Theme: EVOLVE

The second annual TEDx Harrisburg will take place on Sunday October 15th, 2017 at the Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. for a day of dialogue around the theme EVOLVE.

Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center
1110 N. 3rd St.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 17102
United States

Alan Todd

The Age of Superintelligence. How Tomorrow’s Leaders Blend Humans and Machines Into Smart Networks.

Alan Todd, Founder and CEO of CorpU, is regarded as one of the world’s pre-eminent authorities on strategy and leadership. His insights are routinely solicited from CEO’s and business leaders at the world’s leading companies, like Walmart, Coca-Cola, Boeing, and Johnson & Johnson. His technical innovations in Strategy Activation are powering global growth for companies with combined annual revenues of over $1 trillion. He is a co-founder of Harrisburg University and a past trustee or advisor to Dickinson College, Penn State University, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Graduate School of Education. He completed his masters and doctoral studies at both Wharton and Penn GSE.

Ashley Bucher

Using Your Own Story to Build Resiliency in Your Community

A native of Harrisburg, PA, Ashley Bucher is a graduate of Penn State University. Ashley has a passion for learning about how people experience life and how those experiences shape our individual choices.

Bob Welsh

The Cross The Street Kids

Bob Welsh is the Founder of School To Table Aquaponics. Combining 25 years of award winning, innovative workforce development for young people with the latest advances in Controlled Environment Agriculture, Mr. Welsh and his team are expanding their community empowerment model to an international network of Ag tech facilities that aims to create a global community of best practice. In 2016, Mr. Welsh became the CEO of Integrated Agriculture Systems, Inc. (www.intagsystems.com). From this position, he is now able to bring his effective Public-Private Partnership models to more schools and communities, offering opportunities for new technologies and industry expertise that translate to dual enrollment, professional development, and certification opportunities for K-12 and post-secondary teachers and learners. Mr. Welsh sits on many advisory boards, including Penn State University and the Pennsylvania STEM Advisory Council.

Curtis Voelker

Evolve Through Adversity

From the age of 15, Curtis has been a motivational speaker sharing is inspirational story across multiple states with hundreds of schools, nonprofits, businesses, and thousands of high school students. Now at age 26, as an Admissions Counselor with Central Penn College, Curtis helps students determine what their futures may look like after high school graduation on their paths forward. With his charismatic, inspirational, and positively energetic personality, Curtis enjoys assisting students in realizing they have the power to turn their potential into career success. Curtis holds a Masters of Professional Studies in Organizational Leadership with a concentration in Organizational Development from Central Penn.

Donald Pollard

Driving Change from Within

Donald Pollard is partner and head of business development at Startup Home US. Startup Home creates the ultimate entrepreneurial experience by intersecting live/work communities and serves as an entrepreneurial hub by increasing the chances of startup success, and promoting innovation, economic development and jobs. With an MBA in fashion management and entrepreneurship from LIM College in NY and an undergraduate degree from Penn State, Donald a native of Harrisburg, has lived in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, NY and Milan, Italy and also currently serves as owner and creative director at DONNSTERLING, a high-end luxury menswear company. An advocate for the advancement of shared concepts from building mixed-use sustainable communities to shared cities, Donald is committed to helping advance Harrisburg’s startup ecosystem by creating opportunities that will enable future long-term growth for generations to come.

Glenn Mitchell

Medicine’s Big Leap is Here

Dr. Mitchell is Professor and Program Lead for Healthcare Informatics at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Harrisburg, PA. During 2007 to 2012, he was Chief Medical Officer and Acting Chief Medical Information Officer for the 6,000- physician Sisters of Mercy Health System, establishing the Center for Medical Informatics and the Center for Quality and Safety. He received undergraduate Physics, Masters in Engineering and MD degrees from Brown University. Dr. Mitchell is a retired Army Colonel, Fellow and Past President of the Aerospace Medical Association, former Vice-Chair of the American Board of Preventive Medicine, and Life Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He has authored over 40 publications and has received numerous military and civilian awards.

Joshua Harris

Strong Enough to be Wrong

Joshua Harris is a wordsmith, communicator and content strategist who loves to help clarify and amplify messages that matter. He’s best known for writing the runaway best-seller I Kissed Dating Goodbye when he was 21. Twenty years later he’s attending graduate school in Vancouver, Canada, and filming a documentary with fellow students about his journey of facing up to ways his book harmed people who followed its ideas.

Joyce Hunter

Agriculture is More Than Beverly Hillbillies & Green Acres

Former Deputy CIO, US Department of Agriculture. Known as a Strategic Doer, Social Entrepreneur and Change Agent. Current CEO, Vulcan Enterprises LLC Served as Trusted Advisor to federal, industry and non-profit CXO Community Cultivate and maintain strategic relationships among key policy makers and government leaders, including congressional and administration staff, national non-profit organizations and business partners. FedScoop 2016 Federal Leadership Award, FedScoop 2017 and 2016 Top Women in Information Technology Award, Big Data Innovation Award 2015 Advanced Academic Technology Research Center (ATARC), Global Inspirational Women Leadership Award 2016, Centre for Economic & Leadership Development (CELD), Joseph A. Wharton Award 2014, Wharton DC Club, Contributor – The Handbook of Federal Government Leadership and Administration: Transforming, Performing and Innovating in a Complex World – 2017 Created the Open Data Science Technology Engineering Agriculture and Math (STEAM)

Linda Beck

Fact Checking in a Fast-Paced, Technically-Driven World

Educator. Consultant. Speaker. Linda has a varied background that allows her to easily move between academic and business environments. She teaches undergraduate and masters level business communication courses for a number of Central Pennsylvania colleges, including HACC, Lebanon Valley, Harrisburg University and Eastern. And, to provide even more variety in her life, she directs the social media for a local association and provides training for numerous local organizations. When she’s not trying to learn new things, she can be found hanging out with her husband and son or pounding the pavement training for her next half or full marathon.

Nathan Eckel

Armed with Empathy: Manage Problems, Lead People

Nathan Eckel has trained leaders on 3 continents. His second book “Leadership Lessons from Guatemala” tells the backstory of a nationwide values initiative that he helped facilitate in 2013. During his monthly LeadMax event Nathan empowers others through his own growth journey from “recovering perfectionist” to “flexible influencer.” Nathan is past president of ATD (Assoc. for Talent Development) Philadelphia. As an adjunct at LaSalle University he taught graduate workshops in adult learning theory, instructional design, and online collaboration. Nathan lives 2 miles over the state line in Hockessin, Delaware.

Stephen Haas

Hear Yourself Louder

I discovered art when I was four years old, It was a gift my family lovingly gave me and supported through out my whole life. The way I fell in love with drawing is the same way It happens in the fairy tale.. By that I mean, some mythical dragon flew out of the sky and handed me a golden crayon and said draw… the dragon (a family friend) taught me to draw inside the lines. I remember distinctly thinking to myself that I wanna color the whole page, I want it to be vibrant and full of life and after that I knew I was never going to stop. I hope to bring life to my drawings intern I hope my drawings can bring color to into life. There is no overarching agenda aside from my hope that I could inspire some little four year old to see color the way I did.

Treff LaPlante

Survive

Treff LaPlante has been the founder and CEO of CitizenDeveloper.com and WorkXpress for the past 15 years. At the time he started the company he was driven by this notion of “if you build it, they will come”. As such he was attracted by the notion of building something so disruptive that it would have billion dollar potential. For him and his team, this meant a “no-code” software development platform that empowered ordinary people to build extraordinary business software applications.