Speakers For Upcoming TEDxBermuda Event

The Island’s fourth TEDxBermuda is shaping up to bring another inspiring slate of presenters “to share big ideas from Bermuda and beyond.” The Saturday, October 19 event, at the Fairmont Southampton Resort, promises an exciting line-up of local and international speakers, from Japan’s last ninja to hip hop educators and a surgeon who operates wearing Google Glass.

“The first three TEDxBermuda events have been acclaimed successes and we expect this event will be our best yet,” says John Narraway, TedxBermuda chairman. “Adding to the fun will be a ticketed wrap party after the event.”

Speakers confirmed to date include:

• Jinichi Kawakami: The Art of Ninjutsu and the Spirit of the Ninja
• Robert Lustig: Personal Responsibility—The Elephant in the Kitchen
• Hip Hop Fundamentals: Teaching Physics Through Breakdance
• Natalie Kuldell: Synthesizing Change With Garage Genomics
• Andrew Park: Making Visual Confectionary
• Bren Smith: Farming the Ocean
• Rafael Grossmann: “OK, Glass, Get Me a Surgeon”

Tickets for the main event, which runs from 1–6:30 pm, are available here. Earlybird price is $65 until midnight, October 1, and $75 after that. Details of wrap party ticketing will be released soon.

Jinichi Kawakami: The Art of Ninjutsu and the Spirit of the Ninja

Kawakami—known as “The Last Ninja”—explodes the Hollywood myth and explains the roots of Ninjutsu, from self-defence and magic to ecology and mind control. Born in Wakasa district, Fukui prefecture, Japan in 1949, he learned and trained Koka-Ryu Ninjutsu from age six and mastered Shinobinoden Ninjutsu. He is now called “The Last Ninja” as the head of Banke Shinobinoden. Kawakami claims to be the last soke and only heir to the art of authentic Ninjutsu and has been the honorary director of the Iga Ryu Ninja Museum in Iga, Japan, since 2002. In 2011, he was appointed a professor at Mie University to study and promote Ninjutsu at the university’s research cooperation centre. His book Illustrating and Explaining the Art of the Ninja is published by Nittoshoin.

Robert Lustig: Personal Responsibility—The Elephant in the Kitchen

The health dangers of sugar and its link to Type-2 diabetes and the global obesity epidemic. Lustig is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of
Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of many articles on childhood obesity, including the recent “Obesity Before Birth.” He is the author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease, the e-book, Sugar has 56 names: A Shopper’s Guide, and the forthcoming Fat
Chance Cookbook. He is also president of the Institute for
 Responsible Nutrition, a think-tank devoted to improving the global food
supply.

Hip Hop Fundamentals: Teaching Physics Through Breakdance

Using breaking [the oldest and most exciting form of hip hop dance] to teach high-level academics. Including teaching philosophies, dance style—and some mysteries of particle physics in a theatrical and interactive presentation.

Hip Hop Fundamentals is run by two members of Philadelphia’s Repstyles Crew. Steve “Believe” Lunger and Bermudian Mark “Metal” Wong began designing hip hop lecture demonstrations to focus on the dynamic and thrilling dance of b-boying, also known as breakdancing. They saw the potential to use the ethics and history of underground hip hop dance to educate youth in self-empowerment and character building, while also aligning their lecture style with educational standards. The result is a high-energy, interactive lecture and showcase that encourages youth to learn, participate and have fun.

Natalie Kuldell: Synthesizing Change With Garage Genomics

With just a rudimentary developer’s kit, anyone can engage in synthetic biology. But what will our planet look like if students, teachers and adult amateurs can easily reprogramme the living world around them?

Kuldell teaches in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is founder and president of the Biobuilder Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that takes cutting-edge research projects in synthetic biology and transforms them into teachable modules that students and teachers can investigate together. Started in 2007, BioBuilder was created in response to numerous requests for synthetic biology learning materials from policy-makers, scientists and environmental groups needing to know more about the biology involved. Dr. Kuldell studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Cornell, completed her doctoral and post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School, and taught at Wellesley College before joining the faculty at MIT.

Andrew Park: Making Visual Confectionary

How to apply tools from theatre, comedy and conversation to break down complex ideas and present them in an a easy-to-understand manner.

Park—the man behind the RSA Animate animations at TED.com—graduated in fine art from the University of the Creative Arts, Kent, UK. He believes everything can be interpreted as a story. Building strong and relevant narratives for people is valuable and helps them connect and find a common language. Animation allows an audience to explore new terrain in their thinking as anything can be visualized, from tiny atoms to the widest galaxies and everything in between. He founded the visual thinking and communications company Cognitive Media in 2004. The company provides video scribing and animations for the private, public, charity and community sectors. Cognitive Media’s mission is to help people understand and communicate through the power of pictures and visual storytelling.

Bren Smith: Farming the Ocean

A former commercial fisherman’s “ecological redemption” as a blue-green revolutionary now working towards a global network of small-scale ocean farms. The low-carbon future of food, fuel and fertiliser?

Smith is the owner of Long Island Sound’s first vertical ocean farm. Called a “visionary” by Barton Seaver, director of Harvard’s Healthy and Sustainable Food Program, Smith has pioneered the development of sustainable ocean 3D farming — the vertical cultivation of seaweed and shellfish in local waters. Smith’s farm is designed to restore ocean ecosystems, mitigate climate change, and create blue-green jobs for fishermen — while ensuring healthy, local food for communities. In 2013, Smith was chosen as an “Ocean Hero” finalist by Oceana and Future of Fish’s “Ocean Entrepreneur” of the year.

Rafael Grossmann: “OK, Glass, Get Me a Surgeon”

Using wearable and mobile technology like Google Glass and iPods to save lives

Dr. Rafael Grossmann is a general, trauma, advanced laparoscopic and robotic surgeon in Maine, and an enthusiastic medical blogger. He routinely wears Google Glass during procedures and, practising in a rural area, believes mobile technology will save lives. His vision: to exponentially improve healthcare connectivity and communication, resulting in more efficient and intuitive, less expensive and ultimately better patient care.

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