GET TO KNOW OUR SPEAKER LINEUP BELOW
2017 Speakers
We are excited to have a group of speakers who will share ideas on a variety of interesting topics. Our theme for 2017 is Predictors & Prognosticators: What is the Future of the Future, 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.
FRANCIS ADEWALE
Francis Adewale was admitted to the Washington State Bar in June 2000. He is H. George Frederickson Honors Graduate of Eastern Washington University. Francis was born in Nigeria and was sworn in as an American citizen in 2005. He has served as Assistant Public Defender for the City of Spokane, since May 2001. He is one of the attorneys that helped establish Spokane Community Court. Francis is 2013 recipient of City of Spokane Human Rights Award, and 2014 Spokane County Bar Association Smithmoore P. Myers Professionalism Award and 2017 recipient of the WACDL President’s Award.
Do you know that 10 million misdemeanor cases are filed every year? And most are for quality of life, low level crimes like trespass, and crime of homelessness compare to 1 million felonies filed every year? Do you also know that majority of misdemeanor offenders are often serving life sentence “20-30 days at a time”? Why? Because these individuals have nowhere to sleep (housing problems) addicted to drugs, suffers from severe mental health or adverse childhood experiences. His talk will expound on a unique program that seeks to address this problem by moving people out of jail into housing, treatment, social services, reduce ER usage, while participants give back to the community through community service.
AARON HESSE
Aaron Hesse is an electrical engineer and building technology specialist. He currently designs and oversees the construction of network infrastructure at Avista Utilities. He is passionate about making buildings more connected and efficient and will be speaking to us on the future of building technology and its role in disrupting the utility industry.
AMMI MIDSTOKKE
Ammi Midstokke is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and regular contributor to several publications. During office hours, she tries to save the world with vegetables in her medical clinic, specializing in autoimmune disease and gastrointestinal disorders. Though as a child she had the more standard ambition of ‘ballerina,’ she was thwarted by an impressive lack of grace, a developing fascination with the microbiome, and an insatiable hunger for (mis)adventure. She lives in her off-grid cabin in North Idaho where she spends most of her time fantasizing about creative ways to kill animals that threaten her garden, optimizing solar panel positioning, and getting lost in the mountains with her brown dog. She will be presenting on the benefits of developing personal connection to the systems that support us, from controlling our own supply chain to accidental conservationism.
ERIKA PRINS SIMONDS
Erika Prins Simonds has written hundreds of journalism articles, carving a niche for herself as a storyteller. That’s in her spare time. During the day, she is program coordinator for the creative non-profit Spark Central. She lives in downtown Spokane with her husband and two cats. A multipotentialite, she’s done stints in politics and marketing, managed a vegan restaurant and launched a mini side career as a graphic artist, teaching herself new skills along the way. Erika was born in Pretoria, South Africa and raised in central California before hauling all her flip-flops up to Spokane for college. She earned a degree in International Studies and Spanish at Whitworth University. She travelled the world as a high schooler and lived in Lima, Peru for a year as a teenager. Yet, it was at Whitworth that she discovered how profoundly people’s perspectives can differ. Whether debating forms of Marxism or the economics of sports stadiums, she was baffled that she and her classmates, given the same information, could draw conflicting conclusions. A decade later, the question of how and why we think so differently — and how to cross that gulf — has become pressing. Erika’s TEDx talk explores the part language plays in how we understand each other: We can use fierce, fearless conversation to build a healthier political culture that’s resistant to fear-based messaging.
TABITHA WOLF
Tabitha Wolf: “I’m passionate about transgender issues. By day, I’m an Applications Analyst for MultiCare Health System, but in my free time I help run Spokane Trans People, the premier transgender support group/social club in the inland northwest. My talk will address the future of gender, and how the seemingly static concepts of male and female might evolve in the coming decades.“
JUDY CORNISH
Judy Cornish is an elder law attorney, author, and the founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer’s Wellbeing Network (DAWN). I spend most of my time running DAWN and my dementia care business, Palouse Dementia Care, and teaching families and dementia caregivers how to use the tools of the DAWN Method. I am passionate about recognizing the skills we can still use even with dementia, and teaching people how we can support the dignity and autonomy of those who are living with dementia. My talk will be about three simple skills retained in dementia and how we can live fulfilled lives through recognizing the pattern.
KRISTIN KINDER
Kristin Kinder, living in eco-conscious Germany, inspired to work for change at home. She has dumpster-dived all over the country and helped Fortune 500 businesses see the waste they generate in a new light. As Ecova’s Product Manager for Waste, her background in recycling education and behavioral change has prepared her to develop waste programs that improve clients’ cost savings, efficiency, and recycling rates. When she’s not saving the planet, you will likely find her talking to strangers in another country, perusing a farmers market, hustling on a soccer field, or arguing about the Oxford comma. By the end of her TEDx Talk, she will have convinced you to rethink how you use resources daily.
MATTHEW MITCHELL
Matthew Mitchell has researched the future for nearly 20 years helping organizations, governments, institutions, and individuals invent better futures through policy, investment, and planning. He is currently developing an online service to expand access to strategic visioning research. Matthew is driven by the thrill of helping people discover and develop new ideas about possible futures. We’re surrounded by the results of unfortunate decisions made by people with inadequate perceptions of the future. This is a problem. Luckily there are several people trying to solve this chronic problem. Within the past 10 years a growing body of scientific research has revealed that a significant portion of the population has a conceptual “future gap” in which the brain is unable to fully connect our current selves with our future selves, this can greatly affect how we make decisions. As a form of extreme future gap, some of us perceive our future selves as someone else entirely. To build better futures: we need better ways to think about the future, we need to bridge the future gap, we need to connect with our future selves. Matthew Mitchell presents a research technique designed to help individuals and groups explore their possible futures, collect innovative ideas, and develop actionable visions.
NICK SMOOT
Nick Smoot has founded and sold 3 tech companies. Now as the founder of Innovation Collective and Mountain Man Ventures (VC fund), he is focused on redefining how people and cities participate in the future of work. He is a Milken Institute Young Leader and a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council. Nick has been interviewed for or contributed to Bloomberg, Forbes, USA Today, Fast Company, Mashable, Virgin, LinkedIn, Inc. Magazine and Huffington Post. He has also been kissed by Richard Branson.
CHRIS WOOD
Chris Wood’s broad business experiences and skills in the methodology of the Toyota’s Business Model, also known as Lean Thinking, has helped shape many of his future-forward views of the world. He is educated as a mechanical engineer and has provided engineering, operations, sales and marketing leadership roles in industries varying from dirt clods (wheat, cattle and timber operations) to clean rooms (defense, telco and aerospace electronics).
TUCKER FRYE
Tucker Frye was born in Bend, Oregon. Moved to Spokane very shortly after birth. I had a pretty usual upbringing, I feel like because there was not much conflict in my childhood that it would have been easier for me to get involved in trouble if I hadn’t taken on dance. Dancing had really pushed me to improving myself and figuring out ways I can challenge myself from day to day. Out of high school I lost a lot of my friends who weren’t in to some physical activity or dance, so I was a little more of a loner in my early adult years. I had met Dmitry Bistrevsky and David Moyle both through dance and our group just grew from there. Suddenly, there were about ten of us and we would travel and eat and do everything together. It was then when I started realizing that you can really create a community with something as little as a common interest.
MONTY LOMAZZI
Monty Lomazzi aka “Mustang Freak” — Racing Drone Pilot and the Chapter Organizer for SpokaneFPV, a regional Tier 2 MultiGP drone racing chapter. Myself and others like me are using fields, parks, even their backyards across the globe to redefine what it is to pilot remote vehicles of all types. With us pushing the limits daily, the systems we are using are being forced to become lighter, faster, and smarter at an extreme rate. This is creating a future where that delivery you just ordered gets to you in half the time, calling for help and knowing it’s literally only a minute away, and sending your kids off to school in an autonomous bus that has a better driving record than you… That future we heard about is now.
NATASHA MISERENDINO
Natasha Miserendino is passionate about food, teaching, and the community. Originally from Chandler, Arizona, she moved here to Spokane from San Diego, CA. After working in restaurant management for almost 10 years, life has taken a different path and Natasha is now working at Umpqua Bank as a Lending Production Specialist. In the meantime, she is currently author, photographer, and chef behind her vegan food blog and is in the process of writing a cookbook geared towards those wanting to make healthy meals, but don’t have the knowledge or fancy equipment to do so. Someday, Natasha hopes to be able to teach young adults culinary skills and the benefits of a fresh, wholesome diet. Her talk will be about the power behind words and the impact they have on others.
DAVE PAUNESKU
Dave Paunesku studies the motivation to learn — and how learning contexts can stifle or energize that motivation. His center at Stanford University, PERTS, helps educators leverage behavioral sciences research to cultivate students’ passion and persistence for learning. He asks: what must our schools do differently to prepare students for a rapidly changing world in which knowledge and skills quickly obsolesce?
JOHN TOMKOWIAK
John Tomkowiak, MD, MOL, is the founding dean of the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. A professor of psychiatry and board certified in general psychiatry, as well as a master degree holder in organizational leadership, Dr. Tomkowiak has expertise in the areas of innovation in medical education, accreditation, and transformational leadership. With leadership experience at medical schools in Florida, New York, and Illinois, Dr. Tomkowiak brings deep expertise and passion to training doctors to be leaders in their communities, in personalizing medical students’ education so it is relevant to their careers, and developing physicians who are prepared to practice innovative healthcare.
RHONDA YOUNG
Rhonda Young is a professor of civil engineering at Gonzaga University specializing in transportation systems. She studies the role of transportation on safety, mobility, and efficiency of communities and regions and is excited about creating more livable and economically healthy communities. Rhonda’s talk looks at future transportation technology and it’s likely impacts on our society while asking the audience to consider their own mobility.
Listen to a few inspiring & creative ideas here too
Register & Map
TEDxSpokane 2017 is hosted at the Bing Crosby Theater on October 21, 2017 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Guests of this engaging and inspiring experience
may expect to be wowed by amazing ideas all day long!
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
The Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W Sprague Ave, Spokane, WA 99201
Come early for best parking and seating. More details soon.
Donation Notice
Our application for 501c3 is pending. A written receipt will be mailed to donors with the tax ID when it is issued.WHY BECOME A TEDx PARTNER?
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.