I am fascinated by the possibilities that low-cost 3d printing creates. When I talked with Xanthe, she was confident that we could use this revolution to begin creating objects that are more useful and meaningful to us as individuals. We could replace uni-tasking, low-lifespan devices, with unique multi-purpose tools, that are customized to our needs. Xanthe teaches design-thinking at the Saunders College of Business and in the...

We have a wealth of film and animation talent in our region, and this year, I was proud to present one of the talented filmmakers from our region. Ray’s recent work, “La Lune et Le Coq”, has played in national and international festivals worldwide, winning awards such as Best Animation and Public Favorite. His work has also been featured for RIT’s School of Film and Animation “2011 Honor Show”, and has been also selected for...

We are fortunate to have a host of very talented industrial designers in the region. Dave and Jim were our first two person bandy-back-and-forth talk, which is not typical on the TED stage. When I met the two and discovered their interesting notions on the relationship between music, specifically jazz, an industrial design, I had to see if they would speak as a duet. They shine light on the interesting relationship between music and design...

Hailing from Cameroon, Moka is a man of many talents. Not least of these is his passion: building affordable, eco-friendly homes using little more than the earth available at the build site. I haven’t had the chance to check out the eco-dome he’s built here in Rochester, but Gary did, “You’re driving down this urban city street and then you’re immediately on Tatooine.” The technology is cool, and the...

I am always interested in people’s migrations and life-journeys; how they might end up half-a-world away from where they started, doing things they couldn’t have imagined only a few years before. I was particularly excited to hear one of these unique life-stories as I was driving through the rolling farmlands south of Rochester on a warm indian summer day. I was to meet Ali Yapicioglu and his partner, Rick Hauser, at their firm,...

Marla is the Chair of 3D Digital Graphics department at RIT. In this heartfelt speech, Marla takes us on a journey through her life where she started with the lofty goal of being a housewife. She discusses the various influences on her who taught her not only how to be as a person, but how to be worldly. She discusses how even though you think you might know what you can learn from a topic, there is always so much you can take from it. ...

Larry was one of our last minute additions to the program. Because of this, his talk was quite a bit shorter than we would’ve liked, but I think he manages to hit the mark brilliantly in the time allotted. An artist with a most unusual medium, Larry uses his talents not just to entertain, but to educate and bring people together. He has worked with disparate groups all over the world, and was able to get people who didn’t...