. Carrie is a teacher, mom, daughter and partner, a surrogate mom for herfriends, and for the last nine years she has coordinated and built a nationwide peer support and mentorship program for amputees. Carrie currently works in Patient Experience and organizational transformation through empathy and servant-leadership. Leading a life of service and finding common ground with others allows us to see beyond the limits of our egos and make lasting impacts on each other and the world around us.
JIM SHEEHAN
Jim Sheehan has a deep thirst for justice, in all of its forms. Jim Sheehan spent his first 20-year career as a public defender where he witnessed society’s cast of “disposable characters” and understood how deeply the systems that are meant to protect people can fail them. He became frustrated by the way order was championed over justice, and this frustration re-oriented his approach to public service. Together with local citizens and community leaders, Jim has spent the last 20 years leveraging his community resources by creating flexible, affordable, and beautiful places that nurture creativity and authentic connection in the service of social justice. Through the mystical power of place that is rooted in the pursuit of justice, people can and will self-organize and innovate beyond anything a philanthropist, social-activist, developer, or city planner could have imagined.
BROOK SWANSON
Brook Swanson is a professor in Biology. He teaches a variety of courses in involving physiology, evolution, and marine biology. Through his research in evolutionary biology he explores the design of animals from an engineering and evolutionary perspectives. This work has brought Brook to an interest in collaboration and in communicating ideas in new ways and through interdisciplinary thinking. Brook will provide insights into the collaborative process and an idea he calls “radical collaboration”. Brook will provide examples of this radical collaboration with help from the dance program at Gonzaga University.
KEVIN SANDERS
Kevin Sanders has spent more than 25 years in marketing, including senior-level roles and consulting in financial services, hospitality, higher education, high tech, healthcare, and foodservice. He is currently the CMO for a technology startup. Kevin believes trust is the foundation of all great companies, organizations and institutions. However, he also believes that trust is at an all-time low in our culture, society and in our world. In this new world where skepticism is now the default, businesses need to prove trustworthiness if they want to attract clients and thrive in our current society.
COME NZIBAREGA
Come Nzibarega has a gift for languages; he speaks five—French, Swahili, Kirundi, Amharic and English. In 2005, languages helped him land a job as a translator for a United Nations peacekeeping force sent to Burundi, which for decades has been plagued by conflicts between the nation’s two largest ethnic groups. By assisting the peacekeeping force, Come became a target of a rebel group and was forced to flee, becoming a refugee in Ethiopia for 6 years – six years! Come believes refugee camps are the richest places in the world and wants to share that insight with the world in order to create more inclusive communities and societies.
ANNA HO
Anna Ho uncovers actionable insights for Fortune 500 companies. With a master’s in Technology, Innovation & Education from Harvard and a second master’s in Media Studies from Stanford, she has over a decade of experience in education (in the U.S. and South Korea). She believes in order to design meaningful experiences for people, we must first do two things: understand, then empathize. Behavioral Archetypes—an original concept from Smashing Ideas—are the best way to do this, helping you grasp the “who does what, when they do it, and why.”
SCOTT HIPPE
Scott Hippe is a family physician completing residency training in Boise, Idaho. He is passionate about extending health services to rural and underserved areas. During medical training he has advocated for various health initiatives, most recently regarding improving accessibility of health insurance to citizens in Idaho. In the past he called Spokane home while attending Gonzaga University and as a medical student. Scott believes the notion that doctors “save lives” in hospitals is a misplaced glorification of a healthcare system that fails to prevent those lives from needing to be saved in the first place; both those in health-related and health-unrelated fields should redouble efforts at preventive health.
BETHANY MONTGOMERY
Bethany Montgomery is founder of a spoken word movement promoting freedom of expression and providing an advocacy platform to underrepresented demographics. Raising awareness to social, cultural, and political issues; she and her colleagues work by infiltrating consciousness and expressing truth. Bethany and her colleagues seek to shed light on experiences that expose social issues. Bethany is the spark that ignites the flame to stand up and be the change we want in our worlds. She believes in the power of words to motivate change through the use of poetry to express, expose, ignite and to instill culture, diversity, and inclusion in the community.
ROBBI ANTHONY
Robbi Anthony is an entrepreneur, a transgender activist and a business owner. Robbi started her first business 10 years ago in Spokane while in high school and hasn’t looked back. Her focus is inclusivity; inclusivity requires discomfort, as that’s the heart of empathy. Through her insights about the nature of loss, pain, hope and empathy Robbi will present a call for deeper community and compassion in our world.
ADAM SCHLUTER
Adam Schluter, an award-winning, National Geographic published photographer, decided to put landscape and travel photography behind him and focus on trying to use a camera to connect with people all around him. In the last six months, he has been to over 16 countries and just walked up to strangers to ask them for their photograph. During the process, his life was changed from the spontaneous connections that happened by just interacting with the world around him. He will be sharing his encounters, and some of his most powerful moments from this project, during the speech.
MANDY MANNING
Mandy Manning is the 2018 National Teacher of the Year. Mandy teaches in the Newcomer Center (English language development for brand new immigrant and refugee students) at Ferris High School in Spokane. She is a wife and mother. Mandy believes passionately in first understanding her students and their experiences. The first step to serving refugee and immigrant students and communities is to work to understand their experiences, their needs, hopes and dreams. By reaching across difference with understanding and compassion we can create stronger, safer, and more connected communities.
2018 Event Gallery
Tickets & Map
TEDxSpokane 2018 at the Bing Crosby Theater was on October 6, 2018.
Come early. Doors open at 8:30am.
BE PART OF THE FUTURE OF TEDxSPOKANE.
Welcome to TEDxSpokane. We invite you to collaborate with us in creating a community of idea sharing and inspiration. This is how we change the world— one idea at a time. This high-energy daylong event will feature shared ideas and entertaining presentations citizens of the Inland Empire and beyond.
This October marks our sixth live event and it will originate from the historic Bing Crosby Theater in downtown Spokane. Our 2016 event was sold out, attended by 400 people and videos have been viewed by over a quarter of a million people online.
We believe that sharing ideas can change attitudes, lives and ultimately our world. TEDxSpokane is part of a growing phenomenon known as TED. TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to sharing ideas. It started in 1984 as a conference of people seeking to share their knowledge in the worlds of technology, entertainment and design. TED now conducts live conferences featuring some of the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers. Videos from those conferences are available online and more than a billion people have viewed and grown intellectually as a result.
Those of us in the Pacific Northwest and Spokane have great ideas as well. That’s why we created TEDxSpokane and all of the activities involved with the nonprofit organization. Each year our volunteer organizers seek to find and give a stage to people in our community and others with great ideas. And each year, we connect with the international TED community and host viewing events to give national and international ideas a chance to be seen and heard on our local stage. We invite you to be part of TEDxSpokane.
JAMIE TENDER
TEDxSpokane, Founder and Licensee
BE PART OF SOMETHING MEANINGFUL.
We’re reaching out to a select group of organizations that are committed to the power of ideas and asking them to partner to help make TEDxSpokane activities possible.
We aren’t interested in selling ad space, our goal is to create lasting partnerships with organizations that want to be part of and add depth to the TEDxSpokane experience. Our presenters address some of humanity’s toughest challenges offering answers through innovation, enterprise and optimism. We seek to highlight local and regional ideas that inspire people to change their lives, their communities, and their world. Your partnership will help make this great event possible.
Join our community of thinkers, and benefit from an individually tailored partnership.
Patrick Ream
TEDxSpokane, Business Development
Organizers
JAMIE TENDER
Jamie Tender is the Head of School for Saint George’s, in charge of school advancement, teaching and learning, faculty and administration. As the Founder of TEDxSpokane, Jamie oversees all operations for the annual event, which began in 2011. He also serves as a speaker coach for several speakers each year. Each independently organized TEDxSpokane is Saint George’s gift to the community, bringing together thought leaders from throughout the country, while highlighting Inland Northwest’s connection to TED. Jamie has been with Saint Georges School since 2003, elevating the non-sectarian, independent school to a K-12 leader in providing International Baccalaureate education to students from the Inland Northwest, Asia and Europe. He holds a BA in Economics from Denison University and an MA in Sports Administration from Georgia State University. Jamie and his wife Elizabeth have a son playing hoops for the University of Redlands, a daughter modeling for IMG and another daughter gracing the halls of Saint George’s.
GRACE LEAF
Grace Leaf’s affiliation with TEDxSpokane began in 2012, when she served as its Emcee and a speaker coach. This is her second and last year serving as Curator, responsible for selecting the speakers and producing the live program. Grace also licensed TEDxCCS in 2013, serving as Curator at the Community Colleges of Spokane (CCS), only the second community college in the country to do a TEDx event. Grace holds a BA in Communication from Washington State University and an MA in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. As the Director of Human Resources for CCS, she holds two globally recognized HR certifications–the SPHR and SHRM-SCP. Grace is the parent of a Saint Georges alum and a former Parent Association officer.
MIKE POUTIATINE
Mike Poutiatine is a university professor and educational consultant in Spokane. Mike has worked on every TEDx Spokane since we started doing them – Mike is a founding Board member of Northwest x Talks, the non-profit founded to support TEDx Spokane. In the photo – I am the one on the left.
CHARLIE WOLFF
Charlie Wolff works in business development for the City of Spokane, and a Saint George’s alum, organizes community engagement projects for TEDxSpokane. Charlie is committed to mobilizing the residents of Spokane and the region around ideas shared at TEDxSpokane events.
This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED.