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Being a TEDxMcGill co-organizer is a fabulous experience. It takes hard work and commitment, but ultimately yields incredible rewards. We are searching for the people who will make TEDxMcGill 2012/2013 everything it should be, and more.
Think you might have what it takes? Then read more here.
TEDxMcGill 2011 Final Schedule
9:00 AM – Registration
10:00 AM – First session: Diverge & Expand
Jordan Moody: ”A Conversation with Time”
Morgan Wienberg: “Will You Choose to Destroy the Web?”
Craig Silverman: “Why Failing is a Great Way to Build Trust”
Alain Tascan: “From Under the Big Top to the Streets”
Christian Elliot: “A Revolution Is A Mouse Click Away”
11:30 Breakout I (Lunch)
13:00 – Second session: Connect & Combine
Tabia Lau: “Packing for Paris”
Brenda Milner: ”Language: The Builder of Bridges”
Marc Rowland: “Yes, And: An Improviser’s Guide to Collaborative Creation”
Claude Theoret: “Measuring Zeitgeist and the Digital Future of the Humanities”
Michal Gomel: “Community Building Peace Building Community Building Peace…”
14:30 Breakout Session II
15:30 – Third session: Converge & Take Action
Pinny Gniwisch: “The Boy That Could”
Alex Pritz: “An Exploration of Cross-Cultural Education”
Joshua Kyle: “Outdated Technology: Waste or Opportunity”
Matt Brightman: “The Framing of Art as an Economic Engine”
Craig Buntin: “Redefining Success: Pre- and Post- Olympics”
17:00 The Show is Over
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Craig Buntin
Craig Buntin has been on the competitive figure skating scene for more than two decades. One of Canada’s top pairs skaters, Craig was a member of the Canadian national team from 2003 to 2010.Along with partner Valerie Marcoux, he was three-time Canadian Champion, winning multiple medals on the Grand Prix Circuit, placing as high as 5th at the World Championships and competing at the 2006 Olympics in Torino.
Upon Valerie’s retirement in 2007, Craig drove across the continent in search of a new partner, and as a result teamed up with Meagan Duhamel for the 2008 season. Within 9 months, Meagan and Craig were ranked 2nd in Canada and 6th in the world.
In his last year of competition, Craig founded Teabean, a coffee and tea company in Montreal which he currently owns and operates. He is also an MBA student at McGill University where was first student to be accepted without an undergraduate degree.
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Matt Brightman
Matt Brightman: “The Framing of Art as an Economic Engine”
Matthew Brightman is a serial entrepreneur. At the age of 17, he founded his first venture – a “clandestine online news blog” – in response to censorship of the Milton Measure, the high school newspaper where he served as Editor-in-Chief. The blog received 5,000 unique hits in its first 24-hours and a mention in the Boston Globe in its first week. At 18, he co-founded the student media group Developing Pictures after traveling to Haiti to volunteer only six weeks after the earthquake. Haiti left an indelible mark on Brightman, and in February of 2011, he co-founded Moral Fibers, a socially conscious apparel company, with the goal of attacking the symptoms of poverty directly through sustainable job creation. Moral Fibers now has 5 employees, and supports 15 artists in Haiti. Brightman is a Forces Avenir Laureate and the 2011 winner of McGill’s Dobson Cup.
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Joshua Kyle
Joshua Kyle: “Outdated Technology: Waste or Opportunity”
Growing up in rural Quebec, Joshua Kyle is a fourth year student working towards a undergraduate degree majoring in Materials Engineering and a minor in Technological Entrepreneurship at McGill University. Building upon a program he started in his hometown that returns computers dropped off at the local recycling centre back to the community, Joshua founded, managed and currently coordinates The Reboot McGill program. Reboot McGill is a not-for-profit co-operative effort between students and the McGill University administration that works to refurbish and redeploy McGill’s used computer equipment to members of the McGill and surrounding communities for reuse. Reboot McGill aims to make a more sustainable campus while providing a fun and engaging community driven learning environment where students can volunteer their time and give back to the local community.
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Alex Pritz
Alex is a third year McGill student studying in the School of the Environment. Involvement with the student film collective Developing Pictures drew Alex to Haiti and Kenya, where he started his career as an amateur filmmaker. Since then, he has gone on to initiate the Iwastology project through the McGill Dalai Lama Fellowship, a program connecting high school students from Montreal and the Philippines through film and online discussions about environmental issues. Alex sees film and multimedia as a powerful tool for raising awareness and creating change both in the classroom and in the field.Pinny Gniwisch
For a short introduction on social commerce see this video: Pinny Gniwisch on Social Commerce
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Pinny Gniwisch
Pinny is recognized globally as a great thinker and expert in social media, online marketing and merchandising, and is widely sought after as a speaker on ecommerce and online branding with his warm and engaging speaking style.
Under Pinny’s leadership as a founder and the EVP of Business Development, Ice.com revolutionized the way consumers bought jewelry, and the notion of modern e-commerce.
Pinny is a Adjunct Professor McGill University in its first ecommerce and social media course, a board member of shop.org (the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) ecommerce organization), and Founder and President of a non profit organization
He is a father of six and presides in Montreal.
TEDxMcGill 2011 Speaker: Michal Gomel
Michal Gomel Blank is a graduate of the McGill Middle East Program and sees social justice as the path to stability and lasting peace. She has focused on empowerment and social policies that support equal participation of minority groups in a multiethnic state. Michal’s field tutorial with the University of the Streets Cafe, of the Institute in Management and Community Development at Concordia University, gave her great organizing experience and the ability to engage in conversations about a wide range of issues affecting Montrealers. Back in Israel, she ran the Katamon Food Cooperative and the Kiryat Menahem Storefront through Community Advocacy for three years. Michal is now back in Montreal with her partner Rony who is studying for his PhD in Sociology in McGill. Here Michal is involved once again with MMEP work in Montreal.