CAPE MAY, N.J., Oct. 05, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TEDxCapeMay returns for its fourth season on Sunday, October 18, 2015, beginning at 9:30am with the provocative theme: “Truth Be Told.” The program features a wide variety of outstanding speakers and performers, each challenged with presenting a novel “idea worth spreading” in 18 minutes or less. Along with added video TED Talks, attendees receive lunch and an afternoon open bar reception at the Congress Hall Hotel. Tickets are $75 per person. Additional tickets are available at $62 as well as student sponsorships. The event will be held at the performing arts theater of Lower Cape May Regional High School.
The 2015 presenters include:
Marc Summers: Political Correctness Then and Now in the Entertainment Industry. Who’s right? What’s funny? And what’s offensive? Marc Summers, former stand-up comic and longtime TV host and executive producer, is ready to examine the envelope-pushing trends in comedy. Get ready to laugh. And maybe even get ready to write a letter and start a boycott.
Marc is currently hosting the longest running show on Food Network, "Unwrapped", a job he has held for eleven years. He has also hosted "Next Food Network Star", "Ultimate Recipe Showdown", and many specials for the channel. Summers is also Executive Producer of "Dinner: Impossible", "Food Feuds" and "Restaurant: Impossible". Some will remember him as the former Host/Producer of Nickelodeon’s “Double Dare” and “What Would You Do?” while others will remember him from his days on ABC’s “Home Show,” where he doubled as both Correspondent and Guest Host.
Andy Suzuki & The Method: The Power of Audience. Andy Suzuki & The Method will take you on an exploration of how an audience can effect the perception of a presentation or performance. Through a variety of experiments involving crowd-participation, attendees will discover the shared balance of power between performer and audience member.
In the past two years, Andy Suzuki & The Method has toured with Ringo Starr, Joshua Radin, and Marc Broussard, as well as participated in many notable festivals and events across the country. He has played SXSW, Voodoo Fest, and most recently gave a TED talk at the CIA headquarters. He has also completed multiple headlining tours in Asia. Andy is currently writing for his next album while he continues to tour in support of Born Out of Mischief.
Dr. Nathalia Holt: How Lies Launch Modern Medicine. When it comes to the fear of newly identified diseases, lies often substitute for data, and for those afflicted, stigma supplants compassion. The treatment of illnesses such as cancer, HIV, influenza, and tuberculosis, are often rooted in the falsehoods of their first portrayal. Nathalia Holt looks at the precision of our cultural and scientific understanding of disease and considers the influence of perception in medicine, and asks, what is the truth about the treatment of our most deadly diseases?
Dr. Nathalia Holt is the author of Cured: The People who Defeated HIV (Dutton 2014) and Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (Little, Brown, 2016). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Popular Science and Time. She is a microbiologist who has trained at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard University, University of Southern California and Tulane University. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in Boston, MA.
Carl Van Horn Ph.D: Helping Long-term Unemployed Workers. While the U.S. economy has largely recovered from the Great Recession, there are still nearly three million Americans—one in three unemployed workers and more than four in ten in New Jersey—who have been unemployed for more than six months. Dr. Van Horn will explain the causes and consequences of long-term unemployment and highlight innovative, cost-effective solutions that Rutgers University and a broad coalition of employers, non-profit organizations, and volunteers are putting into practice to help the unemployed get back to work.
Carl Van Horn is Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the founding Director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (www.heldrich.rutgers.edu). He is also a member of the graduate faculties of the Department of Political Science, the Graduate School of Education, and the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers.
Jean Shin: Truths Be Told Through Art. Jean Shin offers insight into the art making process and engages the audience in the collective truths we experience as a society. The presentation will share behind-the-scene stories of individuals the artist has met in various communities while making art in the public realm.
Jean is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community. Her work has been widely exhibited in major national and international museums, including in solo exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona (2010), Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC (2009), the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2006), and Projects at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (2004).
Max Strom: Breathe to Heal. With anxiety, stress, and sleep dysfunction skyrocketing around the globe, its time we look at the unspoken reasons why. These debilitating challenges can be meaningfully impacted with ten to twenty minutes of breathing exercises a day. Max Strom has been teaching breath-work for 20 years and reveals his insights into the healing power of the breath.
Max Strom teaches personal transformation, mindfulness, and yoga worldwide and is known for inspiring and impacting the lives of his students. His Inner Axis method addresses the internal aspects of our life and our potential for physical and emotional healing. He is the author of "A Life Worth Breathing," and, "There is No App for Happiness."
Brad Jenkins: Beyond Two Ferns: How comedy can save lives. President Obama's appearance on "Between Two Ferns" made tens of millions of people laugh (and saved lives in the process). In a culture flooded with too much partisan information, comedy is the last great refuge of truth and access.”
Brad Jenkins is the Managing Director and Executive Producer of Funny Or Die DC. For the last four years, Jenkins served as President Obama’s liaison and director of engagement to the creative and advocacy communities, bringing together creative executives, advocacy leaders, and some of the world’s biggest stars to advance the President’s agenda -- including his Emmy-award winning "Between Two Ferns" interview on the Affordable Care Act.
Michael Welner, M.D.: What is Everyday Evil? Identify, Treat...Eliminate. Renowned forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner examines evil of the everyday, the evil we ignore and what happens around us, and how “evil” identified and defined can be treated, and eliminated.
Trusted by both sides of the most complex legal cases in the United States and abroad, Dr. Welner has distinguished himself as one of North America’s top practitioners of forensic psychiatry. He has had pivotal impact on some of the most sensitive cases in America in recent years. Courts in over forty states and ranging from Guantanamo to Hong Kong have relied upon Dr. Welner to transcend the pressures of intense litigation, and resolve particularly challenging forensic mysteries with evidence-based and definitive case examination, analysis, reports, and testimony.
Dr. Lenore Tedesco: See the Change. Lenore Tedesco is an environmental scientist and the Executive Director of The Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ. She will explore the very real changes that are occurring in wetland and coastal areas right now as a result of climate change and the impacts that they are having, what scientists are doing about them, and what we all need to do to break out of the climate change denial bubble.
Dr. Tedesco has worked as a scientist at the interface of natural areas restoration and community engagement for most of her career. After more than 20 years as a professor, and a decade as the director of a university-based environmental research and education center, she became the Executive Director of the Wetlands Institute in 2011. Since her arrival, she has undertaken several coastal and wetland restoration projects and transformed the Wetlands Institute into a place of engaging, hands-on, feet wet education and conservation where natural resources stewardship is at the heart of the Institute’s mission. Tedesco’s work in water resources and wetlands includes projects in France, Germany, Australia and Russia. She has an undergraduate degree in Geology from Boston University and a Ph.D. in Marine Geology and Geophysics from the University of Miami. Lenore lives in Cape May Court House, NJ.
Jeff Zucker: The Truth: A Matter of Life or Death. The legal and medical industries have consistently struggled with the challenge of representing truthful facts for people who are incapable of speaking for themselves in a time of need. Complicated medical forms and legal language have earned a reputation of complexity and hidden messages that break the connection between the individual person and life-changing matters. What would happen if we could ensure personal voices are heard, valued, and trusted as the Authentic Truth during life or death situations.
Jeff Zucker is the CEO and Co-founder of Dallas, Texas based A|D Vault, Inc.,creator of MyDirectives® and MyDirectives MOBILE™. Mr. Zucker has more than 25 years of business leadership experience in startups, turnarounds, corporate finance and public policy, and he has served on various advisory, nonprofit and community boards. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School.
Premiere sponsors include Exit Zero Publishing, Midnight Media Group, 1 Trick Pony, Congress Hall Hotel, Cape May Brewing Company, Cape May Forum and the Lower Cape May Regional Education Association.
For more information, go to www.TEDxCapeMay.com
About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)
About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 30 years ago, TED has grown to support its mission with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes or less. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.
The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Vancouver, British Columbia, along with the TEDActive simulcast event in nearby Whistler. The annual TEDGlobal conference will be held this October in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TED Talks are posted daily; the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world get help translating their wishes into action; TEDx, which supports individuals or groups in hosting local, self- organized TED-style events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.
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