Theme: IMMERSE YOURSELF

We’re thrilled to bring a one-of-a-kind TEDx experience to Buckhead! We chose “Immerse Yourself” as our theme as you’ll journey inside the minds of our brilliant innovators and witness their talks unfold in front of a curved 60 foot-wide IMAX-like video canvas. Speakers will leverage virtual worlds and augmented reality as their dramatic theatrical backdrop – sharing stories of immersion in a big idea, a pivot, the unexpected, what matters, etc. The Speaker will take your mind into new realms, different ideologies, unique creative outlooks – creating powerful moments of inspiration.

TEDxBuckheadAve Speakers:
Walter Ward
Melissa D White
Yolanda Barton
Laura Temin
Rakel Chafir
Sukia Akiba
Bernard Owens
Corean Canty
Allison Dayne

MODEx Studio
3005 Peachtree Rd NE
Atlanta, Georgia, 30305
United States

Allison Dayne

Artistic Director/Writer/Actor

Allison Dayne is a multi-talented artist hailing from Eagle, Idaho. Her journey in the world of performance arts began with a passion for theater, which led her to pursue a BFA in Theater Performance from Westminster College. During her time at college, Allison founded the theatrical production company "Leading Ladies," a remarkable non-profit organization dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices. Through this platform, she wrote and produced original plays, with all proceeds going to support local non-profits such as the Rape Recovery Center, Domestic Violence Coalition, and Suicide Hotline. Allison's commitment to the arts and her exceptional acting skills gained recognition when she hosted the Park City Film Studios at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Her talent in Shakespearean performance also earned her acclaim when she won the title of "Best Spoken Actor" in a worldwide Shakespeare competition, as recognized by The New York Times.

Bernard Owens

Author, Speaker, Mental Wellness Coach

Bernard Owens, Jr. is an author, inspirational speaker + mental wellness coach who has dedicated his life to helping people unlock their true potential. His latest work, "The Only Thing Wrong With You, Is That You Think Something's Wrong With You" serves the reader as a hard hitting personal account of his triumph over adversity and a roadmap for achieving greater personal happiness + life transformation from lessons learned along his journey. He unabashedly shares his journey from adversity to victory + practical real world techniques for life improvement in his speeches and when working with clients one-on-one. Bernard's unique approach to self-development combines the elements of proven psychological techniques with a pragmatic, no nonsense approach to improving mental health. His mission is to help people discover and uncover their true and authentic selves to create a life filled with joy, purpose and connectedness to the world around them + more importantly, to themselves.

Corean Canty

Founder/CEO

Corean is a transformational speaker, workplace well-being expert, professional improviser, 20+ year corporate veteran, founder of The Life is Project, a life design and career coaching business that helps women uncover their purpose to build and live full lives, and co-founder of Shift to Play, a culture strategy firm that facilitates experiences to foster more connected, engaged and inclusive workplaces. This experience has led her to becoming an expert at leadership development, workplace well-being and culture transformation. Her focus is helping people to remember to live and helping leaders and organizations shift burnout prevalent workplaces into cultures that drive well-being where both the humans and the businesses thrive. Corean has been called the “calm in the chaos” and has a unique way of centering the room and holding space for people to have the types of “aha moments” that transform lives and businesses.

Laura Temin

Mental Wealth and Personal Growth

Laura Temin, is a transformative force in the world mental wealth and personal growth. Laura's dedication to unlocking the mind's potential to overcome 'seemingly unsolvable problems' positioned her as an international best-selling author, TEDx speaker, trusted clinician and respected educator. With relentless passion, Laura helps people harness their minds power to fulfill their dreams, making what once seemed impossible, truly possible.

Melissa D White

Faith Based Leader

As an emerging global voice, Melissa advocates for a new generation of millennial women leaders in the workplace, community, and civic leadership. She is a multi- hyphenate leader who specializes in diversity, equity, inclusion, leadership development, and cultivating corporate and community partnerships to create change. Melissa D. White has spoken to up to 700,000 in person at one sitting with her message to "Activate Your Voice" through her humanitarian efforts in support of woman, children, and elders in India. Her global platform directly serves India, Bahamas, Jamaica, Uganda, the UK, and the United States. She is the CEO of The Activation Hour® and Activation Coaching International, a coaching, consulting, and media firm helping thousands to "be seen and heard at work and in the world”.

Rakel Chafir

Body-Business Coach

Rakel Chafir is a bestselling author and a Body-Business coach who helps high-driven female leaders and entrepreneurs shake up the status quo across their industries. Whether they’re building their own coaching practice, opening up the financial space for women or growing their companies to seven figures and beyond, these women are making a huge impact on the world, and feeling present and confident doing it.

Sukia Akiba

Affordable Housing

Meet Sukia Akiba, an impactful and seasoned Real Estate Developer with an impressive career spanning over 15 years in the industry. With a diverse skill set that includes expertise in land acquisition, zoning, and design, Sukia is a trailblazer in the world of affordable housing. Her proven track record of success sets her apart as a dynamic force in development and construction. Passionate about effecting positive change, Sukia also channels her energy into supporting public policy and advocacy initiatives. She has taken the lead in crucial areas such as housing, food insecurity, and climate change and sustainability, among others. These causes resonate deeply with her, and she tirelessly advocates for solutions that make a real difference in people's lives.

Walter Ward

Executive, Investor, Speaker

Walter is a transformative leader with a superpower of helping people and organizations get to their desired future faster. To do so he deploys skills in organizational and program management, strategy creation and execution, objective setting and reporting, team building as well as culture curation. Empowering it all is his ability to connect and motivate people around causes and objectives through storytelling with data. Those abilities have helped him lead over 10k hours worth of impactful projects and programs for organizations like MorganFranklin Consulting & CapitalOne, help fintech startup TiiCKER raise over 2M in pre-seed funding, launch now failed edtech startup The Mobile Business School and lead as a senior leader through one of the fastest and largest bank failures in US History at Silicon Valley Bank. Walter is hails from Detroit but calls Atlanta home and enjoys 90’s hip hop, traveling with his friends and dj’ing a party when asked.

Yolanda Barton

Immersive Storyteller

Yolanda A. Barton is not just a trailblazer in immersive storytelling; she's a venerated expert and the pioneering founder of Revere XR. Using cutting-edge Extended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence, she's transforming the way we engage, interact, & experience history, melding insights of the past with future technologies. She holds double Masters degree from the University of Washington. She is the most recent winner of Oculus Launchpad, named among the Top 100 Women of The Future as an XR evangelist, a semi-finalist for Pharrell’s Black Ambition Award, & honored by various foundations. Yolanda's captivating speaking style and million-dollar ideas have made her not only a sought-after speaker for Fortune 500 giants but also a highly coveted consultant.