Tuesday March 13, 2012
Tags for: TEDxCLE 2012 Brings Cleveland's Innovators to the Global TED Audience
  • Press Release

TEDxCLE 2012 Brings Cleveland's Innovators to the Global TED Audience

exterior of the CMA building

CLEVELAND (March 13, 2012) – Cleveland's third official TEDx event, TEDxCLE will take place from 9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. on Friday, April 20, 2012 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. At TEDxCLE, Cleveland's innovators will speak on a variety of topics in order to highlight areas in which Cleveland is excelling and reinventing itself. This is the first time the event will be held at CMA. Tickets for last year's event sold out in two hours and we plan for a sellout crowd of 685 this year.

Speakers have been confirmed and are listed below:

  • Tom Benson (NASA) – "A New Frontier of Creativity"
  • Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie (Paleontologist/The Natural History Museum) – "Searching for Our Ancestors in the Afar Desert of Ethiopia: An Incessant Affair"
  • Dr. Lisa Damour (Laurel School for Girls' Research Institute) – "The Difference Between Adults & Grown Ups"
  • David Rabinsky (Director of Catering, Ritz Carlton Cleveland) – "Seeing So Much More"
  • Josh Taylor (Twist/formerly of Downtown Cleveland Alliance), Genna Petrolla (has worked for several CDCs including University Circle and Detroit Shoreway), and Justin Bibb (Cuyahoga County/works closely with County Commissioner Ed FitzGerald) – "Citizens & the Next Evolution of Cities" (three short talks)
  • Mort Epstein (Epstein Design Partners) – "A Designer & The Community"
  • Dr. Brian Grimberg (CWRU, Professor of International Health) – "Buzzkill: How Malaria Has, and Is, Changing The World We Live In"
  • Phil Niles (TED Fellow 2009) – "Where New Ideas Come From: Growing Up (& Down) Euclid Avenue With the Help of Open Data"
  • Dar Caldwell (Shaker Launchhouse) – Mr. Caldwell's talk will center on the state of entrepreneurship in Cleveland (*Title TBD)
  • Musical performance by Lolah Brown (Ms. Brown tours the world as a back up singer for Beyonce, Sade, Nikki Minaj, John Legend, etc.)
  • Musical performance by the Cloud Nothings (A local indie-rock band garnering global attention)


TEDxCLE talks will be viewable online following the event so that ideas may be experienced by those outside of Cleveland. The intention is to draw attention to the positive thinking and change that is taking place here currently and continue to promote the people that make Cleveland unique.

There will be an informal lunch reception at Severance Hall immediately following the event. TEDxCLE is open to the public and tickets may be purchased for $30 through the Cleveland Museum of Art box office on Monday, March 19, 2012 at 9:00 a.m.

For more information including details and directions, visit www.TEDxCLE.com.

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California in 1984, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and many others. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Contact the Museum's Media Relations Team:
(216) 707-2261
marketingandcommunications@clevelandart.org